Since e-business began there has been talk of connecting appliances to the internet for various reasons. For example, your fridge detects that you are running low on milk and sends you a reminder or even places an order to the store for delivery. That hasn't happened yet, and maybe it was a bit fanciful, but now Whirlpool and IBM have combined forces to connect washers and dryers to the internet to monitor power prices, and choose the most opportune time price-wise to do their work. It could save consumers money and also provide more efficient distribution of a scarce resource. We'll see much more of that sort of thing. InformationWeek Internet-Connected Appliances Internet-Connected Appliances Could Lower Energy Bills May 15, 2006