Key an eye on your laundry (machine)

The economy may spasm alarmingly, but this great nation never stops spawning visionary entrepreneurs with an eye on emerging markets. Here's an invention I hadn’t thought of:  LaundryView, a web-based surveillance system that lets you know when your coin-operated machine is done spinning. Why hang around the Laundromat when you could be staring at your iPhone, awaiting an email or text alert? Devised by the Mac-Gray Corporation, which already made its mark on college campuses with a combination microwave-refrigerator-charging station, LaundryView compulsively takes the pulse of each linked machine, firing off announcements like “In Use,” “Idle” (cycle finished, better rush right over there), and “Unavailable” (a polite way of saying busted). Busy Laudromats and even busier people aside, I see all kinds of potential in technology that can monitor inanimate household objects. Maybe LaundryView could be harnessed to track the “availability” of the family car, TV, oven, or Wii. Never mind the dwindling inventory inside my fridge.