Word: toothbrush
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...predicts a ubiquitous computing world sooner rather than later, a world in which refrigerators will know when your milk has gone bad and will order a fresh bottle. Novelist William Gibson, who coined the word cyberspace, even imagines a world in which your fridge (and your car and your toothbrush...) will be as smart...
...trip to Scotland--it's both! The makers of this raucous game show do research on potential contestants, drawn from the audience, recruiting family and friends to help pose personalized, howlingly degrading challenges. The champs win fabulous vacations but must leave immediately, hence the title. Sometimes inspired, always juvenile, Toothbrush makes you feel better about whatever you did to earn your last vacation...
...think, is the logical outcome of genuinely ubiquitous computing, of the fully wired world. The wired world will consist, in effect, of a single unbroken interface. The idea of a device that "only" computes will perhaps be the ultimate archaism in a world in which the fridge or the toothbrush is potentially as smart as any other object, including you, a world in which intelligent objects communicate, routinely and constantly, with one another and with...
Slowly comes the surreal sight of a green plastic toothbrush emerging from the bird's gullet. With her neck arched, the mother cannot fully pass the straight brush. She tries several times to disgorge it, but can't. Nancy and I can hardly bear this. The albatross reswallows and, with the brush stuck inside, wanders away...
...this popularity necessarily a good thing? How far will American television go? All around the world, even more shocking game shows exist. In England, game shows like "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" involve people performing sometimes lewd and embarrassing acts for a surprisingly small amount of money. This is mild compared to some of the Japanese and Australian game shows. Are American TV executives so concerned about ratings that they are willing to put anything on television, regardless of its moral implications? From the latest two imports from Europe, that certainly seems to be the case...