Microsoft develops toilet with wireless Internet access

And with this post I hearby return to the BBS fold...


SEATTLE (May 6, 2003 9:33 p.m. EDT) - U.S. software titan, Microsoft, announced Tuesday that its renowned technology had finally gone into the toilet.

"This is not a joke," Microsoft spokesman, Brian Peterson assured AFP of the high-tech firm's plans to replace the traditional newspaper as reading material in the "small room" with state-of-the-art wireless Internet access.

The new innovation developed by Microsoft's MSN U.K. division and dubbed the iLoo, is a portable toilet with an extensible, height-adjustable plasma screen, wireless keyboard and six channel surround sound speaker system.

The seated user can send and receive e-mails, shop on the Internet or even download music in his or her down time.

Those standing in line for the facility will be able to make use of an external "Hotmail station with a waterproof keyboard and plasma screen that will let them surf the Internet while waiting."

"It'll give them a chance to do something useful while they queue up," Peterson said.

Tracy Blacher, Marketing Manager at MSN said the firm was still exploring other means of bringing flashy technology into the bathroom.

"We are looking at vacuum powered options and the very latest broadband enabled technology to ensure the best loo-surfing experience," she said in a statement.

To complement its latest gambit, MSN is also in talks with toilet paper manufacturers to produce special paper with Web addresses that will be inspirational for surfers, according to British-based Blacher.

The toilet reading of newspapers and magazines could become obsolete if the digital minded public buys this concept, she said.

"The internet¹s so much a part of everyday life now that surfing on the loo was the next natural step ... It's exciting to think that the smallest room can now be the gateway to the massive virtual world," she said.

The iLoo will be mobile and is part of MSN's mission to allow instant logging on "anytime and any place." It will first become available in Britain for the summer festival season later this year.

 

Hey Bob,

I was waiting for someone to ask!

Between work, war, New York economy, a hard a$$ winter and life I’ve been laying low and just keeping the head above water.

Actually I'm been lurking this last whole basketball season; so I've been keeping up with all the fun.

But I learned long ago after a few bouts with Kagy and a few others that politics was not a good way to win friends and influence people, so I have stayed out of the fray.

But it looks like I'm about to fall off the BBS bandwagon!