In a report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (Driving Workforce Change) that speaks to the changes happening in the auto industry, personal passenger vehicles are now the most high-tech purchases households make, and cars today contain more computer chips and lines of code than the first vehicles launched into space.
From electronic rice cookers to high-tech toilets, Japanese households are stuffed with all manner of electronic gadgets.
This year's survey was limited to people who work in high-tech, have an annual household income of at least $300,000 and a net worth of at least $3 million -- levels that put them in the top 1percentt of all Americans in both categories.
Over the last three years, the price of drones has dropped dramatically, and they've gone from being a high-tech, military gadget to a household item.
Leave the high-tech activities at home.
And about 60percentt of Japanese households have high-tech washlet toilets with features like spraying and air drying, reports Justin Thomas of Metaefficient.com, and the country's cabinet office includes Toto-style washlets among the penetration rates it tracks for consumer goods.
Certain studies show, however, that willingness to track travels is higher in households with high income, households with more than one car and high-tech equipment, younger age groups, and in men [13, 15].
True, high-tech lavatories are energy hogs, accounting for 4% of household energy consumption in Japan more than clothes dryers or dishwashers.
DISPOSING of household rubbish is not, at first glance, a task that looks amenable to high-tech solutions.
Even without the high-tech dazzle, the table, placed alongside the bookshelf and the flat-screen monitor, has become the household gathering place.
