My grandmother was divorced, and she had 10 children herself. She never finished high school. She started selling lace on the side of the road and then grew that into a multimillion-dollar business - a retail store selling mostly furniture and appliances.
I have a greater appreciation for kitchen appliances, having played one.
Every day we are paying more for energy than we should due to poor insulation, inefficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling equipment - money we could save by investing in energy efficiency.
If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn't be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.
The wonderful world of home appliances now makes it possible to cook indoors with charcoal and outdoors with gas.
Computers and computing are all around us. Some computing is highly visible, like your laptop. But this is only part of a computing iceberg. A lot more lies hidden below the surface. We don't see and usually don't think about the computers inside appliances, cars, airplanes, cameras, smartphones, GPS navigators and games.
As homeowners see the value of their homes decline, they become more likely to delay purchases of the big items - like automobiles, electronics and home appliances - that are ballasts of the American economy. When those purchases decline, large manufacturing firms, suddenly short on funds, could begin laying off employees.
GE Appliances has agreed to give my mom a whole kitchen's worth of new appliances and a washer and dryer, and all I need to do is shout them out.
Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet.
The main thing I'm concerned with right now, is getting people to understand that the Internet of Things is already in their lives. So if you look around your house, either your television, refrigerator, or some of your appliances - they are probably already connected.
