> Companies manufacturing washing machines don't "empower customers" in that there aren't many differenciators between washing machine brands today. Nor does your average company selling toilet paper, that would be insane.

Might privileged to assume everyone can afford or has room for a washing machine, for the people who don't I'm sure it definitely would empower them to get more done if they could .

Also there's a lot of differentiation, I never knew how much better front-loaders were till we owned one.

This reminds me of the "futurism" movement in Italy that led to Mussolini's rise where they were so into fashion that they didn't know how but they just knew they wanted milk-based clothing and had to figure it out, and they actually did! It's kind of a cool story, without the fascist dictator throwing a wrench into the coolness.

This also seems like it's totally ripped from star trek, the insignia on their uniforms do exactly that and Jean Luc Picard sounds a lot like Jacquard....

I could see this as a gimmick from Nike, Reebok, or someone already in fashion but from Google it seems... like some weird B-project team endeavor like Google Glass that probably won't go anywhere long-term.

You can't be more wrong about your statement regarding washing machine.

Please take 12 minutes of you life to watch this Hans Rosling talk, may he rest in peace.

Hans Rosling: The magic washing machine https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac...

As a general rule, you really should read whole comments and not stop in the middle of sentences, otherwise you will miss half the words and misunderstand it all.

As I wrote, there aren't much differenciation between washing machine brands today. Of course one is empowered by getting a washing machine, any washing machine. That much is obvious. It doesn't mean however that washing machine manufacturers are in the business of empowering their customers , although they certainly were in the mid 1930s.

Nowadays though, the folks who are getting their first washing machines right now are simply catching up with the times, which is precisely what Rosling is saying in that talk. In fact, there hasn't been much innovation in washing machine technology over the last few decades, it's all mostly come down to gradual improvements in their general efficiency. For people who already owned washing machines, those improvements are very small in nature.

This is why this Jacquard project is a different thing altogether: we're currently in the mid-1930s of the smart cloth. Whether it's a fad or a complete paradigm shift won't be apparent for a few years.

A company producing washing machine is empowering users. Period.

I agree with you however that wether smart clothes company are empowering anyone is yet to be evaluated.

> A company producing washing machine is empowering users. Period.

If that is your definition of empowering, so is a company that produces toilet paper.

Nope they are other way around cleaning one's bottom than toilet paper. They are nothing more empowering than a washing machine to clean-up clothes.

Please watch the video because I guess from you answer that you haven't...

Beside my point was just that you choose a particularly bad exemple this is not a thread about washing machine vs smart clothes... (even though washing machine probably win against jacquard which is not water proof)