The biggest failing for all of these systems is that they fail to acknowledge that hoses are standalone entities in there own right. House don't stop existing when you leave in the morning. Most house have more than one occupant and usually plants and pets. They need to run without outside help. This is where all the devices that need a smartphone or cloud connection to fail. Houses won't be smart until they don't need smartphones or people to run.

I was there. Didn't bother to attend the Hugos.

BTW. They were two ceremonies. Check out http://loncon3.org

I guess April Fools came early with the new calendar. Or is the timing of the announcement off?

The risks you will face:
1) The obvious, it may be lost or stolen. Can you afford to lose family photos and you personal info?
2) Vibration. It addition to having your boxes roughly handled, ships will expose your gear to low frequency vibration for weeks on end.
3) Temperature. Most shipping isn't climate controlled, so you may get condensation.
4) Incompatibility. Chances are where you are going will have difference power, communications, space and environmental

Recommendation. Sell everything you can't replace and buy new at the destination. Almost for sure where you are going will have difference standards which apply to electronics, furniture, appliances and clothes. Backup everything twice. Leave a copy in the cloud, and one with friends/family.

Most of these events have DJs and commercial DJs are licensed, so unless SOCAN is double dipping his is a waste of a news article.

Most database servers are already doing the same things that virtualization accomplishes. SQL Server 2012 as an example can support multiple database instances, each with multiple databases and will use every last resource available, and be more efficient than hosting multiple copies of in their own OS instance in VMWare.

Most boiler and elevator design predates electronic/computerized controls so they have mechanical safeties.

Thumbs up to everyone who said networking them to the Internet is a DUMB idea.

IBM used to had a touchscreen monitor that used pressure sensors in the base to determine where the screen was being pressed.

Sony actually believes that they have the best (engineered) products in the world. They simply cannot accept that their products can fail.
Therefore it is always the customer's fault. The only reasons they have warranties is because marketing makes them.

If you want to see how snobby they are go play with their BetaCams.