Geeks and Chefs, Unite

ooglek writes: "You thought you had every gadget made, until this came along. The new Internet Fridge from LG Appliances. Not only does it keep your food from perishing, but it plays MP3s, TV, a list of the food actually in your fridge, a calendar, and, of course, recipes! Finished in Titanium. Wicked."

Comments

Ludacrisp...

[torgosan]

...the LAST thing I want to do is stand infront of the fridge reading emails, /. or any of my other fave sites. Much rather be relaxing in my chair, RedBull close at hand...

Re:Ludacrisp...

[torgosan]

"wouldn't the RedBull be closer to you if you were reading your email infront of the fridge?"

Good point...but then I wouldn't be able to prop my feet up on the UPS/foot-rests under the desk [keeps the toes warm during the cold months and is darned comfortable too, don'cha see].

Then one day...

[John Paul Jones]

You are out of mayonnaise, Dave. Why don't you buy more, Dave.

-JPJ

176 kg ?

[brejc8]

That is very heavy for a fridge isnt it?

Re:176 kg ?

[Rob.Mathers]

Heading to General Electric Appliances Canada (http://geappliances.ca), I compared 10 random side-by-side fridges. The average weight was 322.2 pounds, or 150.68 kg. So maybe this is slightly heavier. I would guess it's simply made of heavier materials, maybe a few kilo difference due to electronics.

Re:176 kg ?

[sam_handelman]

It's about 390 pounds, weight of two people.

It's a perfectly reasonable weight for a full sized fridge (25.5 cubic feet is standard for both GE and whirlpool - I just bought one); there are fridges which are lighter, and I think it's a bit odd that this fridge-computer wouldn't be top-of-the-line, as a fridge.

There's a real downside to this, follow my reasoning:
1) No one will buy these things.
2) Business will conclude that people don't want stuff with computers built into them.
3) The stuff that people would actually like to have a built in computer won't be brought to market because of lack of venture capital.

Sigh. Of all the ridiculous things to equip with a computer. A fridge/television makes sense as a space-savings device; if you have one of those open kitchens with table-space facing into the kitchen area, you can watch TV while eating. A fridge-computer? Please.

Re:176 kg ?

[brejc8]

Im in the UK. Having a fridge weigh three times my weight is strange.

Re:176 kg ?

[_ph1ux_]

it weighs that much due to its fat pipe to the internet. fat meat pipe.

Re:176 kg ?

[Sircus]

It might seem silly, but there is method to their madness. The basic idea is that you're going to have a home network. One part of this home network needs to maintain the link to the net, act as server for the rest of the net, etc. So it needs to be a device which is continually switched on - no use using the TV, for example. Obvious solution: use the fridge.

This implementation seems like they've gone overboard on the features, but the basic idea of integrating a computer into the fridge isn't as insane as it seems at first sight.

SNMP

[MattBurke]

perfect for kitchen devices... think about it, you could poll the temperature of your fridge/oven, see how long's left on the washing cycle, and have a dodgy sample played when your roast dinner is cooked!

if only it were so simple *sigh*

Overclockers

[boa13]

...have done that for a long time. I mean, putting a CPU inside a fridge... nothing new.

Oh, and can you imagine a beowulf cluster of those?

Re:Overclockers

[Afrosheen]

Actually if each machine is capable of maintaining 40 degrees fahrenheit or whatever, there's no multiplicative beowulf-like effect to the cooling process. 10 air conditioning units cooling at the same temp will always yield the same temp.

it scans bar codes

[dcstimm]

it has a built in barcode scanner that scans your food and will give you a list of what you have in your fridge, there is even a option to order the food if you run out. now that is cool!

Re:it scans bar codes

[R2.0]

Screw that - I want one that scans bar codes when people pull something out...

Time: 10 years from now

Place: my house

Setting: my daughter's first night w/o adult supervision.

Rriing, rriing. "Hello?"

"This is Dad, how are you doing."

"Fine Dad - Just me and some girlfriends."

"Good. Well have fun, and don't stay up too late. Oh, and by the way, the fridge phoned me and said a few beers had been removed. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you."

"Errrr..."

Rest of the night spent looking for the phone cord/WiFi connection on the fridge. It doesn't exist - Dad was bluffing.

Now if I can only stay ahead of my kids on the geek curve.

Re:it scans bar codes

[Medevo]

What scares me about these barcodes is that say LG decides it wants more ca$h and sells a list of the stuff that you keep in the fridge to others. This is similar to what supermarkets do in tracking purchases.

The next time you open your fridge you see a Ad for Jolt Cola because you haven't bought any for a week. Now THAT would be technology gone too far

Medevo

Re:it scans bar codes

[King_TJ]

Bleah.... We came up with this exact same idea several years ago when we were sitting around, talking about future technologies we'd probably see for sale.

In fact, I also pointed out (to the software developer I was discussing this with) that although they'll probably sell the bar code scanning thing - users won't find it very friendly to work with, and it will eventually fail.

(For the fridge to keep up-to-date on what it's stocked with, you have to manually scan in each and every item you add to it. I don't know about you, but that's the last thing I feel like doing after I just got home from the store, with bags full of groceries to put away. Have you ever seen one of those bar code wands read your UPC codes perfectly on the first try, every time? I haven't. People will get pissed when that odd-shaped package requires 7 attempts to get it to register.)

You know what I do think would sell though? A soda dispensing option on the front, where they put the ice-maker and water dispenser. They should let home users purchase the large bags of syrup and rechargeable CO2 cylinders that the stores use for fountain beverages, and attach them to the fridge. In the long run, it would save a *lot* of money on soda, eliminate the need to throw away or recycle a bunch of cans or bottles, save space in the fridge for other things, and never have to worry about your open 2 litre bottle losing its fizz.

Re:it scans bar codes

[Afrosheen]

If AOL has anything to do with this, you'll have to wait at least 30 seconds before opening your fridge. When you grab what you want, you have to wait an additional 20 seconds before you close the door to ensure that their 'ad impression' isn't missed. It'll let you close the door halfway so you have to stare at the LCD beaming you an ad for some crap you don't want. Once the ad impression is complete, it'll shut the door all the way.

Re:it scans bar codes

[ImaLamer]

You know what I do think would sell though? A soda dispensing option on the front, where they put the ice-maker and water dispenser. They should let home users purchase the large bags of syrup and rechargeable CO2 cylinders that the stores use for fountain beverages, and attach them to the fridge. In the long run, it would save a *lot* of money on soda, eliminate the need to throw away or recycle a bunch of cans or bottles, save space in the fridge for other things, and never have to worry about your open 2 litre bottle losing its fizz.

Cool thing too is that Cola companies will save a fortune because all they sell is the syrup.

See for example Coke just sells the syrup (siz-urp) to the bottlers and they mix it and use the Coke trademark (which they bought also). If you mixed it yourself hopefully you would be getting more for less and you would likely not need to pay a trademark licensing fee.

{as far as bar codes, I think everyone on /. has come up with this idea on their own at one time - I can show you notes from '98 where I sketched such an idea down.}

Re:it scans bar codes

[spudnic]

How about a lifelike 3d holographic image of delicious looking food sitting in the fridge. You reach for it and, of course, your hand passes right through it. Then the fridge cheerfully informs you that he can arrange to have the real thing delivered in a couple of hours.

Re:it scans bar codes

[renehollan]

I have a friend with a soda fountain at home. All he ever has to buy is syrup and CO2: it costs him about 5 cents for an 8oz Coke®.

He bought the whole 4 flavour setup (refurbished) for about CA$600.

Re:it scans bar codes

[gorilla]

A soda dispensing option on the front, where they put the ice-maker and water dispenser. They should let home users purchase the large bags of syrup and rechargeable CO2 cylinders that the stores use for fountain beverages, and attach them to the fridge

They've had those for years in the UK, not integrated into the fridge but as a standalone machine, the biggest brand is Sodastream. However in my experience, people eventually give up on the concept and go back to buying premade drinks. It ends up having to be a lot of effort, through cleaning the machine, and remembering to buy both the CO2 and the syrup.

Does it have a SPAM filter?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, I don't mean junk email, I mean actual spam. I sure don't want that stuff showing up in my fridge! Ewww!

Cool

[donnacha]

This fridge is cool.

And getting cooler.

What'll they think of next?

[JordanH]

Wow. A fridge that plays MP3s.

Next thing you know, they'll have a CPU that can cook a roast. Oh wait, Intel did that already - the Pentium 4 @ 2.53 GHz.

Re:What'll they think of next?

[forged]

* Album:

• Digital photo Album, Screen saver, built in digital camera

This one really got me.

For crying out loud, this is supposed to be a fridge !!!

Re:What'll they think of next?

[stickyc]

I dunno about you, but we've always had pictures taped to our frige. More than once, the not-so-magnetic magnets has failed and dropped one under the fridge, or slid down enough to get folded the next time someone closed the lower door.

I'm all for a digital picture frame.

I wonder if

[SLot]

you can set up a cron job to order beer.

This is seriously cool. And I want one yesterday.

Re:I wonder if

[juliao]

This is seriously cool. And I want one yesterday.

Of course it's cool. It's a godddamn fridge!

Wow!

[Pathetic Coward]

This will be bigger than pets.com ...

ahem

[Verizon Guy]

#/sbin/unlockdoor

unlockdoor: Sorry, I think you've had enough to eat today.

reciphp

[TheLocustNMI]

wouldn't it be great if there was an online, GPL'ed repository for recipes too? oh wait, there is -- ReciPHP -- it's still in beta, but it is already a great categorization and search tool for recipes! like Freshmeat, except with more meat :)

A Hackable Fridge?

[puto]

Gives new meaning to hacing the (ice)box. Some script kiddie gets changes the date on all the barcoded food, you get food poisoining... The fridge gets a virus and thinks all the food is brussel sprouts.

Then your wife won't let anyone open the fridge cuz her favorite show is on and you can't get a beer until its over....

You come home and find out that your kid has hacked up apache to run in the freezer and then posted his M0d on Slashdot with the url www.icebboxen.com and your new 5 grand appliance gets the /. effect and shuts down while voiding your warranty.

Christ save me from the internet....

Puto

Re:A Hackable Fridge?

[alizard]

Given that manufacturers without Internet experience generally don't think of security when Net-enabling their appliances, you are probably fairly close to the literal truth in your description.

The password, if there is one, is probably password and can't be changed by the user.

Thnk that's funny?

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'll be waiting for the software upgrade with dietary and hygienic advice.

- "That chicken is really going bad... remove it, now, please."

- "Chicken wings again Dave? I am afraid I can't let you have those. How about a healthy salad?"

Sad thing is, I fully expect fridges of the future telling me off for having unhealthy eating habits.

Re:Thnk that's funny?

[rtaylor]

So it'll be a love hate relationship?

You love when the fridge gives you a treat, you hate when it calls you names for taking the treat.

Re:Thnk that's funny?

[iceburn]

Actually, its possible that supermarkets, food companies, etc. will eventually be able to buy advertisements on these fridges.

"I see you're out of tater tots. There is a sale at King Soopers(TM) on Ore Ida(TM) Tater Tots. Would you like driving directions? (y/n)"
y

Later that day...

"I see you've just purchased Ore Ida(TM) Tater Tots. You may also be interested in Ore Ida(TM) Curly Fries. Would you like to see more SmartFridge.com(TM) recomendations, Dave? (y/n)"
y

"King Soopers(TM) Specials Today:

• Ore Ida(TM) Curly Fries are only $5.49
• Greasy(TM) Chicken Wings $8.99/lb
• Hot Hot Hot(TM) BBQ Sauce $6.87/16oz Bottle
• Stinking Fatty(TM) Cheddar Bratwurst $5.99/6
• Sweet Sweet Coronary(TM) Lard Nuggets $9.99/doz
• Little Powdery(TM) Donuts $7.49/doz.
  

next page ->"

Obsolete cooling technology

[franzzup]

I've been looking at LG refrigerators, since I'll need to replace my aging Liebherr sometime, but it seems they haven't caught on to the most important innovation of the last century: "Null-Grad Technik" as they call it in Germany, which provides a compartment that stays at 0.5 degrees C (without freezing), instead of the usual 4 C. This keeps many foods fresh two to five times as long, and I don't understand why the other manufacturers don't catch on.

Great, just what I need...

[brooks_talley]

"Sorry, folks, it looks like we're ordering pizza. I had been marinating some fantastic szechuan beef, but the fridge crashed and has been alternately freezing and cooking it for the past 12 hours."

Cheers
-b

Wait until the advertisers get a hold of this one

[Craig Maloney]

I can see it now. "I see you're pulling out Velveeta. Soft, creamy Velveeta is great for macaroni and cheese as well as a nice pasta salad on a warm summer day. wow, isn't that refreshing. Try our other great Kraft products today, like Miracle Whip and... (*shut*)"

Or...

"I see you're running low on Miracle Whip so I've taken the liberty of ordering you a crate. You wouldn't want to run out, now would you?"

And what about people who re-use containers? Would my three bean salad and baked beans be counted has having two Country Crock margarines?

No thanks... I prefer the old fashioned exploration of todays modern refrigerators. "Hmmm... Country Crock... Whoops... that's the three bean salad from... ugh... last fourth of July. Better call Hazmat."

Since we're on the topic of Cooking

[forged]

Can anyone recommend good sites listing recipes ?

Re:Since we're on the topic of Cooking

[Greyfox]

http://www.foodtv.com

I usually hit it after seeing Emeril or Alton Brown do something. I'll mostly remember it but want the exact ingredients. Speaking of which, I need to order Alton's show on DVD there. That's some good stuff, he actually goes into the science behind the cooking, so you can apply it to other things that work in the same way. You can also get your truffles and other goodies on the site :-)

Anyone? Anyone?

[allism]

I got the same message - I wanted to find a store and call to find out how much one of these bad boys cost - no stores within 300 miles of Denver, CO. Does anyone live within 300 miles of one of their stores?

Course, at the rate the forest fires are going, soon there won't be ANYTHING within 300 miles of Denver...

Re:How long before

[Pfhor]

You refigerate twinkies?

What kind of weird sicko are you?

If it keeps me from the red meat portion, there will be compressors rolling!

I can see the BUGTRAQ advisory now...

[defile]

Homely SecuriCrack Teamz in coordination with the Culinary Institute of America Security Research Group has discovered a serious vulnerability in the LG Internet Refrigerator.

An unchecked buffer in FridgeScape 3.12, the web browser built into the user interface panel will, if exploited, allow malicious users to gain full superuser control of the refrigerator. From here, it's trivial to set the temperature of the fridge to spoil the food, shoot ice cubes out at high velocity, or set invalid parameters in the cooling unit causing the freon tank to rupture, turning your refrigerator into a 250lbs titanium shrapnel grenade.

The vendor was notified 6 months ago and again 3 months later but has not responded.

We recommend that all users run their home appliances behind a firewall and that extraneous features on other household appliances, such as Auto-Ironing and Mow-On-Demand be disabled

The unabomber was right. We're doomed.

The Internet-Enabled Fridge

[rocjoe71]

"Sorry, this fridge does not accept cookies. If you want this fridge to accept cookies, please adjust your security settings, close the door and try again."

Hmm... old adage

[metlin]

Just because you can do something, does not mean you have to.

Sometimes we geeks end up doing things just because we can, often without giving a thought about what would such a device achieve.

Time & money on technology that could be better spent otherwise.

:-/

boo to titanium on fridges

[colmore]

Ok, it can keep a calendar, it can leave messages, it can play MP3s, etc. etc

but thanks to the titanium finish:

YOU CAN'T PUT MAGNETS ON IT!!!!

what kind of world is this?

They did too much and not enough.

[Sergeant Beavis]

I fridge is a storage device, not a communications device. Any internet appliances built into it should build on the storage aspect of the fridge. There is nothing mentioned about a barcode scanner that would make it conveinent for making an inventory. There are very few markets that have grocery delivery of ordering via the internet and we don't know if the exsisting services will work with this system.

The ability to leave notes for the kids is novel but the display is too low for most adults and unless that screen tilts outword, it would be difficult to write on.

People don't normally read recipes off the fridge. The store them on the fridge under a magnet but take it off to actually cook so they don't have to walk back and forth to the fridge. Again the screen height doesn't help here.

Many of the food storage features for freshness are already available on many existing refridgerators like GE and Maytag.

It's a big toy for the wealthy that have money to burn on such things. The Titanium finish problably wont match most kitchen styles either IMO. Internet Appliances haven't historically done well. I don't believe this one will either in the mass market.

CPU in a refridgerator

[3ryon]

Isn't that the only way to run AMD's latest offerings?

actually sounds cool

[RestiffBard]

I wouldn't mind having a fridge that does this. it would be cool if you could get a recipe a day sent to you fridge and then when you come home the fridge has already ordered the ingredients to make that meal. and it counts calories for you.

Barcodes

[dybdahl]

There is a lot of information that is mandatory to put on food today. In EU, this includes an expiration date and list of ingredients (and batch number in some countries), but none of this information can be scanned automatically by the barcode reader in these new fridges.

What we need is a new legislation that makes all food carry this kind of information in machine-readable forms, so that these possibilities become reality:

- When you open the fridge in the morning, the fridge tells you that the milk is too old.
- Visually impaired users can scan the food they take out and get the list of ingredients displayed with large fonts.
- The batch number of the products can be checked via the internet, so that if a company needs to withdraw some food from the market, all fridges that contain that food will issue a warning to the user.
- Users with food allergies can make the fridge warn if the product they scan contains ingredients that the user cannot eat.

The ingredients list can be retrieved via the internet, but that would make correct fridge operation dependent on a stable internet connection.

Re:The most unnecessary appliance, ever!

[wheany]

My fridge doesn't have to tell me what I need to buy. I am capable of figuring that out myself.

Re:Great tool for the Soccer Mom

[Fiver-rah]

I gather you've never tried to prepare a meal for a reasonably large bunch, have you? If you're reasonably efficient, and you're making a meal that requires you to be in the kitchen, you don't spend a lot of time standing around in the kitchen doing nothing.

First, you figure out what's going to take longest to cook--rice, potatoes, maybe a cake that needs to bake--and throw it in the oven. You start the soup base boiling with whatever's there. Then you chop vegetables, and start putting other stuff together. Remember to stir the soup. Make sure what's in the oven is doing okay. Now clean off the counters. Make dressing for salad. Get the pasta off the stove, and drain it.... If you're really spending time in the kitchen, it's doing something.

If you had that extra five minutes, trust me, you'd rather go sit down at a desk somewhere and read e-mails than stand on your feet for another second in the goddamn kitchen, because being a soccer mom is your second shift, and you've already put in more than eight hours.

This is the stupidest appliance I've ever heard of, and most of the mothers I know would roll their eyes at the thought of spending a couple extra hundred dollars for something this ridiculous. And say, "Good god, if you think saving me the three seconds to walk to the computer is worth it, then let's eat out and save me a couple hours."

!*&#1^*%#@

[3seas]

This is dumb, why not just make an attachable flat/touch screen system that you can put where ever and have sensors or whatever that communicate with it....

Lets' face it, the computer industry is running out of steam and I bet the idea is to force it on people by removing the options to get otherwise.

not to mention the monthly internet connect charges

A Sign of the Apocalypse...?

[serutan]

Whenever a company comes up with something like this, I have to wonder if somebody really is putting LSD in our water supply.

Re:A Sign of the Apocalypse...?

[kubrick]

Whenever a company comes up with something like this, I have to wonder if somebody really is putting LSD in our water supply.

Whenever a company comes up with something like this, it's another sign that nobody needs to... people are nuts enough already.

:)

(BTW, I was surpised to see this on /. -- it's been plugged quite a lot in TV commercials here in Australia over the last six months or more, I would have thought that this would have already been posted if it interested people...)

Almost as useful as hamburger ear-muffs...

[ConceptJunkie]

Yet another way to pee away hours and hours of your life accomplishing nothing useful. Then your kid uses a magnet to put up his latest drawing and scrambles the whole system.

Really, was this designed by Microsoft? Why must every appliance do everything. Can't we have simple devices that do one job well?

Iron Chef on your refrigerator door!

[billstewart]

Just think of the possibilities for this, especially if there's also a webcam on the thing. You can use the TV functions to watch Iron Chef while you're cooking, or have the refrigerator tell you what the Mystery Ingredient you'll be using for dinner tonight will be, or if you've got a high-speed net connection (which anybody spending money on this overpriced toy probably does ;-), you can run your own Iron Chef game with your friends....

whoa.

[The Madpostal Worker]

This is one casemod story that I don't mind reading :-)

Gaggenau Refrigerators

[hyyx]

This fridge is amazing, I'll give it that, but if you really want to have a f'in fridge then this, by Gaggenau is the god of fridges. I can't even explain, just go look.

beowulf

[commodoresloat]

Oh, and can you imagine a beowulf cluster of those?

No, but I can imagine keeping peanut brittle clusters cold with these.