As the Apple Turns: Scene 3096: I Can't Read It; Set It Darker (6/5/01)

I Can't Read It; Set It Darker (6/5/01)

Attention, all Mac fans who wondered just what Apple meant when it talked about expanding into the "digital appliances" market: forget about $199 web-enabled set-top boxes and ignore the speculation about slate-style "web pads," because The Register has unearthed a project at Brunel University in England which should make the whole subject crystal-clear. A student named Robin Southgate recently completed what we can only describe as a masterpiece of engineering in this age of the Digital Lifestyle: the Java toaster.

Yes, it's a toaster; no, it doesn't brew java-- it runs Java. What it does, predictably enough, is make toast. Ah, but what wondrous toast it makes! When you pop in the bread, the Java toaster dials a toll-free number, downloads the local weather forecast, and then "burns the appropriate symbol on a piece of toast." In other words, if it's sunny out, your toast has a happy little sun (or is that Sun™?) burned into its surface; if it's rainy, you get a cloud and raindrops instead. This is not a joke-- The Reg has photos. With this device, you'll never need to look out your window again, because everything you need to know about the weather (well, except for maybe the pollen count and the relative humidity) is right there under a layer of butter and marmalade. That, friends, is technology's ultimate promise fulfilled.

Yea verily, this is the most exciting implementation of bread as a display device we've yet encountered, and Apple should leap at the chance to license this technology as an important next step in its "digital lifestyle" strategy. We know that the company has just gone ga-ga over LCD flat-panel displays, but a loaf of split-top white is loads cheaper, and if anything, even more environmentally friendly. Sure, the prototype's a little rough, but we're confident that Apple could get the on-bread resolution up to at least 5 dpi, and with a little work, iToast could eventually display not only a crude graphical symbol, but also text and numbers relating the day's projected temperature range, smog index, and the like.

In fact, why limit it to the weather? Someday iToast could even include sports scores, horoscopes, and the daily news headlines, all conveniently and 100% edibly rendered on the customer's breakfast. (Full news stories would likely require that people eat several loaves of toast each morning, however.) And just think of all the money Apple would make on consumables: iBread, yielding optimum resolution and clarity; iJam, which is totally clear so as not to obscure the text; even iWheaties, iJuice, and iCoffee, so that customers could get all their breakfast needs in one convenient shopping session. Internet strategy, schminternet strategy-- this is the big one, people. iBreakfast: The Ultimate Portal.

SceneLink (3096)

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The above scene was taken from the 6/5/01 episode:

June 5, 2001: Apple and Future Power finally settle their trade dress lawsuit over the origina-- er, first iMac rip-off. Meanwhile, yet another iMac promotion hints strongly at a product overhaul in July, and a student in England creates what should be Apple's next big push into the "digital lifestyle": weather-forecasting toast...

Other scenes from that episode:

3094: Thus Concludes The Struggle (6/5/01) Okay, people, it's time to stretch those memories, and stretch 'em hard. Travel with us, if you will, nearly two years in the past, back to that magical era known as "June, 1999." The original iMac had been publicly unveiled over a year earlier, the fruit-flavored iMacs had been shipping for several months, and a shameless young upstart known as Future Power led the charge into what would become a whole new PC-manufacturing cottage industry: counterfeiting the iMac's industrial design...
3095: Promo = Channel Clearance (6/5/01) Speaking of next month's new iMacs, you've probably noticed the way in which we blithely refer to them as if their introduction during the next Stevenote were a sure thing, an utter certainty etched in stone-- despite the fact that there has been absolutely no official announcement from Apple to that effect...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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