Outwitting your cellar

With the connected refrigerator and health machine example, Vinton Cerf suggested it would be possible for networked technology to control the human being. However, he assured the audience, the human being - the inventor of technology - could still be two steps ahead of it. Cerf proved it with another example. A person's wine cellar, he said, could have sensors built in; they could send regular reports about what is the status of the collection. There were chips on each bottle, he said, which would send alerts if they were removed. However, he said that an acquaintance pointed out that, despite the technology in place, it was easy for anyone to take swigs from the bottle and return them swiftly - and the owner wouldn't get to know. Though Cerf insisted he had a solution for that as well - installing chips on the bottle corks - the audience, which was doubling up with laughter, did get the message. Technology will catch up with man, and man will catch up with technology, and so it will continue.