Companies that build the Internet Tuner into their products are likely to want a different kind of pricing. The idea is that a million devices might each dial into the Net once or twice a day and stay online for less than a minute. While companies have developed the technology that such a system requires, they don't necessarily possess the wisdom that such capabilities demand. Pervasive telemetry will create unprecedented opportunities to collect personal information. An engineer at Zojirushi, for example, proudly showed iReady's Koyama a cell phone, displaying a message indicating that the engineer's grandmother had used her wireless hot pot that very morning.
Security presents another tricky issue.
If you can reach the Ethernet Tuner over the Internet, it will tell you its secrets. Koyama says he's not concerned with this issue, explaining that Ethernet Tuner is designed to be used behind a company's firewall. But given all the security lapses that have been publicized in recent years, that's hardly reassuring. Experience has shown that when security protections are not built in from the beginning, many users will neglect to add them later. I can imagine Internet pranksters searching for Ethernet Tuner-enabled light switches and then making the lights flash on and off until the company disconnects from the Net.