Will intelligent washing machines remove the drudgery of housework?
By Jon Fernquest[Introduction|Vocabulary|Article]
[Reading Questions|Answers]
|
What kind of things do you do while you wash your clothes?
In some parts of the world, like villages in India and Burma, you have to hit the clothes hard with a stick to wash them, so you can't do anything else. In Thailand we can cook dinner, read a book, bathe the dog, or even go to the market.
How do you know when the washing is finished? When it's time to throw the wet clothes in the dryer? Do you listen closely for the buzzer? Do you sometimes fall asleep like me, only to find a pile of wrinkled wet clothes the next day?
New washing machine technology may soon free us from some of the drudgery of washing our own clothes, although we will probably still have to carry our clothes to the washing machine.
Maybe in 10 years we will even have clothes that wash themselves or put themselves in the washer, or maybe all we need is disposable clothes?
A Rube Goldberg Machine might pull our dirty clothes into the washing machine after we attach a string to them, thus saving us valuable time.
A helpful new washing machine developed in England scans fingerprints to helps wives make sure that husbands do the washing 50% of the time.
The possibilities are really limitless in the brave new world of washing machines and networked home appliances.
If you are a teacher, you might want to have your whole class design washing machines with innovative new features and present their ideas to the rest of the class in carousel poster presentations
Carousel Poster Presentations
In a carousel poster presentation students prepare posters that explain an idea that they have been working on in a project. These posters combine pictures, diagrams, and English language.The posters should go through a rigorous draft and peer feedback phase where students: 1. make sure they are communicating with the language on the posters, that the language is meaningful to other students, 2. make sure there are no grammatical mistakes because grammatical mistakes detract from the professional appearance of the poster.
In the presentation phase, a fraction of the class, let's say 20% to 30% put their posters around the outside wall of the classroom, and the other students circulate, read the posters, and ask further questions. They fill out a worksheet with questions that guide the student in learning about the ideas presented in posters. For example, new product ideas, in tourism for instance. The worksheet questions might come from the 4P's of marketing. The presentation phase gives the students practice in asking and answering questions about the topic.
Reading Questions
Here are some questions to guide your reading (See answers at end):1. What change is Whirlpool Corporation planning to make to home appliances?
2. What is Whirlpool's ranking in the world home appliance market?
3. In the future how can washing machine alerts help in household chores?
4. What kind of work is washing clothes for most people? How might new home appliance technologies change this?
5. In general, who usually sees new technologies like this as normal, younger or older people?
Article
Whirlpool tests 'smart' appliances
KAREN JACOBS
Atlanta - Whirlpool is looking to speed up the day when most consumers will be able to monitor and control appliances from their computers and cell phones.
The world's largest appliance company has stared testing "smart'' washing machines and dryers at three homes in metropolitan Atlanta.
The pilot project, called "Laundry Time,'' is designed to making doing laundry easier by sending alerts to consumers via televisions, computers and cell phones.
In a recent demonstration of the project at a Whirlpool studio in Atlanta, messages from a specially equipped front-loading washer popped up in real time on a television screen in a different room.
Consumers can also get instant messages from computers or cell phones telling them, for instance, that a wash cycle is completed or that a dryer has not been turned on.
At the press of a button on a cell phone, families participating in the test can extend a drying cycle and perform other laundry tasks while running errands.
"Laundry is a drudgery,'' said Tim Woods, a vice president for the Internet Home Alliance, an umbrella group that is launching the study. "So why not take that pain away because you can apply technology and help consumers with a solution.''
Whirlpool, which partnered with Microsoft, HP, Procter & Gamble, Panasonic and Cingular Wireless in the project, wants to learn consumer attitudes and behaviour toward "smart'' appliances, and use this knowledge to develop products.
"Customers don't really know how they want to utilise high technology in appliances,'' said Lane Heilman, a manager for electronic applications at Whirlpool. "Attitudes are changing,'' said David Baumert, a program manager at Microsoft. "Younger folks view networked information services and devices as a matter of course rather than as something novel.'' REUTERS
Vocabulary (in article)
is looking to - planning to
monitor - check to see if some task or event is happening
metropolitan - the larger more spread out area around a city (Metropolitan Bangkok includes all the towns around Bangkok also)
sending alerts - sending you a message that an event has occurred
in real time - while the event is happening, without delay
a drying cycle - a period of time for drying clothes (set by a timer)
running errands - taking a short trip to a store or office to do small tasks
drudgery - difficult and boring work
umbrella group - a group of other groups or organizations (like an umbrella stretching over the the other groups)
as a matter of course - the normal expected thing, no surprise
novel - new, different, not like anything else
a Rube Goldberg machine - a crazy complex machine to perform a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted way (See Wikipedia, check out the funny videos of Japanese Rube Goldberg machines at Google Videos)
Answer Key:
1. What change is Whirlpool Corporation planning to make to home appliances?
They will change home appliances so that people can control them from their computers and mobile phones.
2. What is Whirlpool's ranking in the world home appliance market?
Whirpool is ranked first. Whirlpool is the world's largest home appliance company.
3. In the future how can washing machine alerts help in household chores?
Alerts will send a message to you and tell you when the washing is finished or that you need to perform the next washing task.
Alerts can tell you this when you are in another room of the house or outside of the house doing errands.
4. What kind of work is washing clothes for most people? How might new home appliance technologies change this?
"Laundry is drudgery." It is difficult and boring work. These new technologies may "take the pain away" from doing this work.
5. In general, who usually sees new technologies like this as normal, younger or older people?
In general, younger people expect this kind of technology and see it as normal ("as a matter of course"). Older people see it as novel.