Microsoft has its headquarters in Seattle. Come to think of it, so does Starbucks. Coincidence? I don't think so. In fact, the connection only makes sense. Just as you wouldn't try operating heavy machinery— say, an SUV with a sun roof— neither would you try writing code without a cup or two of good ol' Joe in the internal fuel tanks. Computing and coffee go hand in hand, which is to say that Starbucks' founders recognized a captive audience when they saw one.
Now, wherever Windows goes in the world, Starbucks and $4 frappacinos are sure to follow. Or maybe it's the other way around. Instead of coffee following computer geeks around the globe, maybe the geeks tailed after the coffee shop. After all, Starbucks, founded in 1971, is now celebrating its 30th anniversary, whereas Microsoft wasn't founded until, what, 1985. Nor is it like coffee hasn't been around since the end of the 17th century or so. No egg and chicken issues here. Clearly, caffeine paved the way for Windows.
Starbucks now broasts (that's a combination of boast and roast) some 4,600 stores in 21 countries spread over four continents. If I heard a program correctly on National Public Radio recently, they're now expanding, somewhere in the world, at the rate of three shops a day.
But we aren't gathered here today to dissect or deconstruct the synergy between computers and coffee, but to come up with the ultimate utility. So, let's percolate, shall we? While it may be a cliché to say that this or that piece of hard- or software does everything but brew coffee, I think technology is presently at an advanced enough stage to seriously consider acknowledging the considerable debt owed to the humble coffee bean. In other words, it's high time that computers actually do coffee, preferably in the time it takes Windows to load.
Since water and electrical components haven't traditionally been considered compatible, I'm not sure how the ultimate utility— a desktop computer that actually brews a mean cup of coffee— will work, but isn't this what we pay engineers for, when all is said and done? If they pretend to be stumped, we simply cut off their caffeine. This is not rocket science.
The way I imagine it now is something like this. You pour a cup of water into a hole in the top of your desktop tower, which gurgles its way down to a heating element attached to the heat sink, in turn attached to a 2GHz Pentium IV chip. Along the way this passes through the CD drive compartment, IBM research scientists having found a way to coat a laser disc with a fine layer of Folgers' finest coffee grains. Double click on the desktop Coffee icon and the laser beam liquefies the coffee emulsion so that it blends with the water and runs down to the heating element. (Properly configured, the slide-out CD tray could even double as a cup holder.)
Recalculate a spreadsheet on startup, and I figure you're pretty much done. The now brewed cup of coffee could be funneled through another plastic tube leading to a spigot on the front of your computer, preferably located somewhere beneath the built-in Zip drive and USB ports and way left of the keyboard.
Admittedly, the ultimate utility would be limited to brewing one cup of coffee at a time. But that single jolt should be sufficient to empower the end user to employ the traditional methods used to brew up a full pot of the liquid computing aid. If not, repeat the above steps until sufficient quantities have been consumed.
I envision improvements to the ultimate utility as well. For example, the cup warmer. Plug it into a PC card slot and modulate its temperature via Windows' Control Panel. As for a coaster, there's always those ubiquitous AOL CDs. The other ultimate utility.
