This is an appliance for drying clothes.

The automobile becomes, then, an appliance, not in a commodity sense, but an appliance, mobile power, mobile platform for information and computing and communication, as well as a form of transportation.

Next time you're about to throw out an appliance, don't throw it out.

Our journey did not, in fact, begin at Hercules Inlet, where frozen ocean meets the land of Antarctica.

So here is what we did. We put a 10 cent digital transponder, a data tag, in the appliance plug.

All the appliances plug in there. And you would just unscrew your light bulb if you wanted to plug in an appliance.

And in the process, I became the first person in history to make the entire 650 mile journey, from Hercules Inlet to South Pole, solely on feet, without skis.

Now if you don't have power, or, God forbid, the power cuts out in the middle of surgery, this machine transitions automatically, without even having to touch it, to drawing in room air from this inlet.

Any electrical device an appliance, an extension cord, whatever must be able to tell the power outlet, Hey, power outlet, I'm drawing too much current. Shut me off now, before I start a fire.

Or, to take another example, what if we stopped measuring the economic impact of electrification only 45 years after the first generating plant, Thomas Edison s Pearl Street Station, became operational in 1882? At that point, America s manufacturing industries were just discovering the benefits of flexible (re)configuration, which enabled distribution of generated electric power, while America s home appliance industry was in its infancy.