Cooking Dinner From the Road

Roland Piquepaille writes "After 12 years of development and with the help of NASA's Embedded Web Technology software, the TMIO company is delivering its first smart ovens. You can monitor these refrigerator-ovens from any Internet connection. For example, you can adjust and control the oven settings from your cell phone and be sure that dinner is ready when you get home. But cooking from your office or your car won't come cheap: these ovens carry a price tag of $8,699. Right now, they're only available in North America, but I bet there soon will be distributors in other parts of the world. Read more for additional details about these smart ovens."

Comments

OCD

[dot.solipsist]

As a sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is worth almost ten grand to not have to spend my entire day worrying if I did, indeed, leave the oven on.

Now if they could only port this technology for my coffee maker.

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2324.html

Re:OCD

[Urusai]

Yes, but how can you be sure your oven doesn't get a Trojan? Hmm, Mr. OCD? Better checksum your firmware again!

Re:OCD

[dot.solipsist]

You see? Now you've ruined everything.

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, more on the anxiety side though. ... and when removing spyware from a computer, OCD will kill you haha

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dumbfuck, put a webcam in your kitchen. Send me the rest of the dough.

Re:OCD

[passion]

...it is worth almost ten grand to not have to spend my entire day worrying if I did, indeed, leave the oven on.

Yeah, but how many times have you received / made a "pocket call". Yeah, you know what I mean, when the celphone dials someone in your addressbook without you initiating it? Well now you can worry all day whether or not your pocket started your oven...

By the way, your fly is open. :)

Re:OCD

[EZLeeAmused]

Luckily, I don't have OCD. But I am paranoid, so how did you know my fly was open???

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

Why not just call it Java? >_>

Re:OCD

[damsa]

Maybe because he installed a trojan inside your pants.

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehehe... Trojan
(thats a brand of condom, Virginia)

Re:OCD

[DrScotsman]

I mean, when the celphone dials someone in your addressbook without you initiating it?

Doesn't that only happen to people who don't lock their keypads?

Re:OCD

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

As a sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is worth almost ten grand to not have to spend my entire day worrying if I did, indeed, leave the oven on.

Ten grand will buy a lot of restaurant meals. Just sell your regular oven and take that money, plus the ten grand and buy take-out food instead.

Re:OCD

[Anonymous Coward]

I have OCD and eat my food only raw. No need to cook and burn molecules, rendering them useless...

Re:OCD

[Loconut1389]

A friend of mine had his phone locked, but even when locked it still lets you dial 911 and has some logic so it only accepts the digit in the correct place. Unfortunately, this means you can push every key and when it hits 9, the 9 goes in.. then push every key (including 9) and only the 1 goes in..

Anyway, he heard the 911 operator coming from his pocket.

What good is a lock if the phone can still dial?

Re:OCD

[StikyPad]

Or maybe mentally undressing him?

People: Obsolete

[fragmentate]

Hmm. All has been completed. With this, I no longer need my wife.

Re:People: Obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

For over $8K, it better give blowjobs too.

Re:People: Obsolete

[(H)elix1]

Hmm. All has been completed. With this, I no longer need my wife.

Don't trade her in yet... When they say 'self cleaning', I guess they are only talking about the inside of the stove.

Re:People: Obsolete

[aronschatz]

I thought slashdot readers don't have lady companions...?

Am I on the correct site here?

Re:People: Obsolete

[fragmentate]

Did you read my post? ;)

Re:People: Obsolete

[Khaed]

Already got a Real Doll?

Re:People: Obsolete

[alfrin]

Hmm. All has been completed. With this, I no longer need my wife.
Hmm typo, try this one:
Hmm. All has been completed. With this, I no longer need to try and buy a wife

Re:People: Obsolete

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Sheesh. I'm the one who cooks.

And cleans.

So why am I married again? Oh the sex.

So why...

Re:People: Obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

This functionality would be superfluous to filling the job description of "wife".

Re:People: Obsolete

[masdog]

For $8K, it better be the best damn blowjob ever.

Re:People: Obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

http://search.ebay.com//search/search.dll?from=R40 &satitle=crock+pot - much cheaper wife eliminator (poor man's automatic oven=---the crokc pot!)

Re:People: Obsolete

[rob_squared]

I don't know, sex with an oven is a very tricky prospect.

Re:People: Obsolete

[foniksonik]

hmmm... I have the opposite view... "Isn't that why I got married?" - you know, call home and tell wifey "I'm 20 min. out" and she starts dinner, by the time I'm home and rested for 20 min. dinner is ready.

Not to mention the dangers of trying to copulate with a Smart Oven... i like it hot, but it a metaphorical sense for sure.

Re:People: Obsolete

[AllahsAvatar]

South Korea will help you out with this.

Or

[digitalsushi]

I can toss a tv dinner in a toaster oven on an X10 plug, ssh into my box and turn it on with the firecracker module, and save... whatever it costs minus 15 bucks.

Re:Or

[adrianmonk]

I can toss a tv dinner in a toaster oven on an X10 plug, ssh into my box and turn it on with the firecracker module, and save... whatever it costs minus 15 bucks.

I think the idea behind this smart oven is that it refrigerates the stuff while you're gone at work, so you can safely leave that Stouffer's brand frozen pork chop and mashed potatoes in there for 10 or 12 hours (or a week, if you feel like it) without it going bad while you're gone.

Whether that's worth $9000 odd dollars to you is another question, but it is at least more than an oven on a timer.

Re:Or

[Savantissimo]

...until you burn your house down and the insurance company refuses to pay.

Re:Or

[digitalsushi]

i think a lot of food doesnt go bad sitting out. i'll eat stuff that's been out for 6 hours if it's not all crusty.

Re:Or

[JanneM]

you can safely leave that Stouffer's brand frozen pork chop and mashed potatoes in there for 10 or 12 hours

Actually, with the exception of a few ingredients, there is no problem with leaving chilled stuff out over the course of a day. And if they start out frozen, I doubt there's any danger with any food.

After all, if you want to thaw a chicken filet or a piece of salmon, that takes hours with it lying alone on a plate on the counter. If you have it lying together with other frozen ingredients in a container, I doubt it would have time to fully thaw before it's time to start cooking it. Even if it did, a few hours thawed won't harm it or you.

People are sometimes a little too afraid of food being spoiled, I think. It's not like it becomes a seething mass of microbes within ten seconds of not being "hygienically packaged" or anything.

Re:Or

[saifatlast]

If you stir it, the crustiness usually goes away.

Re:Or

[noidentity]

"I think the idea behind this smart oven is that it refrigerates the stuff while you're gone at work, so you can safely leave that Stouffer's brand frozen pork chop and mashed potatoes in there for 10 or 12 hours [...]"

I bet Geordi La Forge could work some engineering magic with a switchable phase inverter to convert your oven into a temporary refrigerator (or vice-versa, with the addition of some resonant magnetic shielding to keep the refrigerator from melting).

Re:Or

[damsa]

It's not food you have to worry about, it's all the pathegens in the food like ecoli and salmenela. They start growing at exponential rates. But I think you are right, in the case of tv food the high temperature will kill off any bad things and most pre prepared foods have high salt content anyways.

Re:Or

[Vengeance]

It's best not to defrost your food at room temperature. Indeed, that's inviting pathogens to grow on the surface while you're waiting for the center to thaw. A couple or four hours is no big deal, but you don't want a piece of salmon sitting on the counter all day.

Better is to put your food (in plastic!) in a bowl of cold water. Better still is to remember the day before (or three days before for a turkey) and put the item into the refrigerator to thaw. Then take it out about half an hour or 45 minutes before cooking time to begin bringing it up to room temperature.

There's no need to be paranoid, but there's no reason to be reckless.

Re:Or

[hjf]

so what about cooking? usually that DOES kill most bacteria. thats why in poor countries they advise to boil water for human consumption, where water is not very clean. unless you are defrosting salmon for sushi, a quick defrost on the countertop (it defrosts quick, just a couple of hours) won't do any harm. the cooking process will kill most bacteria.

Re:Or

[Grym]

a quick defrost on the countertop (it defrosts quick, just a couple of hours) won't do any harm. the cooking process will kill most bacteria.

Not necessarily.

Doing so assumes a number of things:

1. The initial bacterial concentrations are low. For a microwave dinner, this is probably true. But for grandma's homemade spaghetti sauce or potato salad, you could be giving the bacteria the time they need to enter the log phase of their growth pattern--meaning lots of bacteria in very little time.
2. The cooking process reaches all parts of the food. Again, taking your example, with boiling water this is a good assumption. With an sliced ham or thick lasaugna, this probably isn't the case--that is unless you like your food burnt or as tough as shoe leather.
3. The bacteria don't employ endospores or enterotoxins. Even if you manage to kill all the bacterial cells in your food (which is much harder than you might think.) or if you just get the bacterial cell concentrations to acceptable levels, you're still not in the clear. Remember, food borne illness is often not an infection but rather an intoxication.
4. Your cooking process kills all bacteria equally. For instance, if you bake potatoes in aluminum foil in an oven, you indeed kill all of the cells. But let's say you make too many, so you just keep the extra potatoes in their aluminum foil inside the refrigerator. This very well could select for C. botulinum bacteria. Why? The baking drives steam from the potato out, creating an anaerobic microenvironment. Without competition from any other bacteria, the C. botulinum bacteria often have time before the food cools to generate botulinum toxin.
5. No immuno-compromised individuals are eating the food. Eating food with high bacterial concentrations is perfectly fine for a health, young slashdot reader. However, these foods could be very harmful (or even deadly) to an immuno-compromised person such as someone who is pregnant, a child, or the elderly.

Food microbiology is complicated. There's a reason why companies pay salaries in the hundreds of thousands to talented microbiologists. Because the microbiology is complicated and dependent upon so many factors, it's best that a layperson stick to a few basic rules when preparing food, even when they seem counter-intuitive. Most of them are very simple.

-Grym

Re:Or

[Anonymous Coward]

What the FUCK is a pathegen? Or a salmenela for that matter?

Re:Or

[h4rryc4ry]

To me, the most time consuming process of making a meal is the preparing of the food. Cooking inside an oven is the simple part. "Set it and forget it" as Ron Popeil says.

Unless you eat frozen, processed food all of the time, you still use up your time to prepare it.

So what's the difference? Prepping the night before(or week before, whatever), either way you can't avoid it.

Seems a complete waste of money, as others have noted below.

btw, this is a simlar concept to those remote car starters for "warming up" your car. You still must turn on the heater.(and preferrable after the engine warms up)

Re:Or

[LouisZepher]

Perhaps, but I think that even though Geordi likes tinkering with things, he'd simply say "Screw it, use the replicator..."

Re:Or

[NitsujTPU]

Actually, I'm fairly sure that most food is a seething mass of microbes inside the packaging.

Not that it matters much to me. I eat delivery for almost every meal in order to make more time for research/studying/so forth. To cut down on price, I eat from some pretty sketchy places. The thing that keeps me healthy is my immune system :-D

Re:Or

[Eivind]

But that is completely pointless.

A steak (say) that is taken out of the freezer in the morning, and which are to be baked the same afternoon requires no refrigiration whatsoever. Indeed unless it's very small and/or it's very bloody freaking hot, it's unlikely to even thaw before the baking begins.

Warming the food is the easy part...

[bubulubugoth]

Even if the "dinner" is frozen dinner, you cannot leave many things for a long time... or let them defrost at room tempeture... think about a frozen breaded food...

And nobody like "aireated" food... Programmable Coffemakers are enemys of a good, fresh coffe!!!

I really think that other things could be automated... like ironing...

No juice, no house

[Anonymous Coward]

OH crap, my cell phone is dead. OH crap, my house burnt down.

Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Lord Byron II]

First of all, it doesn't take NASA to make a web-enabled oven. Second, if you read to the end of the article, you'll see evidence that this article is actually two or three years old (I'm talking about the 2003 and 2004 awards). And third, who would really benefit from an oven like this? Ask yourself:

When was the last time you used your oven?
Are you willing to prepare a dish in the morning and put it in the oven before you leave for work?
Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

My point is this: cool idea, but hardly worthy of a front-page post.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[adrianmonk]

who would really benefit from an oven like this? Ask yourself:

When was the last time you used your oven?

Yesterday afternoon. It's winter, after all, and using the oven also heats the house. Plus the food comes out better than when you microwave it.

Are you willing to prepare a dish in the morning and put it in the oven before you leave for work?

Sometimes. Probably not usually, but with an oven like this, you could in theory prepare a few dishes on the weekend, put them in the bottom of the refrigerator for the rest of the weekend, then put Tuesday's dinner in the oven (set to refrigerate) on Monday night before you go to bed.

Also, lots of people who do serious cooking could make use of these on special occasions. For example, on Thanksgiving or Christmas, if you cook a big meal with turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, a pie or two, etc. there is a LOT of scrambling to do to get it all done. It's not uncommon for people who are hosting a Christmas gathering to get up at like 4:00am or 5:00am to start cooking so that it can be ready at lunch time. If part of that could be prepared the night before and could take itself through the rest of the process automatically, that could seriously cut down on stress in situations like that.

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

There are millions of people who are perfectly comfortable going out or even going on vacation and leaving running appliances that work by burning explosive gases. If you don't believe me, then answer this: when you go out of town, do you turn off the natural gas supply to your water heater and furnace? Do you even think about it possibly burning your house down?

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Bad D.N.A.]

Are you willing to prepare a dish in the morning and put it in the oven before you leave for work?

Yup, it's currently called a crok-pot. I use mine all of the time. I would love to be able to have an oven that I could trust as much as the good ol' crok.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I remember seeing that on Penn and Teller's "Bullshit." They were doing a segment on "The Best", and were covering the rediculous hype at Tech Expos:

So we'll program in a cooling cycle, than (beep beep) we enter in to heat at 300 degreess for (beep beep), and (5 minutes of heating and cooling cycles later) and now we are ready to start cooking.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[harvardian]

I started cooking years ago, I think it's a better way to pass time than playing WoW. It's very hard to eat Sonic after work now that I'm accustomed to roasted sweet potatoes with braised pork roast, for example. Neither of those dishes are very hard, either :)

And I wouldn't ever make dinner in the morning. I'd make it the night before and stick it in the fridge. It makes for better marinading anyway.

But yeah, I don't know why this is on the front page either. Maybe the web-enabledness is a sign of things to come.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[TubeSteak]

Plus the food comes out better than when you microwave it.

Some people don't seem to comprehend this fact.

Food in the microwave ends up soggy on the outside, which IMHO is shitty.

When I was growing up, we didn't have a microwave and I don't ever plan on buying one for myself.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Zakabog]

When was the last time you used your oven?

Yesterday, made baked zitti.

Are you willing to prepare a dish in the morning and put it in the oven before you leave for work?

I prepare all of my food for the week on sunday, trying to bulk up and this is a good way to make sure I have enough food for the entire week while keeping track of what I ate. I'd like to be able to stick it in the oven before I leave and know it'll be ready when I get back.

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

I trust my oven to not burn down my house, I trust my fridge to not burn down my house. Why wouldn't I trust an appliance that combines the two and lets me control it over the internet?

The real question, is the thing worth close to $10,000, and the answer (for me anyway) is no, not at all.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Anonymous Coward]

We use our Crock Pot at least every week. Usually for nothing exotic and only different versions of either roast beef/pork or beef/chicken stew but we switch it up from time to time. My model has options for 6 or 10 hour low and 4 or 6 hour high with a "keep warm" function. For unattended cooking, I ignore the suggested cook times from recipes and just use 10 hour low for everything. I also use the bread machine as well with its timer. Nothing like coming home to fresh bread and a nice beef stew. We make enough at once that I get a lunch and possibly another full meal out of it for later.

I bought a crock pot cook book from a used book store with lots of pretty pictures but this link seems to have about the same types of recipes minus the eye candy.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[dangitman]

When was the last time you used your oven?

What the heck? I use it constantly. it's on right now. Microwaves are only good for vegetables. Fast food sucks to badly, it's more like toxic waste. proper restaurants are expensive. Plus I can make a significantly better meal myself, than all but the most expensive restaurants. And I'd need an Iron Chef's salary to go to those restaurants.

Are you willing to prepare a dish in the morning and put it in the oven before you leave for work?

Absolutely.

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

Sure. if it's a decent oven, it will be well insulated. Plus I have safety switches and fire detectors that will notify my mobile phone in case of a fire.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[zcat_NZ]

I don't know about you guys but I quite regularly leave a frozen chicken and a few potatoes in my oven and set the timer. It's not quite as high-tech as the oven mentioned, but generally I know what time I should be home and if I'm a few hours late I can always warm stuff up again in the microwave.

Every oven I've ever used has had this capability, for the last 20 years at least.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[jbrader]

When was the last time you used your oven?

My wife and I use our oven all the time. I love baking fresh bread, cake, cookies, pies etc. And shes a world class cook who roasts and broils and bakes all the damn time. Just because you don like to make your own food doesn mean no one else does.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Moofie]

Like most tools in the kitchen, microwaves are good at some things, and lousy at other things. Knowing how to cook with a microwave is just as much of an art form as knowing how to use a saute pan.

Can you live wiithout one? Absolutely. You can also live without indoor plumbing.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[GoRK]

I think you are being unduly harsh on the microwave oven. Not only are they inexpensive, they are also very good at heating water FAST and with surprising efficiency. If you don't want to use one or you don't like to use them, that's fine with me, but don't assume the appliance is useless. In fact one of the greatest things that you can do with a microwave oven is to combine it with a traditional oven or convection oven to reduce cooking time and save energy without having to sacrifice anything about the end product. I also don't know where I'd be if I couldn't defrost things with a microwave. Somehow it just seems "better" in many ways to me do defrost a steak in the microwave for 5 minutes than have to leave it sitting out on the counter for 12 hours...

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[iamhassi]

"Some people don't seem to comprehend this fact."

apparently it's a lot more than just "some people".

Try walking down the microwaveable TV-dinner asle at your local grocery store sometime, notice how huge it is compared to the... um, oven cooking asle, or whatever it'd be called.

"When I was growing up, we didn't have a microwave and I don't ever plan on buying one for myself."

did u walk 10 miles in the snow uphills both ways to get to school too?

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[mosch]

oven cooking asle, or whatever it'd be called. I believe that's called every other aisle in the entire store.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[TheAntiCrust]

You know, thats what I thought... but...

Im a bit of a cooking newb but college food has made me get really into it. I went to the grocery store to get actual basic foodstuffs (Im getting tired of boxes: boil water, throw in pot, "enjoy") and they were surprisingly scarce. Everything at the store is in boxes and bags of already-made or just-add-heat sort of things. It was a wee bit disheartening.

P.S. Anyone know a good AND easy recipe for Hollandaise sauce? Im about ready to give up on my eggs benedict dream.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

People trust AMD processors not to burn down their house either, but check these out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2001/09/17/hot_spot/

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=193

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Jim McCoy]

P.S. Anyone know a good AND easy recipe for Hollandaise sauce? Im about ready to give up on my eggs benedict dream.

Since you are talking about a rather unstable emulsion that gets rather finicky if you do not watch the heat (when the egg proteins shrink and squeeze out the butter you are simply screwed...) I would recommend taking a peak at the version in Julia Childs' "The Way To Cook" for the basics. It is also a bit of a cheat, but there are whisks out now that also have built in thermometers so you can watch the temp of the sauce as you are whisking in the butter. Williams-Sanoma carries them and I am sure you can find them online.

If you want to get good at Hollandaise, practice making your own mayo. Hollondaise is basically a trickier version of mayo, but mayo is easier to recover from pilot errors since you are not heating it and so the "oh shit, I just cooked the egg proteins" landmine is removed from the equation.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[G-funk]

Hey, I love my microwave. But it's only for re-heating shit that the fridge has already ruined :)

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[AndroidCat]

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

No, that's why I have a remote-controlled pressure cooker. Besides, the kitchen needs repainting anyway.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[daviddennis]

About 2/3 of the frozen pizzas in that aisle are conventional oven only, and most of the rest are just plain awful when microwaved.

The microwave has its place - for lean cuisine pseudo-Chinese food, there's very little difference between conventional and microwave preparation. But for anything that has bread in it, except when it's specially designed for the microwave, the conventional oven's miles better.

For something like a lasagna, the conventional oven beats the microwave every time. Too bad about the 60 minute cooking time.

D

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[brunes69]

Sometimes. Probably not usually, but with an oven like this, you could in theory prepare a few dishes on the weekend, put them in the bottom of the refrigerator for the rest of the weekend, then put Tuesday's dinner in the oven (set to refrigerate) on Monday night before you go to bed.

Unless the oven also has built-in regridgeration (which some do, but most dont), you would not want to do this. Leaving any kind of meat out that long at room temperature, even if it is going to be subsequently cooked well, is a very, very bad idea.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Gulthek]

um, oven cooking asle, or whatever it'd be called.

Ha! What do you think the rest of the store (generally excepting drinks, cereal, and snacks) is doing?

Ever wonder what people do with all those funky things called vegetables, or did you think that they were ALL for salads?

How about that wide assortment of meats?

Lasagna noodles? Rotini? etc?

Flour is used for more than flour tortillas.

Start watching "Good Eats!" or something dude, because "not knowing how to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck." - Robert Rodriguez

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate defrosting things in the microwave, it doesn't do it evenly and tends to part-cook whatever you are trying to defrost. I do use it when I have to though because I am bad at planning and often forget to defryst things in advance.

If you don't like leaving things on the counter, defrost them in the fridge, it does take longer, but it is safer since it's not being left at room temperature.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[bitmason]

Although it's not the traditional way of doing it, I always make it using a blender. I've always had it come out fine.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3 egg yolks
2 tbs. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper

In a small saucepan, heat butter to bubbling but do not allow it to brown (or melt in microwave). Put egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne into a blender. Cover and turn motor to high. Immediately remove cover and quickly add the hot butter in a thin but steady stream. Once all the
butter has been added, stop the motor. (It should have thickened sufficiently; if not, give it a little more blending but not too much.) Makes 3/4 cup of Hollandaise Sauce, sufficient for about four servings. For larger quantities, use 4 egg yolks, 1 cup of butter, and 4 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Serve immediately or keep warm over, but not touching, boiling water.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[iamhassi]

"I believe that's called every other aisle in the entire store."

you cook your cereal and crackers in the oven? how strange...

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[iamhassi]

"Ha! What do you think the rest of the store (generally excepting drinks, cereal, and snacks) is doing?"

and chips and crackers and cookies and... you know u just named a huge part of the store right? They all have their own asles in most large grocery stores.

"Lasagna noodles? Rotini? etc?"

and how many asles do those have? .... that's what i thought. And I microwave my pastas whenever I can, boils much faster.

""not knowing how to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck." - Robert Rodriguez"

who the hell is rober rodriguez? Some B-rated actor that did a few movies? Why does his opinion count about cooking? Tom Cruise loves Scientology, should I change religions based on his opinion?

course if he was some TV chef i'd simply say he's just a chef with a show that he doesnt want to loose.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[iamhassi]

" About 2/3 of the frozen pizzas in that aisle are conventional oven only"

GOOD POINT!

I knew i used my oven for something rather than storage.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Bing Tsher E]

Another reason it's a non-story is that this is basically just consumer veneer over top of an environmental chamber. And environmental chambers that can chill or heat by remote control are trivial and have been around for years. Where I work one of our bigger environmental chambers is big enough to put a full sized refrigerator in, and at your option chill it to -40 degrees C or 85 degrees C. So it can be a refrigerator big enough to put your oven in, or an oven big enough to put your refrigerator in. And you could operate said oven or refrigerator inside of it, too.

It's also big enough to flash freeze an entire meeting room full of middle managers, but we try not to think about things like that at work...

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Anonymous Coward]

Look guys, none of us have sex or know how to cook. Let's be honest, good food doesn't come from remote access - it comes from hard work - which, as we all know, is anathema unless it involves coding. Want some dinner? - shout up to Mum from the basement.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Eivind]

Also, lots of people who do serious cooking could make use of these on special occasions. For example, on Thanksgiving or Christmas, if you cook a big meal with turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, a pie or two, etc. there is a LOT of scrambling to do to get it all done.

Don't do that. Seriously. The time is *MORE* than ripe for people actually realizing that celebrations like that are about spending time together with people that are important to you first, and any food served a distant second. My mother in law understands that, in principle, but never managed to take the consequence in practice. Result:

She works her ass off, not only hours before the guests come, but as a matter of fact the entire evening. When you're invited to her, you can be sure of 2 things: a) the food will be excellent, and b) she'll spend no more than MAX 1/4th the time actually with her guests, because there's constantly something that could be done.

That's stupid. We go there to visit her -- not to eat well. Yes, doing both is a bonus, but taking away time with your guests, and adding stress to yourself, for the purpose of serving a bit better food is silly. It's putting the carriage before the horse.

Me, when I throw a party with dinner, I make sure that I select dishes that can be prepared before the guests arrive, with my guests there I want to spend time with them, not time in the kitchen beyond the minimum that is required to actually serve the food/pour the wine etc.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[shadwstalkr]

And third, who would really benefit from an oven like this?

Commercial bakeries use programmable ovens that can both refrigerate and cook. They can put dough in the oven in the afternoon, then overnight the oven warms up a little so the dough can rise in perfect conditions, then the oven heats up so the goods are finished when the baker comes in in the morning. Other large scale food factories probably use programmable ovens too.

This would make it easier to administrate a whole shop of programmable ovens, and you could avoid losing a whole day's work if something goes wrong during the night. The price makes it clear that these aren't meant for casual home use.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[GoRK]

Well, there are some microwaves that are better at defrosting evenly than others in my experience, but in any case, another great way to defrost things is to put them on what is essentially a big huge heatsink. They sell these things for a whole lot of money as some kind of "magic defroster" plate, but in reality all they are is a big hunk of steel coated with teflon,. You can use any large nonstick skillet to get the same effect. They work best for defrosting meats but anything that has a large flat surface to sit down on the metal will also work. To accelerate the process, put the defrosting skillet into a larger pan with water in it. The bigger the heatsink the faster the thaw.

Re:Thank you Roland for the Non-Story

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't cook cereal and crackers at all, generally. But if you were (say, to melt cheese on crackers, you'd probably use a toaster oven, conventional oven, or broiler.)

But you're being obtuse. The produce section of most grocery stories is the single largest part of the store. It, combined with the meat aisle (+ possibly butcher and deli, + possibly a fish monger), dairy aisle, baking aisle, etc., makes up the vast majority of the store. And the frozen foods are not all microwaveable foods. The grocery store around the corner from my house has three (six?) huge aisles of frozen food, which is a lot IME, but most of that food, even the junk food like TV dinners, is cookable in a conventional oven or on a stovetop as well as in a microwave. The rest is not intended for the microwave at all (frozen fish, frozen burgers, most frozen pizzas).

If you're going to cook from raw ingredients, chances are you'll use a stove, oven or grill, unless you want your food to taste like soggy shit. Which I guess is the appeal of microwaves ;) Microwaves are OK for reheating food, depending on the food, but it almost always comes out worse than making the effort to cook it (or reheat it) properly.

one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

now if this overn could only walk to me while i am sitting on my computer and feed me, so that I do not have to take my hands off my keyboard, that would be great.

Re:one more thing

[arbitraryaardvark]

Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Ow!

Re:one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Earl Grey? More like Earl Gay!

I'm sorry but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, they're only available in North America, but I bet there soon will be distributors in other parts of the world.

I bet there won't. I think the US is one of the few places where a market for such a device could possibly exist.

I don't know another place where a lazy and wasteful enough mentality exists to even come up with this thing.

Yeah, yeah. /flamebait, but true

Re:I'm sorry but..

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet there won't. I think the US is one of the few places where a market for such a device could possibly exist.

I don't know another place where a lazy and wasteful enough mentality exists to even come up with this thing.

Actually, I expected the Japanese to have them first.

Re:I'm sorry but..

[dangitman]

There are fast food restaurants in nearly every country on earth. This is much less lazy than fast food - you still have to prepare your food. So, if you are correct, why are there fast food restaurants outside the US?

What could possibly be lazier than going to a "drive-thru" and buying a substance that doesn't even resemble food, and eating it in the car?

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowolf cluster of... Oh, fuck it.

Re:Imagine...

[jftitan]

No no no... its "Can it run linux?"

Great idea...

[Champaign]

Turn your oven on and leave it on while you're away on the road... I hope these things come with mega safety features...

I don't even leave pots boiling when I'm in the shower. In my opinion cooking should be supervised.

Re:Great idea...

[B3ryllium]

I think the point of the article passed you by - you can monitor and change the oven's settings remotely. You can SEE if your turkey dinner is about to turn into Chernobyl Jr., and deactivate the oven before it causes a mess.

Re:Great idea...

[DrJimbo]

... I hope these things come with mega safety features...

Not to worry ... it's from NASA.

under the hood

[thesupermikey]

Did anyone else see the headline and thing the link was going to teach us how to look dinner on the engine block?

Re:under the hood

[Urza9814]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of cooking roadkill, but yea, this is not what I expected either :)

Re:under the hood

[ozmanjusri]

Did anyone else see the headline and thing the link was going to teach us how to look dinner on the engine block?

Well, I did. I used to have a job that meant I'd regularly be driving from between minesites in the north of Western Australia. I'd always use the heat from the exhaust manifold of whatever car I was driving to heat up pies and other food.

The turbo shroud on a Holden Rodeo (not sure what the US equivalent is - probably an Isuzu) was just the right size to hold a pie or foil-wrapped meal. Landcruisers were good for the heat, but had no secure area for the food - I lost a couple of meals until I worked out how to wire it them place properly.

It wasn't an original idea of mine either - Manifold Destiny has been around for years. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375751408/qid=90 4512153/sr=1-1/002-8127825-7704826?n=283155

Re:under the hood

[Chuqmystr]

Oh yeah, visions of late 70's early 80's TV shows proclaiming pot roast ala plenum chamber did come rushing to mind. (And yes, I do realize the plenum is no place to heat your grub, it just sounded good. So there. Meh.) -C

Re:under the hood

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought, was that it was some examination of the benefits/hazards of eating roadkill.

Re:under the hood

[affenmann]

Actually, I thought they were talking about cooking roadkill... Phew.

Re:under the hood

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought was that it was (in summertime) the road is hot enough to fry an egg...

Re:under the hood

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was about roadkill steaks or something.

Re:under the hood

[seven of five]

oh yeah.

from the Simpsons:
Chief Wiggum: Engine block eggs! How do you like yours, Lou?
Lou: Easy Over, there, Chief....

Re:under the hood

[DragonChief]

I read the headline and thought it was an article about cooking road kill ! - very disappointing.

It's a fridge too

[Zouden]

The article mentions the 'oven' has refridgeration capability - this means it can keep your uncooked food somewhat fresh while you're at work, and when you know you're going to be home soon you can instruct the device to switch into 'oven' mode.

Pretty clever, I think, although I almost never use the oven when I'm cooking dinner - it's all saucepans and frypans. How often do most people cook roasts?

Re:It's a fridge too

[boingo82]

I don't make roasts either, but it sure would be nice to come home to piping hot lasagna without having to spend 2 hours making it after working the previous 8.

Of course, beyond lasagna, rolls, and breads, everything we make is in the saute pan or the wok.

Re:It's a fridge too

[Uber Banker in China]

Make a massive lasagne chill/freeze the remains and microwave/grill or oven it when you get home. Works great for homemade soups too.

But roasts are great: roast chicken or duck just need salt/pepper seasoning, add some chilli flakes or honey for a different flavour. Roast pork and beef are lovely but some more effort for the sauce (apple with pork is good, some red wine with the roast juices cooked up on the stove for 15 minutes). Add herbs to taste. Mmmm.

Re:It's a fridge too

[Vengeance]

A very nice Roast Chicken:

Preheat oven to 500

Salt and pepper the bird.
Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the skin and put the two halves into the cavity.
Spread a mashed-together mixture of olive oil, butter, chopped rosemary and chopped thyme on and in the bird.
Put it in the oven and wait until it's done, roughly 45 minutes for a bird that isn't too big.

MAN that's good. Had it Sunday night.

Don't throw out the carcasse, freeze it and make stock from it when you have enough leftover chicken.

Re:It's a fridge too

[Gulthek]

Rookie mistake: you forgot to brine the bird.

I already have one

[portforward]

It's called a Crock pot. Ribs, soup, chili, stew, chicken, it beats other types of cooking hands down. Set it in the morning, it is done when I get home. The food doesn't get burnt. You can get one for less than $40. What is the upside of this oven?

Re:I already have one

[adrianmonk]

It's called a Crock pot. [ ...] What is the upside of this oven?

It can be used to cook things that don't have the consistency of soup or stew. It cooks by convection and radiation rather than by boiling. And you can boil things in an oven as well, so this thing seems a lot more versatile.

Re:I already have one

[Bad D.N.A.]

Your right. I love my Crock. But the Crock is designed for cooking meals in a liquid. If you need to cook something dry then the Crock is not the best tool. For example if I needed to cook a prime rib... now i could do it in a crock, but it would have a very different flavor than if I cooked it dry. Professional kitchens always (as far as I know) cook the prime rib in an "oven", at low temperatures, with some humidity. The result is, as we all know, awsome. The Crock does not deliver the same flavor.

Re:I already have one

[Firehed]

It's got "smart" in the product title. Can you monitor your crockpot from across the country? Is it a smart crockpot? Could it have it's own IP address? Didn't think so.

That's what I love about being American. We can have all of our appliances be smart and live more comfortably knowing that most of us are all borderline-braindead.

Of course I can already see the lawsuits about this...it'd be nice to know a thief can burn down your house after nabbing your cell. Oooooh, not so smart anymore, are you, oven?

Re:I already have one

[kfg]

. . .if I needed to cook a prime rib. . .

Be honest now, when was the last time you needed to cook a prime rib? From work?

Isn't it sometimes better just to make a more reasonbable choice? Maybe a nice bread and cheese or something?

KFG

Re:I already have one

[Bad D.N.A.]

I apologize in advance but any chance you are German? It just sounds suspiciously like abendbrot

Re:I already have one

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that this changes your point, but you typically cook prime rib at 350-375 for 8-12 minutes a pound, depending on desired rareness. No need for low temp or humidity.

But yes, it would taste much different than a crockpot.

Re:I already have one

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, that was funny :)

Re:I already have one

[kfg]

Nope. Born in Manhatten to a Son of the American Revolution and a third gen Russian.

Adenbrot makes a lot of sense though, although I follow this variation, a large breakfast followed by a lot of smaller meals, "snacks" if you will, throughout the day as I bloody well feel I need 'em. The whole three meals a day thing is a "tradition" that comes out of factory work; and I'm not a factory worker.

This fridge/oven thing really does sound like a very expensive TV dinner cooker to me and I really don't get it. Americans have some of the most peculiar ideas about eating.

KFG

Re:I already have one

[portforward]

My wife has actually baked bread in the crock pot, and it tasted just like normal home made bread. Yes I have an oven also, and I know that there are times when an oven is appropriate. But I like to be home when it is operating.

Roland does it again :)

[r.jimenezz]

It didn't took long... After Taco himself slapped Mr. Piquepaille on the wrist for submitting stories that link back to his blog, a few posts came by which suprisingly had no blog link. Well, the post on ZDNet's Emerging Technologies is by our dear Roland, no less.

But hey, blame site operators for whining, then being fooled this easily.

Kinda interesting anyway, Roland :)

Big Deal

[apenzott]

As a roadie, I have been doing this for years already.

For some great recipies, check out Manifold Destiny for some delicious and low-tech ways (aluminum foil, meat, vegetables, and possibly some fish to grill) to prepare some great meals. The best part is that your final destination does not have to be home. If planned properly, a picnic at a rest stop and no dishes to cleanup when done will have you be the envy of your fellow passengers.

Re:Big Deal

[Zakabog]

Because using an engine block as a portable grill is the same thing as an internet ready double oven that keeps your food refrigerated till you want it cooked.

Re:Big Deal

[Vegeta99]

Well, I live in PA, so for about 5 months out of the year, it's chilly enough to throw the shit in the trunk for the ride to work, keep it in there frozen all day, and strap it to my exhaust for the ride home :p

Woah

[geekdom04]

What if there is a bug in the system? This is one thing I wouldn't want to take a risk on failing.

$699 for the oven and...

[poptones]

$8000.00 to cover the cost of the manufacturer's liability insurance.

Thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for all you assholes complaining about meta-garbage concerning the link, nofollow, the poster, the editor, and the glory of your own buttons, I could have used these pi minutes for something constructive.

Instead, I clicked on the thread.

Whining fucking maggots.

Smart vs Accessible

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

These ovens don't seem very smart, just accessible. I would call them smart if they were able to cook food -- detecting when it's ready -- without any human intervention.

Re:Smart vs Accessible

[Anonymous Coward]

you call an oven with a pricetag like that accessable?

New Crime?

[BigColby]

Yes! Now I can fill my arsonist tendencies by simply hacking into someone's oven and overheating it! Or perhaps I'll simply get them back for getting that raise before me by burning their turkey on Thanksgiving...beats the heck out of ordering 20 pizzas...they'll never catch me

Excellent! Its now only a matter of time...

[AmazingRuss]

...until I will be able to aquire my life time consumer electronic dream:
The web enabled toilet paper roll!

YES!

But how does the food get into the oven?

[scolby]

Obviously, you have to defrost the meat or whatever before it goes into the oven. But you don't want to put in the oven to defrost before you leave for an eight hour day at work and then turn on the oven remotely at 4, because that would just be gross (not to mention the lack of seasonings). So where's the robot that we can control remotely to take the defrosted food out of the fridge, season it, and put it in the oven?

BSD

[42Penguins]

We just had a story today about NetBSD finally being used to control a toaster, ethernet/serial and all. Sure, ovens have a tad more features and controls than a 2-slice, but an electric stove can be thought of as basically a very large toaster, right? Who's up for the challenge?

Re:BSD

[rts008]

How 'bout when the toaster is running linux- on RAID:
(http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/01/raid_on_ry e/)

If I am going to spend $8000 on a ovenfridge, then I want to be able to "call it up" and have it bring the cold beer and hot pizza to me, otherwise not interested.

Re:BSD

[42Penguins]

But that toaster does NOT function as a toaster, just a neat case-mod. I'm talking about the one with a small board that actually controls the elements and timer on the toaster. That's the only way it would be practical for the whole dinner-from-afar thing.
http://www.embeddedarm.com/news/netbsd_toaster.htm

Re:Excellent! Its now only a matter of time...

[eingram]

I can't even begin to imagine how this works. But I'll try..

You're sitting on the toilet with your iBook in your lap. You open up Firefox and connect to tp1.domain.com and are prompted for a username and password. After entering the username and password, you see a field called "sheets" where you type in the number 6, and then you click the check-box labeled "auto cut". You click submit and look ever at the toilet paper and it dispenses 6 sheets and cuts them free.

Once you're done wiping, you check the screen for stats on sheets used, sheets remaining, average sheets per session, per day, per week, etc.

Yes. Totally awesome.

Props to Roland

[Anonymous Coward]

Since everyone pisses and moans aout Roland, I figure some recognition is due. Thanks for posting a real article with real content that doesn't link directly to your blog.

Re:Props to Roland

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, Roland.

World's Fair

[Hao Wu]

They used to show off these "futuristic" concepts in the 1950s and 60s... robots doing your house chores and stuff.

I still don't have a dishwasher.

Article is Total Fraud, misleading title

[Marko DeBeeste]

Not a word bout hows to cook a possum flattened on the the interstate

Real cooking from under the hood of a car

[strredwolf]

That's not engine block cooking! Get a copy of "Manifold Destiny" from a bookseller.

What I'm waiting for...

[Anonymous Coward]

is fully automated McDonald's-like restaraunts.

(Like McSwineys in the Stainless Steel Rat books.)

Shoot for the Moon not the Moonpie

[mrmeval]

A couple of Thermotron http://www.thermotron.com/ ovens,
some Omega controls http://www.omega.com/
all hooked up by their industry standard ethernet interface http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/i to_doc/ethernet.htm
to a PC http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/pc.htm
and you have the same thing for less money.

Tell NASA to shoot for the moon NOT the moonpie!

This thing has built-in spyware

[Animats]

For starters, the link to Roland the Plogger's blog entry on zdnet didn't get a "nofollow" tag, and that page, in turn, has multiple links to his Plogger sites. So he's using Slashdot for "search engine optimization" again. Sigh.

As for the device itself, the manufacturer's link is this. It's just an oven with refrigeration capability and remote control. Here's the user manual (.pdf). With an EULA, no less.

Not only does this oven have an EULA. It has spyware. It phones home to the manufacturer.

• TMIO, LC reserves the right to collect usage information regarding your use of the software and the Appliance. You expressly consent to the collection of such usage data by TMIO, LC for purposes including, but not limited to resolving issues, generating upgrades, providing service and repairs, and or transmission to third-parties in connection with an unresolved insurance claim or other legal proceeding. The usage data may include, but need not be limited to, frequency of use, temperatures, length of usage, features used, commands used, and the relevant information regarding your use of the software and/or appliance. This data may be collected via service call, upgrade installation, remotely via an Internet connection or via any other communications employed by the appliance and TMIO, LLC.

Now that's a bit much for a home appliance.

Why this thing took ten years and NASA help to bring to market is a puzzle. It's less complicated than a high end washing machine. And far more expensive. This thing ought to be the size of a microwave oven and cost under $300.

Re:This thing has built-in spyware

[1u3hr]

For starters, the link to Roland the Plogger's blog entry on zdnet didn't get a "nofollow" tag, and that page, in turn, has multiple links to his Plogger sites. So he's using Slashdot for "search engine optimization" again. Sigh.

That's because the no-follow link is given to the "submmitter" link, his website, But he sneakily links to his ZDnet blog in the story, without any notice that it's his site. And when you go there, you find Roland's trademarked warmed-over crap pasted from ther sites about this joke technology that "won awards in 2003", but will never be used in real life.

Much fuss is made of the remote control aspect, which is trivial. What would be more interesting is the combination of refrigerator and oven. On the face of it, that sounds incredibly wasteful and inefficient, perhaps it's not, maybe they use superlightweight insulation. That might actually have been interesting.

Putting out fires from the road?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they include a fire extinguisher I can also control from the road, I think I'll pass, thanks.

Re:Putting out fires from the road?

[qzulla]

Do you have a fire extinguisher you can operate manually in your kitchen right now?

I didn't think do.

qz

For $8600

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'll order take out and still come out ahead.

And I don't trust a crock pot to go unattended. Having a full blown oven going with nobody to watch it is asking to come home to a smouldering ruin.

Re:For $8600

[dangitman]

How do you come out ahead with the take-away food, when you will probably end up on life-support someday because of it? I think the medical bills would be more than $10,000. Not to mention the pleasure of eating good food compared to take-away crap.

Re:For $8600

[dbcad7]

Exactly ... You can get 2000 fast food meals at $4.30 each or 1000 nicer meals for $8.60 .. or possibly have 250 meals with a date at $34.40
(disclaimers-- yeah I know were talking about slashdot readers -- and yeah I know 34 bucks a bit cheap.. but it's an imaginary woman.. work with me)

To What Purpose?

[VonSkippy]

I live as hectic as life as anyone, but can see absolutely no purpose to this device. If I don't have time to cook, or can't wait to eat, I go to a restaurant. Otherwise, my cooking (like a nice dinner) is either planned in advance, or it's simple and done in a microwave. Even if they cost the same as a existing oven, who could possible find this device useful (and why)?

Automate the dryer to ironing to closet/dresser process, now that would be useful.

Re:To What Purpose?

[m50d]

Planned in advance is fine. It would be useful for cooking a meal to be ready for when one arrives home from work.

Email from hackers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Oven Owner,

Unless you transfer $10 000 by 13 00 GMT, we will turn you oven temperature up and destroy your lovely roast.

We will also turn off your refrigerator and force you to drink warm beer.

Looking forward to your reply,

BigByter, script kiddie esq.

Re:Email from hackers...

[AndroidCat]

And now you won't have to phone someone to ask if their refrigerator is running.

From the "solution looking for a problem" dept.

[ScrewMaster]

I could do pretty much the same thing with a PC, a broadband connection, some 50 amp P&B solid-states and a pair of thermocouples. Matter of fact, if any of you would be willing to fork over eight grand I'd be happy to get right to work on it. For an extra grand, I'll throw in a CCD imager so you can watch your pot roast burn up, I mean, cook thoroughly, while you're on the way home from work.

And no, I didn't read the article but it just sounds kinda silly.

Re:From the "solution looking for a problem" dept.

[Detritus]

And no, I didn't read the article...

Obviously.

Re:From the "solution looking for a problem" dept.

[ScrewMaster]

Hey! Since when did an informed opinion become a requirement for posting on Slashdot?

Silly title

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cooking Dinner From the Road" -- there I was thinking the item would be about eating roadkill...

oven use

[SpectralDesign]

Here at my home, we do use the oven fairly often, but rarely for dinner -- as with you it's usually a saucepan/frypan/ and/or pot when I'm making dinner. I only do roasts for special occasions, really. However Friday night here is pizza night, and I'll typically make my own from scratch (as opposed to Digiorno or $30- delivery) so, again, the $9.000- "oven" would be useless...

(Although, at that price-tag, shouldn't it relieve me of makeing the dough and pizza too?!?)

Cheaper option

[ozbird]

Once again, NASA comes up with the high cost, over-engineered solution to a simple problem...

1. Wrap food carefully, and completely, in foil.
2. Place food parcel carefully on engine block; secure with wire if necessary.
3. Drive home.

For the average commuter, your dinner is now cooked.

Did anyone else think Road Kill from the title?

[WoTG]

Heh... I thought that this was going to be story about either road kill meals or some sort of cooking in the engine compartment of a car. Too bad it wasn't, an $8000 dollar oven with a timer isn't much interest to me.

Re:Did anyone else think Road Kill from the title?

[whitehatlurker]

Yes. What else would "Dinner From the Road" mean anyway?

Re:Did anyone else think Road Kill from the title?

[AndroidCat]

Yep, good old Manifold Destiny.

Re:Did anyone else think Road Kill from the title?

[Rxke]

Yes, I seriously expected some scientist type of guy trying to live off the road. (expect Belgians to come up with the worst puns...) Thought it would involve taking samples and discussions about bacteria, heavy-metals and such.

Re:Did anyone else think Road Kill from the title?

[gd23ka]

It was the first thing that came to my mind. Actually I thought of an oven on wheels smart enough to run little animals over and then cook them as it made its way home but then my left brain kicked in, my eyes focused again and I temporarily entered the reality you obviously prefer (because you spend so much time in it) so I could tell you about it.

complete with

[Belseth]

A hot line to the local fire department. Those 600 minute instead of 60 minute typos can cause the occational fire.

How dare you impugn Roland's good name, sir?!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you keep doing it he may decide to pay CmdTaco and Zonk less for favouring his /vertisements and then...erm...wait...

Old News

[dangitman]

I've been cooking on the road for years. You just wrap your food in aluminium foil, strap it to the car's exhaust or engine. By the time you get where you are going, you have a lovely grilled meal. And it doesn't consume any electricity or extra energy other than what you normally use running your car.

That's weird...

[Zakabog]

This oven has a fridge as well but no internet, yet it costs under $2,000, and I'm sure it can't cost $6,000 to add the remote management. Also, who has internet in their kitchen? Ok, I know if you're rich enough to buy the oven, and are having a new house built, you'll most likely have network cables running through all the walls (even in the kitchen.) But how many people have that? For over $8000 (the cost of 5 or 6 regular double ovens, or that many refrigerated cooking ranges) you'd think the thing would be wireless.

Re:That's weird...

[MrLizardo]

While I agree that this thing is overpriced, lots of people have Internet access in their kitchens. It's called "wireless" networking.

Re:That's weird...

[Anonymous Coward]

So someone's going to put a wireless access point in their kitchen just to hook it up to their stoves? The stove should have built in wireless, no one who is going to buy the stove is going to have this ugly access point in their kitchen (I've installed kitchens for the kind of people who can easily afford 9 of these ovens and none of them would want an access point in the kitchen.) The stove I linked to is around $1,500 or so, and they're releasing a model that does everything this oven does and it uses the electrical lines to connect to the network. I don't know if this oven uses the same thing, if not, well they should for the price they're asking for.

Re:That's weird...

[mikiN]

Yeah but I don't want to be around when someone cracks the WEP and sets things up for the house to go woosh.

cheaper solution

[flogic42]

The better solution is to just buy food that only takes 5 minutes to cook. Seriously.

And now from the been there, done that department-

[Anonymous Coward]

Whirlpool announced the Polara oven that does the same thing and is controlled via the internet about 2.5 years ago (with a list price of just under $1400). Jesh, talk about "leading edge" technology...

TFA has no business requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA "Growing tired of fast food, he was determined to bring the cooking back into his kitchen."

So, how exactly is microwaving a TV dinner better than Fast Food?

How long until...

[Nordberg]

How long until someone finds a vulnerability in this, hacks in and sets it to self-cleaning mode on your dinner. "Nooooooo!!! My kielbasa!!!!". The internet will be plagued by the new R04sT3r.B worm.

Already been done...

[poptones]

Everything old is new again

My Favourite Feature

[ringmaster_j]

From http://www.tmio.com/products/features.shtml/ :

Sabbath & Sabbath Plus Modes allow up to three days advance programming, delivering fresher meals during the Sabbath and Holidays.

Now that's convenient! I can cook my blintzes and challa up to three days in advance! No more disobeying G-d by working on the Sabbath for me !

I can do better.

[blaksaga]

$8,699????

I could take a conventional oven, rig it to a computer, and build a web application to control it via textmsg-to-email-to-web-application-to-oven or from the internet itself.

A range is what? Less than $1000 and the computer you would need could probably be picked up at somebody's garage sale. Then just throw linux on it, turn it into a web server, and you're good to go.

It would be kind of cool though to have a message sent to your cell phone if you accidentally left the oven on and then could tell it to shut off. That is one thing that people are always thinking: Did I leave the oven on? Of course the downside would be that you'd always be thinking: I hope my "smart"-oven doesn't turn itself on and burn my house down.

The Japanese are way ahead

[noidentity]

I just read an article today about how "Instant noodle is one of advanced technology of Japan". Good read.

This is neat but...

[Greg_D]

... anyone who can afford a stove like this can afford a personal chef or catering service to cook all their stuff for them.

Besides, about the only complete meal you could cook in that thing is either a microwave dinner or a casserole, and there's only so much spaghetti pie and lasagna you can eat before you start strangling Italians and charging at all things red.

It's just an oven...

[MadTinfoilHatter]

...whew. My first associations from the headline involved roadkills.

Not new technology

[korea]

They have commercials for similar products in Korea.

http://home-automation.org/Complete_Systems/ Other such things.

Burning Dinner from the Road

[bitspotter]

Is anybody else uncomfortable with the idea of buggy computers and insecure networks controlling the operations of appliances that are known to be fire hazards?

I'd much rather be home to monitor the operation of my cooking, frankly. Unless I can use one of those smellometer devices with my cell phone to tell whether or not something's burning. :)

The other irony is if we have all these mobile devices that make it unnecessary to be in the office, why wouldn't I just stay home with my oven in the first place?

Of course the reality is that for most people, mobile devices are actually excuses not to stay home.

Re:Burning Dinner from the Road

[boomfart]

I'd be more impressed if they invented a device that did my work for me so I could be home to cook my own dinner!

Re:Burning Dinner from the Road

[bitspotter]

If those are your priorities, sounds like you're in the wrong business. Perhaps you should be a chef! :)

On behalf of hackers everywhere...

[SuperKendall]

...I would like to thank future buyers of this over for allowing the hacking community at large to try cooking leftover turkey at 600 degrees for eight hours in someone else's oven just to see what happens.

The Upside (duh)

[Anonymous Coward]

"The upside" is that your food doesn't turn into a swampy mess that tastes like over-boiled ass. Crock-pots - ewwwwwww.

Just get takeaway

[cheekyboy]

Man if you can afford $9000 for an oven, then why bother

Go out to a funky cafe/resteraunt, and spend that $16 on a well made pizza/pasta/stake and 3 beers.

No wonder it takes $500million to launch a shuttle.

Re:Just get takeaway

[Anonymous Coward]

$16 on a well made pizza/pasta/stake and 3 beers

You've obviously never been to New York.

Re:Just get takeaway

[hey!]

Man if you can afford $9000 for an oven, then why bother ...
Go out to a funky cafe/resteraunt, and spend that $16 on a well made pizza/pasta/stake and 3 beers.

You don't understand the term conspicuous consumption do you? You're supposed to spend 9K on the oven, then go the funky cafe. Then you tell your companion "Excuse me for a moment," pull out your blackberry and do a few taps, casually explaining off hand that you're telling the oven to put the Kobe steaks back into the fridge and not to decant the 1855 Château Latour.

Re:Just get takeaway

[Anonymous Coward]

Man if you can afford $9000 for an oven, then why bother

Go out to a funky cafe/resteraunt, and spend that $16 on a well made pizza/pasta/stake and 3 beers.

For $9000 I could go to Mexico, marry a cute girl,
who would gladly cook real food.

But I suppose that would be against the geek code.

Re:Just get takeaway

[drooling-dog]

Yes, but assuming $4 per home-cooked dinner, this oven pays for itself after only 750 meals. A regular oven would take nearly 40 meals to do that.

Re:Just get takeaway

[Eivind]

Better even: For those 5 times a month (tops!) when you'd use this: hire a chef to go to your house and prepare a delicious meal for the time when you arrive.

He doesn't even need to be a good cook, this device can only bake afterall, so anything he could do over turning a single switch at the rigth time would be a pure bonus.

Where I live, you cam rent a good cook, at your home for about $40/hour, so if he spends 2 hours making you dinner, you could have 100 dinners before you'd break even. And here's a hint: a meal that a good cook spent 2 hours preparing for you, is going to compare *VERY* favourably to whatever this thing has baked.

If you're willing to settle for a young trainee attending the local cook-school (they generally work their balls off, because they a) want to proove themselves and b) are overjoyed to be allowed to *really* cook and not just work in some pizza-shop or whatever) you can even have help for $15/hour, and the resulting meal will still kick any stupid internet-ovens butt.

But it does go to his blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the links! Taco/Zonk/etc. didn't even put a nofollow tag in this time. They're in cahoots.

Roland saved his name by not linking to his blog for a while then once the fuhor died down, he started up the same shit again.

The guy is a fucking spamming disgrace.

PARENT IS NOT TROLL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Taco lied when he said all links were going to get nofollows. Look what happened here. Roland is linking to his blog again and Taco renegged on his promise.

A troll you say? More like you can't handle the truth and don't have the balls to make a reply.

Still won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

How's this gonna get the food from the store into my oven?

Need more info

[dolmen.fr]

Is there a webcam available?
What is the interest of switching on the oven if you are not sure what is inside?
How is a hot meal useful if it is burned because you could not switch off the oven before it's too late?

Would you let your meat for a whole day in the oven at normal temperature? A fridge feature would be useful to keep the oven content at a conservation temperature until you decide to cook it.

Well, one more time I think this is just a gadget at a price only for people who don't cook themselves.

It's safe -- it's Microsoft

[1u3hr]

I can fill my arsonist tendencies by simply hacking into someone's oven and overheating it!

Don't worry -- it's run by Microsoft software, so you know it'll be invulnerable to evil hacking scum.

Microsoft Consumer Experience
TMIO is a Microsoft "MCX" (Microsoft Consumer Experience)® partner. This means we are part of the overall plan Microsoft has for a living experience with their products. Our applications include Microsoft's .NET (pronounced, "dot net") platform for hand held devices, Windows Explorer for the web browser, and Microsoft Media Center for controlling "My Oven" anywhere inside your home.

PS -- odd how Roland linked to his own blog on ZDnet, recycling the NASA story, without bothering to reference the manufacturer's site. An oversight, I guess.

YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Roland The SpamSlinger strikes again!

Road Kill?

[DaSwing]

Was it only me who thought that the headline meant cooking animals that been killed by cars?

Re:Road Kill?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I thought that too. And you're not the first person to comment on it either.

hollandaise

[celjabba]

eggs
butter (about same weight as eggs)(real butter, not cooking butter or substitute)
water
salt, pepper
pepper, cayenne, (lemon juice for some taste).
.
melt butter in pan, low heat, till liquid and golden. take out whatever is floating, put aside to cool down a little.
put egg's yellow in metallic pan, add water (one soupspoon per egg).
whip till more or less homogenous
start cooking, low heat (70-80 C)
(If unsure or using electrical heating, use a 'bain-marie', take a bigger pan, half-filled with water. heat water to small bubble state, put egg pan in it. )

Secret is to never stop whipping, using a 8 move .
(if t goes to high and eggs start to coagulate, take out of heat, add some crushed ice, rewhip, restart.)
whip till you can see the shape made by the whip stay , and the bottom of the pan through it
take out of fire, add salt and pepper, start adding (luke)warm butter while still whipping. eventually, and especially if making lots of it, put back on low fire to keep it warm.
add whatever addon you need (lemon juice and cayenne usually)
(adding crushed tomatoes give sauce aurore, adding cream give sauce mousseline)

serve warm.

bon appetit

(sorry for clumsy english ... )

celjabba

I haven't noticed anyone pointing this out:

[Vengeance]

I'm no professional chef, but I really like to cook. In fact I've been cooking more than ever since I remodelled my kitchen at the end of '05. Naturally, while deciding what to do for the kitchen, my wife and I watched a number of TV shows on the subject.

We saw ovens much like this, and I always have several problems with the concept. First and foremost: Most oven cooking calls for a preheated oven, and foods generally turn out best if they are given a chance to warm up to room temperature before putting them in to cook. So frankly, this would be 10 thousand dollars spent on an item of limited utility. I don't mind having the remote control, because that would allow me to preheat the thing before I get home from work. But I sure don't want my bread dough sitting in the oven as it does so!

Besides, I got a 36" commercial-style range, with two 22K BTU burners, one 18K BTU burner, one 9K BTU simmer-burner, a charbroiler, an oven that will hold full size commercial bun pans, and a 30K BTU ceramic broiler all for roughly half the price of this device. I guess I'll bite the bullet and turn the knob when I want it hot.

Re:I haven't noticed anyone pointing this out:

[Anonymous Coward]

So no Clippy for Cooks for you?

Higher and higher

[catahoula10]

Unsupervised Stoves. The insurance companies will just love this. Another excuse to rates higher.

Re:Higher and higher

[HairyCanary]

Beat me to it. Well, kinda. The insurance aspect doesn't bother me, but I can say for sure that I would not be comfortable remote-starting cooking appliances with nobody at home in case it should start something on fire.

And besides, this just seems like a great way to add complication to my already complicated, busy life. I'd rather slow down a bit, not speed up.

Dinner from the road

[lylum]

When I read the title it made me think that slashdot now features an Ohio cookbook. (In Ohio you are allowed to take home your roadkill...)

New urban myth created!

[AndroidCat]

Did you hear the one about the guy to messaged home to tell the oven to start cooking the turkey, and the oven routed the fetch turkey command not to the handybot, but to the baby-care bot instead due to a firmware error? Oh, and it evenually turned out the guy was on crackberry.

I know it's true because I read it on a blog of a blog somewhere.

Re:Excellent! Its now only a matter of time...

[smoker2]

Why use sheets ? Just get one of those shoe polishers installed, set to stun and switch on !

6000 RPM of pure cleaning power.

(You might need to get an anti-splash screen installed too)

Neat!

[Litterbox]

But as usual another device for the filthy rich! How about frozen food in a crockpot and just using X10 for $49? At this price it could even include the price of the food itself.

A web-enabled oven is all well and good...

[Bhalash]

...but will it run Firefox?

Why so expensive?

[Simonetta]

I'm finding it hard to understand the cost factor here. We have an oven with an electric heating element. Say $200-$300 at any appliance store. Then there is a couple of high-current MOSFET controllers that use a voltage to control the amount of current that goes to the oven's heating elements. Three or four at $20 each for high-quality devices. Then there is a modem to connect to the Internet Service provider through the home dial-up. Say $50. And a microcontroller interface board to run and keep track of everything. Another $50. Some custom programming for the prototype and a few debugging hours. Let's give that $100. Don't quibble about the value of your software worth and the price of programming in general. This is amortized over the first 100 units or so. $100 for programming per unit is generous for this model.

    So we have an internet-enabled 'smart oven' for $600 or so. So where does this $8500 price tag come from?

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, because it's the latest fancy toy.

There's also the little detail that MOSFETs don't play well with AC current, which oven heating elements usually run on. ;)

Re:Why so expensive?

[Detritus]

It looks much larger and better built than the generic electric range/oven at your local discount store. Plus, you are forgetting the refrigeration systems and the engineering needed to make two refrigerator/oven units.

Re:Why so expensive?

[arminw]

.....MOSFETs don't play well with AC current.....

A simple, inexpensive diode bridge will take care of that easily. There are other considerations that anyone building a device must deal with. A remote controlled oven or any other device possibly could do real physical damage upon malfunction for whatever reasons. Extensive testing can run up quite an R&D bill. This is where computer manufacturers and software vendors usually cut corners. When your Windows system crashes, you might lose some work, but you'll still be unhurt. (mostly anyway -- unless you get so mad you have a stroke)

A simple timer will do most of what the average person would use such an oven for anyway. Put the (whatever) into the oven in the morning and have the dinner baked when you come home in the evening.

Seriously shhhh!

[tod_miller]

That was evil.

I have oft thought to find someone with OCD and try and implant new and amusing compulsions in them.

My favourite bizzare idea was 'did I wipe properly?'

omg, that would so pwn!

please type the word in this image: glossed
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org

Already obsolete

[Flying pig]

Have you ever seen a Japanese advanced toilet? Washes, direction dependent on gender, blow dries, by now probably dispenses talcum powder. The worst of it is, I find myself thinking seriously about installing a couple just to blow the minds of visitors. If only plumbers in our area had yet reached the 20th Century.

Coffee makers

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried a programmable coffee maker where it grinds it right before it makes it? Just curious.

seems back assward

[louden obscure]

HUH? so what was all that telecommuting buzz all about where you'd already be home with direct access to the kitchen?

Actually, no...

[artemis67]

I thought the article was going to be about sampling some of the many roadkill delicacies, such as Le Skunk Du Jour...

NASA spent all that time and effort...

[Anonymous Coward]

...developing a remotely-controllable oven.

The Russians just ate a pencil.

Damn - I was expecting better

[Ralph Spoilsport]

When I saw the headline "Cooking Dinner from the Road" I thought it was going to be a Roadkill Cookbook - you know - stuff like Mashed Squirrel, or Kung Pow Kitty, or Pigeon puree....

But nooooo - nothing *useful* like that - just some spiffy high tech wankery for the Jetson's crowd.

RS

cooking while on the road

[welshie]

1. roadkill
2. wrap in foil
3. engine block
4. eat

I've already got one, and it cost $30.

[NerveGas]

It's called a "crock pot". I throw thing in it in the evening, and stick it in the fridge. Before I leave for work, I plug it in, and turn it on low. When I get home, it's ready. C'est facil, no? And if I'm late getting home, it's alright - most things just get better. I once got *really* held up, and my roast ended up simmering on low for 16 hours. Boy, was it good.

    I know, I know, everyone will whine that I wasted electricity. Well, at about 100 watts, if it's on for ten hours, it only uses about as much power as turning on my oven for just twenty minutes.

steve

Microwave-ToasterOven Combo

[sanman2]

What I'd really like is something that would be a combination of Microwave and Toaster-Oven. I'd once read that Panasonic was coming out with something like that, but never heard anything further about it.

Can anyone recommend something like this, that they might know of?

road trip

[LordMyren]

as somone going on a long road trip soon, i am highly disappointed.
I have 25 amp X10 gear. I can turn my @#$@#$ oven on and off,
Some good tahts gonna do me in Peoria.

And of course it's secure.

[ummit]

You can monitor these refrigerator-ovens from any Internet connection. For example, you can adjust and control the oven settings...

And of course the vendors, wisely learning from all the woefully insecure initial implementations of similar products in the past, have made totally sure that you and only you will be able to do this monitoring and controlling. Totally.

Development Team

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the whole software development team (and IT department for this company). The thing is I don't see a post by them yet. I'll keep looking.

I have lunch with those guys about once every month or two.