I wish office equipment could talk to you.

I think it would be cool if everyday office equipment (like printers or photocopiers) could talk to you. I'm thinking they could print out a label from a slot in the side of machine. The label would have a message like, "Please don't feed more than one paper into me at once."

It would be important that the office equipment have mechanical, robotic personalities. You wouldn't want them to be characters because it would just be too silly and annoying. Microsoft did that a few years ago with the paperclip and dog character. People ended up hating them.

A photocopier wouldn't be asking you about the weather or complaining about being bored. It's a photocopier. It might print out a label that says, "Change my toner soon please." Or, "I think you left my tray open."


Just short little statements like that. Every appliance or machine could have a stock of, say, 500 phrases and a short, simple chatting program that randomized the order of words, etc.

In time, we would give them personalities. "The machine's been grumpy lately." We would form very rudimentary relationships with them. Then, when they finally broke down, we'd likely buy a similar model from the same company.

So it would be a form of marketing as well. Brand loyalty.