Eggs, Milk, Bread - the World’s First Grocery API

Telecoms certainly have to take the first step (and they'll drag their feet the entire way), but the second step is getting people to change their lives around the technology. IMO, most of the US would still lag behind (in terms of mobile technology) even if the wireless infrastructure was upgraded because they don't really care to use it (i.e. they're happy with the way they do things now).

As for this API, I think it's fantastic, but they should really take it a step further. If there's some sort of national or international consortium of retailers, they should create a free, unified API such that a good produced anywhere in the world will have an entry in the system. It'd even be cool if they added a rebate submission system into it as well, instead of having to mail in rebates for things.

> The hardware has caught up, it's the telecoms that have not.

That statement is absolutely true. We have the technology. What we do not have is the belief/permission of those holding various monopolies (or effective ones) that opening up their networks / copyrights / business models will really provide them with a greater economic gain.

the hardware is still slow--the 3gs is nicer in terms of speed, but today's cell phones still feel a bit like operating a computer back in the early 90s. there are still plenty of crashes and delays.

absolutely right though, telecoms are going to push status quo for as long as they can because that's what is profitable for them right now. but the time will eventually come, and they will change (although i admit maybe not as quickly as i hope it will; i was the kid in school dreaming of FTTH in 2000).

CDs have indeed been replaced for anyone below 30. Radio still offers a group experience not matched on the net, and you can't get internet radio in cars, but I wouldn't buy radio shares. Faxes are obviously old technology and will disappear when the software is easier to use. Mail will be around for as long as we respect paper docs above electronic ones but the transition is well on its way. Don't know why you thought trains would be obsolete.

These things take time, but change is unambiguously, if slowly, in progress. Just wait!

I don't like radios. I want on-demand, 24/7 access to ANY music I want, ANYWHERE I want it. A radio can't do that, a mobile device, in theory, can, while also offering everything the radio offers (for example, see how many radio station apps there are on the iPhone).

Television as a physical device is unlikely to be replaced - you can't beat a big screen with big sound. I don't like Television the medium, though. The sooner it gets replaced with true on-demand media, the better (again, nothing preventing it from keeping the existing "all you can eat, no thinking involved" model as a subset).

CDs are definitely on their way out.

Trains are a different story - many people argue that we should use trains more, not less.

I HATE dealing with faxes. Of all the archaic technologies that deserve to die, faxes are at the top of the list. Many people use services that send incoming faxes directly to their email, anyway, no printing involved - why bother with the fax then, and not just simply scan and email?

Mail - bills and junk mail, possibly magazines (another thing that is apparently "dying). Mail has become extremely marginalized.

!! I am curious under what circumstances this was. Assuming identification was required, in what way was a gif acceptable?

>For example if I have shrimp in the freezer and orzo in the pantry, I can google for "shrimp and orzo recipe", end up with a recipe with 8 additional ingredients of which I have only 2; and yet I would know whether I could make it (eg. I don't have fresh basil but I could throw in some dried thyme and it would still be edible, skip the olives, etc etc).

This is amenable to automation. You could tell a computer which ingredients are expensive, which are likely to be unnecessary, and which can be substituted. I wouldn't expect it to work perfectly, and it wouldn't do anything you couldn't do by hand with google, but if it saved you some time it could be useful.

>The other thing I look forward to with ubiquitous RFID is whether we can eliminate the unload cart/scan/repack groceries hoopla.

You could also eliminate the problem of keeping track of how much money the items in your cart cost, and whether you're being charged what the label said, because the price would pop up as you put it in your cart. But a good API might lead to convenient online ordering and ubiquitous delivery, which should appeal to you if you're environmentally conscious enough to reuse bags, because the amount of energy saved by having a delivery driver make a round compared to having hundreds of customers drive back and forth would dwarf the savings you make by not throwing out some plastic bags.