For those of us who now have SmartGrid electrical meters on our homes, we realize that in the future we will have more tools to help us monitor our electricity usage. When General Motors, Honda, Toyota, and Ford started putting in real-time gas gauges which showed drivers their miles per gallon based on whatever they were doing at the time, drivers immediately noticed that they were attempting to keep that number as highest possible, almost as if they were playing a videogame, therefore increasing their miles per gallon. Obviously when gasoline in the United States is four dollars per gallon it makes sense to do this.
Now then, in the future with a SmartGrid electricity meter on your home, with a control panel, you will be able to see the difference in your electricity usage when you have a TV on in the other room that you're not using, or an extra set of lights on. Indeed, I imagine, as do analysts who study consumer conservation for energy, that this will make it impact on the amount of electricity we use in the United States. It could actually drive the electricity usage from the consumer markets down 10%. That might indeed stave off the need to build more energy generation plants in the future.
This also means that we will need to build fewer coal-fired plants, and therefore we will also put less CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now then, this article isn't about global warming alarmism, because I don't believe in that. Rather I'd like to talk about these new features in your future smart house. And I'd like to discuss the risks from our electrical grid being hacked, and poisonous software being introduced from the point of consumption through the SmartGrid, or someone entering through your smart house's Wi-Fi system, perhaps a hacker putting in a virus, malware, or monitoring software without you knowing it.
There was an interesting article in the USA Today by Byron Acohido titled "Hackers Ooze into Printers, Copiers - Digital Thieves Fine Entry through Office Equipment," published on August 5, 2011. Who is to say in the future that hackers won't come in through your refrigerator, your washing machine, your dishwasher, your microwave oven, or your garbage disposal and hack into your smart house? Now then, on August 16, 2011 there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this one by Ian Sheer which was titled "H-P Looks to Kitchens, Cars" and the article stated;
"H-P hopes that webOS on appliances and in cars will create an ecosystem of devices around it."
Now then, this sounds all well and good, however it better be safe, and if someone hacks into your house, the same way they hack into your computer peripherals, then no one is safe from a hack attack, and the hackers are coming to a home near you. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 24,500 articles by August 24th or 25th will be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..