One of the most overused concept and name, beside “green” is “smart”. Is the “smart” trend only a new marketing trick? Just how smart are the products having “smart” in their name?

Smart car
That one is a bit misleading, since the name means “Swatch Mercedes ART”. It’s very smart if you consider fuel consumption and ease of parking — less smart is feeling of panic you have when driving between 2 tractor-trailers on the highway at 110lm/m on a windy day.

Smart Phone
It stands for a phone that has more communication or productivity features, such as web browsing, music, camera, email, text message, etc. It does allow us to bring part of the desktop computing experience on the road. Unfortunately, the only part it does not enhance at all is actually the most basic function: phoning.

Smart Meter
Introduced this year by our electricity distributors, it is marketed as a new way to reduce our electricity cost. It’s actually a new way to force us to change our habits by using electricity in pre-determined time-slots (night-time and week-ends) while paying ever more for the service.

Smart Bomb
This is a bomb that has fins, sensors and a computer. It can steer to hit the target more precisely. In theory, it allows to drop less bombs to hit a specific target. Looks like a slightly less messy way to kill tons of people.