After Reuters, now also the Associated Press news agency (as published in USA Today and Wired online) report on the test by Whirlpool, Panasonic and Microsoft, to remotely run washing machines and dryers from a mobile phone or PC (see Putting People First story from a couple of days ago).

The project sounds very similar to the Fluidtime laundry project Michael Kieslinger implemented three years ago for the students at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in collaboration with Miele Germany, except that the Ivrea project (download case study, pdf, 215 kb, 2 pages) seemed to have a much more intuitive interface (pictured here) than the one featured in the AP story, and was focused on the social sharing of the same washing machine, such as in a student dorm or a laundromat.