Vint Cerf at CES 2013.
(Credit: Casey Newton/CNET)
LAS VEGAS--The Internet has come a long way since he helped create it in the 1970s, Vint Cerf told an audience at CES today -- but there are still some places it shouldn't go.
"What would happen if our clothes were Internet-enabled?" Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, asked during a morning session at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
It's a question Cerf started asking himself in response to a problem as old as laundry: Where did that sock go? RFID chips attached to socks could answer that question -- "Hi, I'm sock #124L, and I'm under the sofa in the living room," Cerf said, doing his best sock impression.
The flip side, though, could be unexpected surveillance. A husband who tells his wife he's working late at the office could get a phone call: "She says, 'That's interesting, because your shirt seems to be at 19th street at the bar.'"
"Maybe Internet-enabled shirts are a really bad idea, because of the social side effects," Cerf said.
For the most part, though, Cerf continues to push for near-ubiquitous Internet connectivity. He spoke glowingly of refrigerators that know their own contents, homes that collect data on their HVAC systems, and surfboards that let you surf the Internet between waves.
Cerf has been busy building an Intern... [Read more]
by Casey Newton via CNET
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