More on IT stuff, I’m still stupid!
By Dave Hamby
A German company recently demonstrated a prototype washing machine with the newest in voice recognition capabilities in Hanover, Germany. This machine is named Hermie and it’s designed to help people “who have difficulty with the complexity of modern washing machines.” These are not my words, honest. I’m copying a press release reported by CNET.
Now I thought I was technically challenged. Apparently this German company thinks there are folks who are too dumb to drive a washing machine who have enough money to buy one with voice recognition capabilities. Maybe they’re thinking there’s some back-woods Iraqi’s who are about to come into some cash.
Now this company has not only programmed this thing to inform you of stuff like, “Put all of zee whites in together, no colors in mit zee whites. Zen adds zee bleach,” they’ve also programmed it with a sense of humor. Apparently if you were to ask the washing machine a question like, “ Look at zis, I’ve spilt some red wine on my white shirt I vear mit my lederhosen, Vat am I to do?” The response you’ll get is something like, “Next time don’t trink red wine, trink zee gut German beer instead. Zis is much easier to get zee stains out off from.” Another example the press release gave of this German sense of humor is that when you tell the machine you’re about to wash some dirty diapers, it gives off an “anguished yelp.”
I’ve been complaining for some time now, (to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen,) that things have just gotten too complicated. In fact, I’ve contended that this extreme level of complexity is one of the reasons the high tech industry is in the doldrums.
Folks in this industry are pretty sensitive to my whining and I’ve been told more than once, “These devices aren’t too complicated, you’re just stupid.” This effort at simplification and the recognition that there are folks who have difficulty in operating complex machinery, (although I really never considered a washing machine as complex machinery,) does seem to validate my litany of complaints.
It doesn’t surprise me that the Germans are the first ones to recognize this obvious problem; they’ve been the world wide leaders at making things too complicated. As an American who came from Germany I’m quick to recognize the genetic predisposition of my kind toward complicating things that would under ordinary circumstances be pretty simple. Take that last sentence for example. My peers in South Austin would have simply said, “Germans make stuff tuff.”
This Teutonic method of adding unnecessary grief to one’s life was demonstrated in a very visible fashion to me when I bought a new BMW a few years back. This complex piece of fine German machinery had a host of features like windshield wipers that would speed up and slow down automatically depending on how hard it was raining and how fast you were going. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to turn this feature on until it was demonstrated to me by a potential buyer. Yeah, I sold it after having it for just a little over a year.
It had an onboard computer that was so complicated that my wife, who’s job classification at IBM at the time was “computer programmer,” couldn’t even figure out how to work it. I took the money I got for this expensive pile of European fertilizer and bought me two Chevrolet Z-28s, a red automatic convertible for cruising and a blue six speed coupe for hot rodding. Simple, stupid hunks of American iron that I’ve enjoyed immensely.
It’s logical that with the German penchant for complexity there should come the first of what I hope is a concerted world wide effort at simplification. I just hope they don’t get discouraged when they discover that the difficulty folks are having while operating a washing machine is not the reason they’re rejecting so much of this new technology.
This article is unpublished, although the first half if it closely resembles one of my articles published in the Round Rock Leader. It is available for your publication.