The next big thing: smart garbage

Given the huge evolution and expansion of the consumer electronics market, we are generating a lot of discarded, electronic devices. The New York Times ponders Is smart garbage the next booming category of electronic waste?

By some measures, we are witnessing a rapid change in computing and the swift evolution of relationships between humans and automated helpers. A vision of the future is materializing before our very eyes, the development of networked helper bots that will manage every aspect of our lives, automating it and, theoretically, improving it by simplifying it.

But what happens when those devices go into disrepair - or worse, obsolescence - and their sleeker, faster successors go on sale, as part of the relentless cycle common among most major hardware companies?