I think we may be oversimplifying his argument a bit. Maybe he means 'smart' clothes and washing machines. Every item of clothing has a tag (possibly RFID, I don't know if they can be made waterproof or not) which tells the washing machine what wash best suits it. When you load it up, the machine reads all the tags and figures out the best programme for the load it's got. If there are items that can't fit in the mix it beeps and tells you what to remove. It could maybe ask for a specific amount of washing powder and conditioner, reducing waste and use a minimum amount of water then all you have to do is press 'go' and it does the wash automatically. Even better build in a space for a reservoir of washing powder etc. so you only have to fill it every few months and you're much less likely to forget to put the powder in.

It's a bit 'Tomorrow's World' but there's nothing in there that's beyond us today technically.

TBH I prefer to use my own settings for laundry.

Bedsheets and the like get boiled or near enough at 90C
Socks and jocks go on the shortest cycle, as do my shirts (40 mins)
Everything else goes on the longer cycle (80 mins I think)

A bit like this you mean: Siemens i-Dos

1. Stop phones connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots
THis has never been an issue for our mobiles, although my PC occasionally connects to a limited connection wifi station instead my home wifi.

2. Longer USB leads
Non-issue. If your USB extention keeps pulling apart - gaffa tape.

3. Stop reminding us about missed messages
I don't see a problem here.

4. Make it obvious where downloads are
Another non-issue

5. Autocorrect that's not an embarrassment
Proof your message before sending? It's a bloody text, not War & Peace.

6. Washing machines with just a STOP/GO button
Yeah, our washer was made for Howard Carter, I'm sure of it.

7. Standardise game controller "invert" options
Not something I'm familiar with - is it really a problem?

8. Batteries 2.0
Batteries have not improved in decades? Take a look at mobile phones from 1994, how long did they last and what were they capable of doing?
If you need your phone to last a bit longer on a charge, turn off crap you don't need - they all have shortcut screens nowadays how precious is your time that you can't spend two seconds turning off Bluetooth or 3G when you're not using it?

9. Ban auto-playing video on websites
This one does annoy me.

10. Screens that don't rotate when you lie down
Not a big enough problem to make it to a gripe list IMO.

11. Stop asking us if we'd like to use your app
Meh, it only asks you once in a blue moon. Another non-issue.

12. No more restarting to update Windows
My PC can shutdown and boot to desktop in a little over 30 seconds. Not really a problem.

13. Microwave boil over alerts
I don't rely on a Microwave enough to worry about this.

14. OK Google, stop second guessing
Umm, ignore it?

15. Phoning people while browsing contacts
Whoops. End call. Continue browsing contacts.

16. Remote browser close and history wipe
Not a problem.

17. Rebooting when swapping SIM
Can't say I've found this a problem.

18. Networks stopping you going over data limits
I'm sure I'll find out, having just bought my son a mobile contract.

19. Fix passwords and captchas
Not perfect but probably necessary.

20. Eight plug sockets per room, please
We have at least six in every room. In a Victorian house.

This guy is a tool.

That's about 75% of it yes. The other bit is the clothes telling the machine how they want to be washed and it being smart enough to figure out a 'best compromise' cycle from that. And if necessary tell you to take those bright red socks out of that load full of white linen you idiot .

Thanks for that. I have kept my cables juts in case they become "legal".

The washing machine thing is a poorly executed reference to a talk by Aral Balkan called Happy Grain of Sand.

http://vimeo.com/m/43524962

SIM cards make me think of fax machines - just because it’s a lagging old idea that just won’t die. I don’t want to fiddle out an every smaller bit of plastic to tell my phone what network/number it is meant to be using. Surely, by now, I should be able to make a selection on the phone, and software does the business? This is 2014.

The question is, how do you authenticate your number and if your phone stops working, how do you quickly and easily transfer the number to a new phone?

It wouldn't be impossible to build in some of the functionality of the SIM into the phone, but you would need to verify your identity with the service provider and then somehow get the IMEI number for the device registered against your number.

For us, that would be difficult, I regularly swap between 3 or 4 different phones for testing purposes. The SIM makes that easy, having to constantly reregister my phones would be a pain (they all have a main SIM, but sometimes they get swapped around for different tasks.

How do you transfer anything else purely digital? Say your DropBox Account (which is linked to one it more item of hardware), or move between two Twitter accounts? All done via use rants and passwords. So, if you lose a phone, you get a new one - enter that info and off you go.



You can move SIMs from phone to phone anyway, so what's the problem? If the SIM is the "key" to the service, then so could a user name/password combo. Once the device is registered, then you need not enter it again until you rescind it. It gets stored in a profile list in settings. Easy to swap. A clever soul could even have a settings linked to contacts, so you always phone home on your home profile, and not your work one.


So breaking open a phone, swapping a sim, closing the phone and restarting is easier than tapping in Settings, going to Profile and selecting one of many and have the phone adjust it's network settings automatically? A non-sim system would mean admin folk preloading new profiles or updating those you have into devices remotely, or you just entering new data once.

I guess you need a use for that film pot you have.

I think Jon Honeyball at PC Pro has been reading the last couple of posts in this thread.
His Epilogue column in the March 2014 issue of PC Pro is about software SIM's.