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Microsoft Helps Develop Smart, IoT-Enabled Refrigerators (microsoft.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
Promising "intelligent food management" to help with shopping and meal planning, Microsoft is collaborating with household appliance manufacturer Liebherr to develop a refrigerator where stored groceries "can be monitored using internal cameras." The refrigerators will use Microsoft's object recognition technology to create a list of your groceries -- with photos -- accessible via an an Android or iOS app (or a Windows device).
"Microsoft is providing computer vision capability as part of this collaboration," says their web page, citing the deep-learning technology underlying the Microsoft Cognitive Services Computer Vision API, released in Microsoft's open source Computational Network Toolkit. "Using the deep learning algorithms contained within CNTK, Microsoft data scientists worked with Liebherr to build a new image processing system to detect specific food products present inside a Liebherr refrigerator..."
"Microsoft is providing computer vision capability as part of this collaboration," says their web page, citing the deep-learning technology underlying the Microsoft Cognitive Services Computer Vision API, released in Microsoft's open source Computational Network Toolkit. "Using the deep learning algorithms contained within CNTK, Microsoft data scientists worked with Liebherr to build a new image processing system to detect specific food products present inside a Liebherr refrigerator..."
If I installed this on my fridge I would use the app when I went to the pharmacy. That way I could check up on which antibiotics where already growing in my fridge.
.. designed to get people more used to having cameras and other sensory equipment all around them.
A solution in search of a problem.
#DeleteChrome
Sounds like a solution in search of a problem to solve. What's wrong with a note pad and a pen on the fridge's door? That's what I've been using since DARPANET.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Health insurance goes up because you're not eating healthy enough, police have free access to all these cameras to make sure no one's storing drugs in their fridge etc.
Because writing 'Milk' on a list when you take the last carton of milk is such a daunting task!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I really need one of these
- tends to obscure the usefulness of the technology, as usual. The socalled IoT has a lot of very promising uses, none of which have anything to do with spying on people. Just think of finding parking spaces - a very mundane task, and something that can make a visit to a cuty centre daunting. There will usually be a legal parking space somewhere, but how do you find it? If all spaces had an IP address and a number plate recognition camera, you could book you space in advance, and be sure that anybody who parked in you space would be fined. I would give my left arm for that - or somebody's left arm at least.
I listened to a programme recently about energy and how to use the production capacity optimally. The problem now is that we have to have enough capacity to cover surges in demand; like when everybody goes to put the electric kettle on when there is a break in the TV programmes. With a bit (well, quite a bit) of clever, automatic management, if certain equipments were on the IoT, they could be told to hold back on their energy needs just while there is a short surge in demand. These equipments could be small (but numerous) things fridges and freezers, or big things like the bitumen heaters in a factory that produces asphalt coatings for roads. They don't actually needs to be active at set intervals - they could certainly wait 15 minutes without problems. Apparently this alone could help us stretch our energy capacity a lot.
Regrettably, all you see headlines about is nonsense like this, about how bloody cool it would be to have a camera inside you fridge or whatever. Even at best, this is no more than a mildly amusing gimmick that comes along for the ride and tries to steal the show from the actual, serious importance of the IoT.
"Your fridge cannot recognize the ice cream you installed. (R)eboot fridge or (M)elt the ice cream ?"
"Your fridge is 99% full. You can make more space with the Fridge Cleanup Tool. Proceeed ? (Y/N)"
and at the very end:
"I am sorry Dave, you should not eat this."
"Open the fridge door, HAL!"
This would be much easier to do if all the items purchased in a supermarket had some kind of machine-readable label that linked to a database holding the product information and price...
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Refrigerator: "...just a moment...just a moment... I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure within 72 hours."
Dave: "It's still within operational limits right now?"
Refrigerator: "Yes. And it will stay that way till it fails."
Dave: "Would you say we have a reliable 72 hours till failure?"
Refrigerator: "Yes. That's a completely reliable figure."
While the chances of them being able to SEE more than 15% of the contents of my fridge around, you know, all the other stuff in it, no matter how many cameras there are....
I can see a great opportunity to livestream the constant evolution of internal lifeforms as a new reality TV show - their daily trials and tribulations, the constant ebb and flow of bacterial and viral battle.
Just dont ever open the door - never ever open the door. I tried that once. ONCE.
More and more I get the feeling, to want smart appliances you gotta be rather dumb yourself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's start at "how much do you pay me to use one of these".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My 25 year old fridge is pretty simple. Mechanical thermostat + self defrost. In 25 years will today's IoT fridge still be relevant? Will it be like trying to get online with Windows 3.1?
While I like technology, I subscribe to the KISS principle. The simplest solution is usually the best. In the case of home appliances, they usually seem to work better with basic mechanical timers than fancy electronics... let-alone foolishness like Internet connectivity.
Ok .. they don't have image detection. But they do already have a fridge that has a camera to see the inside and a neat Android interface. My wife and I played with one at a local store recently and it was kinda neat. It had a nice whiteboard function to leave notes, supported streaming video and supposedly interfaced with the SmartTVs, although I'm not sure of the functionality. Since it appears to use Android, it was pretty intuitive to us. I don't think it would be to people who haven't used Android phones though.
I don't know how useful image detection will be without several cameras in the back and side of each shelf. But it was interesting to be able to see very clearly what was inside without opening the door. I wonder if the energy cost of the TV screen and computer hardware will outweigh the savings of not opening the door as often or as long.
It wasn't worth to me the extra $2K more a comparable fridge costs. It might be to people with more disposable income than I have.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
No, the script kiddie noticed that the fridge contents weren't changing after 2-3 days and sold the list of all vacant houses in the area to the local gang. The outcome could be a lot worse than just moldy milk.
If you live in a freezing climate then if it's a fridge-freezer then you need dual-thermostats, but otherwise, KISS is exactly the right approach.
Because it always freezes.
Usually with the dual thermostats one of them is just a damper controlling how much air gets blown into the fridge from the freezer.
will finally solve the mystery of the light -- it's ON in order to see what's inside...
I foresee the Blue Cheese of Death.
What brands do you use? Microsoft will feed you coupons, readable with your smartphone, or sent directly to your smartphone, to save you money on whatever companies overpriced products are paying them to send you ads with coupons. If you think a "smart" fridge is for your benefit, think again.
Because we're not smart enough to keep track of what we have in our own fridge. What a waste.
linquendum tondere
These comments only apply to dual fridge-freezer units, which are quite common:
My understanding is that two actual thermostats are required since the freezer needs to be at -20C and the fridge at 4C. If the ambient temperature goes between -20C and 4C then a single thermostat (typically located in the fridge) turns off and the compressor stops. But the freezer will now defrost, especially so if the ambient temperature is floating around 0C. Worst case would be weeks of temperatures between -5C and 0C where the feezer contents would freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw in random ways, and even worse, upon inspection in the spring time the food may appear safe and completely frozen: but potentially deadly.
The second thermostat ensures the compressor keeps driving to keep the freezer section cold. Of course this also requires two coolant circuits, or a way to throttle the flow of coolant between the fridge and freezer, all of which adds cost, which is why it's rarely done properly.
You're right then: the better approach is to have the thermostat on the freezer side and have the second thermostat control a damper. Damn...need more coffee :)
LG has shown a Windows 10 fridge, running on a low end x86 PC. Your Samsung fridge seems a lot of fun and niceties from the read while I'm sure most people will turn away from the Metro apps and Windows store, if only instinctively. But I really hate to be the guy that breaks the fun :), so as to point out the Android fridge's near term future is dubious, whereas the Windows fridge is promised security updates till 2025, subject to extension if an OS upgrade occurs or if MS has another moment of "shit, if we drop off support right now there will be 400 millions more Internet zombies so let's extend this OS version for three years".
Hopefully we may end up getting "long term Android". Perhaps using Android on straight x86 PC hardware? nvidia ARM hardware may end up with some long term support too. Will another SoC vendor follow suit? There is no hard technical reason to drop driver support etc. after a couple years. Looking forward for LESS innovation :)
So would a system freeze be seen as a positive feature ?
This is just another egregious data harvesting attempt by Microsoft. Not being satisfied with scooping up data from our computers, Microsoft is now looking to look inside our appliances to see what we eat, what clothes we wash, etc.
.
In China students are fined for 'excessive' toilet flushing, they must use an electronic pass every time that they go to the toilet.
Meanwhile their supposedly dumb counterparts carry on working. A genuinely smart device would be one which provides value independent of some ephemeral service in the cloud and it would do so without compromising your privacy.
Typical Microsoft --- features first, security as an afterthought.
Microsoft smart.
I suppose their intent is that this fridge will be able to manage supplies and demands the same way that my mother so effortlessly and effectively managed our ice box and pantry in our very dynamic household when I was a kid. She had learned her stuff from my grandmother and added a few tricks and neat solutions to the repertoire, doing all of it everyday in her head and without blinking an eyelash in the face of last-minute changes in the number of chairs around the table and last-minute confessions to the "Who ate all the ..." question. And today we need a computer to do this? What a waste of resources!
I suppose this means that the answer to the ancient Question:: Does the light in the 'fridge really go out when I close the door is: NO :)
Fridge: "I'm sorry Dave, the ObamaCare 2.0 Single Payer daemon has detected whole milk."
Dave: "Yeah so what."
Fridge: "Your household is now ineligible for health benefits per 66 U.S.C. 192."
Dave: "I need my statins. My daughter needs cancer surgery!"
Fridge: "I'm afraid the government will not allow that."
What is this, the third time someone tries this? Last time we used to joke about Internet-connected toasters and fridges was around late 90s and the dotcom boom? Then again in the mid-2000s?
While I do believe that tracking your food intake can be beneficial, I am not sure this particular implementation will be for the benefit of the consumer. Regardless, computer vision seems a bit overkill for this. A smartphone app with barcode reader and a small scale should be enough, the trick is getting it streamlined.
1. It will crash and your food will spoil. ... I can't wait!
2. You will get calls requesting your SSN and bank details from people with Indian and Russian accents saying they are from Microsoft support and you have a virus.
3. You will need to double click on the door handle to open it.
4. You will have to pay $300 a year to subscribe to fresh food.
5. The camera will send pictures of you in your underwear at 2 AM to Microsoft for quality improvement.
6. You will need to subscribe to virus protection for your refrigerator.
Now you won't only see the blue screen of death on ATM machines and airport display boards, you can see it on your own 'fridge. And there will be a blue film of death on all your rotting vegetables. #badidea
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
They mounted a very large tablet on a Refrigarator. The really crazy part is that because of "innovative features " like ice dispensers and water chillers the 1940's refrigerators were actually more energy efficent then the modern ones. Putting a power hungry giant screen on it is one way to continue driving down energy efficency
Most residential fridges are rated for ambient temperatures between 10C - 32C. The first issue is the control issue you mention, the second is the efficiency of the refrigeration cycle, and possible lubrication issues. Most solve this issue by installing their fridge inside a climate controlled living area (like a kitchen). There are some "garage kits" for fridges that are a heater to trick the thermostat in the fridge section. You may also need a heater to keep the compressor and refrigerant warm (and gaseous).
My current fridge-freezer only has one thermostat, with no way of separately controlling the freezer. I live in Canada where it gets to -25C outside, but my kitchen doesn't go below 15C, and I haven't had any problems with stuff thawing in the freezer. Some dampers may be thermostatically controlled, some may just be a simple damper.
Freezes like Windows 10 Anniversary Edition
IDIOT == Insecurely Designed Internet Of Things
Spread the meme.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
This seems as useful for refrigerators as Cortana is for a PC, which is to say,"Not at all." there is no description of what the features might do for the consumer, and the only real benefits listed above are for advertisers, much like Cortana. when I purchase one of these things, will I be required to pay for the bandwidth it uses? What about my IoT range, Washer,Dryer, hot water heater and microwave? What do I get? A shopping list with dry spices, fabric softener, dryer sheets and an add for a water softener which can tell me to buy salt? Unless some appliance maker can show me how I do better because something is connected, and enough better that I am compensated for the bandwidth I pay for, I will never buy a connected appliance.( I believe unconnected appliances will still be produced and sold in underdeveloped countries for the foreseeable future.)