9 Ways Cleaning Has Become Smarter

We've come a loooong way from the ol' mop and bucket. Upgrade your chores with the Swiffer Bissell Steamboost and get what mops can leave behind. It turns your housework into a stroke of genius.

1. You never have to spill anything on anything ever again.

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Once upon a time the only way to for-sure avoid unsightly barbecue sauce stains was to, er, just not eat barbecue. Good thing we live in an age where stains are pretty much optional thanks to recent water-repellant tech. Goodbye, stains and spills. Hello, plate of literally nothing but giant meatballs.

2. Our washing machines are smarter than we are.

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Welcome to 2013, where our washers and driers are more powerful than a locomotive and have roughly more features and knobs than the dashboard of a NASA space shuttle. Definitely beats hanging your long-johns out the window of your third-story walk-up.

3. We have stain-removers in our pockets.

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You've got a big meeting in ten minutes, but you really wanna scarf down that sauce-soaked sub sammich beforehand. You know what? Go for it. Advances in stain-sapping technology mean you can actually erase splotches from your blazer or blouse with a quick dab-and-swipe. What kind of sorcery is this? Only the best kind.

4. Our buildings can clean themselves.

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A team of forward-thinking French engineers have concocted a new breed of cement that actually cleans itself when exposed to sunlight. This could keep city streets nice and spotless with little active upkeep, and maybe even inspire our laziest to pick up a sponge and some suds. Nobody likes to be told that they're lazier than concrete.

5. And, even better, so can our toilets.

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Toilets can be, quite frankly, totally gross. Nobody likes a totally gross toilet. So teaching public toilets to clean themselves of all the unspeakable things that go on in public toilets is not only a triumph for smart cleaning, but for all of mankind.

6. Brooms are a thing of the past.

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Remember when the most advanced cleaning technology was bundles of corn bristles at the end of a long wooden stick? Oh, how times have changed. Cutting-edge tech like the Swiffer Bissell Steamboost dissolves dirt with a deep-cleaning, steam-activated solution. Goodbye mop and bucket, hello future.

7. And so are crumbs.

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If someone told us twenty years ago that one day we'd have tiny robots combing our living room floors for crumbs, we'd probably A) assume SkyNet was real and start building our doomsday bunkers right then and there, or B) really start looking forward to the future.

8. Our kitties' litter boxes can empty themselves.

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The best part of owning a cat? Endless cuddles. The worst part of owning a cat? We...think you already know that part. But lo and behold: self-cleaning kitty litter boxes! The future is most certainly now.

9. Technology, technology, technology!

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The bottom line is this: we’re making super-sized bounds every day — like, for instance, this ultra-cool spilt condiment scooper from the minds at Furukawa Kikou — in the pursuit of keeping our dens squeaky-clean. Mark our words: it won't be long until it's scientifically impossible to be a slob.