I was incredibly taken with this story that broke mid-week about Juicero, a Silicon Valley startup that’s selling a $400 wifi-enabled juicer that squeezes juice from Juicero-branded bags of juice. Its ultimate effect, in other words, is that of a pointy straw. The reason you need the Juicero machine to open the Juicero juice, according to the company, is basically that the juice is packaged too bizarrely to open with your hands without making a mess, a fact that has only added to the immense pleasure I get from this single story.




In honor of Juicero—which has made me so happy, for free—I wrote this list of pointlessly bad Silicon Valley inventions that probably don’t exist yet, but seem plausible to me now, thanks to this pioneering juice-bag-juicing company. If any of this already exists, sorry, I’m a bit of a luddite and don’t read about tech much. Any resemblance to reality is purely incidental.


1. a blindfold with GPS capabilities that tells you where you are

2. lipstick that, when applied, changes color to match your natural lip shade

3. a watch that records the day as your wrist might have seen it

4. a cigarette that keeps track of how much shorter your life is becoming

5. you tell an app where your keys are and it tells you where your keys are

6. a blender that is connected to wifi and can only remove packaging from baby food

7. a pair of reading glasses that informs you which page of a book you’re on

8. a car that screams to notify the driver that she’s crashed into something

9. a printer that continually prints your Twitter feed

10. a plate of chili cheese fries that knows how many calories are in the table it’s resting upon


11. you order curtains online, then a drone crashes through your window and dies upon some Laura Ashely packaging

12. a sweater that can sense when you’re still too cold but can’t do anything about it, so it just squeals “hold me!”


13. an app that converts your hand-written diary into a pdf then uploads it to the Cloud

14. a vibrator that notifies you when you’re ovulating

15. an Instagram filter that’s just a recent picture of your mom

16. a dating app called “Blocked” that matches you with single people who live on your block


17. an alarm clock that flies around your room manically like a trapped bat, and you have to douse it with bug poison before it will snooze

18. a subscription service that emails you a new inspirational quote every morning, from a recent U.S. president


19. an app that puts you in touch with other young creatives who aren’t making art

20. a screen that tells you this juice I’m drinking right now is good