Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Motion-sensing faucets

Sometimes when I’m in the men’s restroom at work, standing on the other side of the wall from the motion-sensing faucets at the sink, one of those faucets will start to dispense water on its own accord. Generally speaking, the idea of a motion-sensing faucet is to reduce water consumption, reduce waste, dispense only when necessary, and to simply not dispense at all until motioned to do so.

Other motion-sensing faucets I have had run-ins with have paused and waited to dispense until I move my hands around in desperation, waiting for the water to come out for what seems like an eternity. When it comes to modern technology, why is it that we can have come so far yet still have so much work to be done? How is it that we can build a station in space, yet we cannot configure motion-sensing faucets to function properly?

Oh, and then of course we have the entire realm of motion-sensing technology (i.e. doorways, paper towel dispensers, etc.): it seems that none of these is infallible (think of the many times in your life you have walked up to a door and waited for it to open, and kept waiting for, again, what seemed like an eternity! Never mind the paper towel dispenser that refuses to dispense at the moment you waive your hand in front of its lovely eye). Yet game consoles (ex: Wii), seem to have taken their empire to a whole new level, solely based on motion-sensing technology.

How is the everyday person supposed to convince such a thing to respond (willingly) to their every command?

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