Smart Beds Helped Them Sleep on a Cloud. Then the Cloud Crashed.; The New York Times, October 24, 2025

 Sopan Deb, The New York Times; Smart Beds Helped Them Sleep on a Cloud. Then the Cloud Crashed.

[Kip Currier: Another interesting example -- probably surprising for most of us who don't have "smart beds", including me -- of the ways that smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) can impact us. In this instance, people's sleep!

The paperback version of my book, Ethics, Information, and Technology, is available via Amazon on November 13, 2025 (link here too) and has a significant section on the ethical issues implicated by IoT and smart devices.]

[Excerpt]

"Some users of the smart-bed system Eight Sleep, who sleep atop a snug, temperature-regulating mattress cover in search of “zero-gravity rest,” were rousted from their slumber earlier this week for a surprising reason.

Eight Sleep’s collections of smart products, which the company calls “Pods,” and include those “intelligent” mattress covers, were affected by an outage involving the cloud-storage provider Amazon Web Services, which sent large sectors of the internet into disarray on Monday.

The outage, which lasted more than two hours, took down websites for banks, gaming sites and entertainment services, as well as the messaging service WhatsApp. But it also affected people trying to get some shut-eye.

(First, to answer a question readers might have: Yes, there are smart mattress covers, just as there are smart watches, smart door locks and smart refrigerators.)"

This robot cat offers purrfect companionship for Eugene public library patrons to check out; Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), October 28, 2023

  Rachael McDonald (KLCC), Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB); This robot cat offers purrfect companionship for Eugene public library patrons to check out

"And while anyone can take one home…

“They’re typically for folks who maybe are suffering memory loss or maybe just are living alone and kind of lonely,” Berry said. “But really anyone can check them out. They purr. They meow. They’re really fun to have.”

Berry’s coworker, Heather Sears, a children’s services supervisor, said the staff were so fond of the cats that they also got a couple for themselves. The staff cats are gray and white.

“Because they’re really calming,” Sears said. “There’s research that shows cats purring is therapeutic. So we have a kind of quiet room that we have placed one of our cats. Staff have actually really enjoyed that — maybe you had a stressful part of your day or something’s happened and you just need a moment, and you can come hang out with one of our cats that are here that are not circulating.”...

Cats are part of Library of Things collection

The Library of Things has been around since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Berry says they are always adding to the collection."

COVID-19 first target of new AI research consortium; Berkeley News, March 26, 2020

Sarah Yang, College of Engineering, Berkeley News; COVID-19 first target of new AI research consortium

"The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are the headquarters of a bold new research consortium established by enterprise AI software company C3.ai to leverage the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and the internet of things (IoT) to transform societal-scale systems.

C3.ai announced the creation of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) today, along with a call for research proposals for AI techniques to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and possible future pandemics.

“The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a consortium of leading scientists, researchers, innovators and executives from academia and industry, joining forces to accelerate the social and economic benefits of digital transformation,” said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai, in a statement. “We have the opportunity through public-private partnership to change the course of a global pandemic. I cannot imagine a more important use of AI.”

The first call for proposals, due May 1, 2020, targets research that addresses the application of AI and machine learning to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, rigorous approaches to design sampling and testing strategies, and methods to improve societal resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other areas relevant to pandemic mitigation."

Why John Deere Measures Employee Morale Every Two Weeks; Harvard Business Review, 5/24/16

Brad Power, Harvard Business Review; Why John Deere Measures Employee Morale Every Two Weeks:

"Here’s an example Tome shared with me: In one cycle, a high-performing employee scored his motivation lower than normal. There were no visible signs of problems: the employee was still highly productive, engaged, and a pleasure to work with. However, in the next cycle his motivational score dropped even more. Although there was still with no visible change in his performance, the survey raised a red flag and prompted a manager to understand the employee’s issue. It turned out the employee had concerns about his career development, which the manager was able to resolve. By paying attention to the motivation metric, the issue was caught quickly before there were any performance problems, and there was no need for any formal corrective actions.

Without regular, frequent updates on the state of morale, most managers become aware of issues only when they show up in employee performance – e.g., a missed deadline or botched effort – or when the employee quits. At that point it is often too late or too difficult to address the motivation problem because then there are actually two problems that must be solved: the performance issue and the motivation issue. The early warning provided by motivation data changes the conversation from, “We need to address your performance issue” to “Help me understand why you are feeling the way you are.”"