Having the ability to upload information is useful, but having all of that raw data needs to have an application - knowledge without application is useless. So for my iron to be useful, aside from the practical use of automatically ironing your clothes, processing the internal data so that it can be used for information that will help the user make the most out of the product is essential. Having the wireless Internet connectivity to the iron will prove to be beneficial for many things, especially from an advertising and marketing viewpoint.
Say that you use your iron twice a week to iron your cotton shirts. While you are doing this, the iron, using both inputs that you have entered for shirt type, can use it's camera to determine what color shirt and even what brand of shirt that you are using. By volunteering to have your iron upload that data, we can see that you are a fan of blue Ralph Lauren oxford shirts. If you opt to use the data upload service, which will have a better name in time, but choose not to pay for it you may be shown some brief advertisements on your LCD screen on the iron that will suggest different products that Ralph Lauren offers. The uses for this type of data upload would be enormously useful to advertisers.
Similarly to the XBOX Kinect, which is the camera sensor that attaches to the game console that tracks your movements, there would be a privacy concern from some citizens. It isn't an unfounded worry but we would guarantee that your iron's camera is not on when not in use, therefore not tracking your habits when you aren't expecting it. Also, we can adjust the camera to only focus very close to it, so that it would not have a wide lens to capture anything other than what is inches in front of it.
These are all ideas that technology can help us with. Or maybe I just watch too much "Mad Men".
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