Commentary

iEverythingElse

Not to be outdone by the "don't call us a computer company anymore" company, Apple, Inc., Google's Black Ops Directorate closed the CES show with the introduction of iEverythingElse--a handheld digital device that will, at the touch of a button, do anything the consumer wants done.

"iPhone is pretty cool, I have to admit," said a Black Ops technician who would only identify himself as Infinite Warrior 3. "But at the end of the day, it takes pictures, plays music and video and lets your kid call you when you are driving with a State Police car in the next lane. Is that all there is to life? For 600 big ones, we think you should get something more."

"Katie and I have been testing the iEE for several weeks," Walt Mossberg should write in a yet-unpublished column, "and it really does whatever you ask it to do. The device, about the size of a deck of cards, consists of a keypad and a one-inch display. As users type their commands, they appear in the display. When users hit the enter button, the device simply asks back: 'Do you really want to (command)?' When you hit the 'yes' button, it does whatever you asked. For example, Katie asked it to 'Pay up my mortgage.' Within 30 seconds she got a call from Wells Fargo that her mortgage had been retired and that she now owned her apartment outright. I asked iEE to restore the head of hair I had when I was 20, and it wasn't 10 seconds after I hit the confirmation 'yes' button that hair sprouted and grew down to my eyebrows. Only took about a minute before I needed that haircut my Dad used to scream at me to get.

"The only complaint we have about iEE is that the rechargeable battery life is somewhat short--about 5 hours--so you could be in the middle of turning your wife into Laetitia Casta when the battery runs out and you get Campbell Brown instead--but you have to admit that is a minor inconvenience."

The White House is said to be encouraging President Bush to get an iEE to end the violence in Iraq and infect terrorists worldwide with hemorrhagic fever, but the President insists his new plan to save the world as we know it will work as announced. "Christ, he doesn't even read the newspaper--how can we get him to use a handheld?" a senior office staffer asked MediaPost in confidence--since he doesn't exist in the first place, and is not cleared to speak for the administration on national security issues.

Google sent iEEs to a small group of early adaptors who, according to server-logs, have made some unexpected requests including "Help me get Kratos to the throne in 'God of War II,'" and "Kick Dark Samus' butt in 'Metroid Prime 3: Corruption." However, one Seattle-area programmer increased his passbook savings account to $2.5 trillion, bench-pressed 475 pounds, and moved in with Scarlett Johansson--all in less than 20 minutes.

The iEE has set off a debate in academia over whether it should be used for good or evil. "I would like to think that curing cancer would take precedence over acquiring a Maybach 57 S or a Pagani Zonda Roadster F C12S 7.3," said one of those goofy-looking guys who is 50 but wears jeans, sensible shoes and a copper bracelet. "But human nature being what it is, I am afraid we are in for a spate of materialism that will be unique in history."

Google says that iEE will go on sale in early December--just in time for the holiday season--but warns that stiffening environmental regulations in China could limit the number of units available to the public. Already there are offers to buy iEEs on eBay for tens of millions of dollars.

An elementary school in the Bronx asked fourth-graders what they might ask for if they had an iEE. Answers include "Pizza every day for lunch," "Someone to come in and get the garbage so I don't have to take it out any more," and "A room of my own."





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