LG has been doing some interesting things with fridges for some time but this is the first one to arrive with an in-built high definition TV (HDTV). Whirlpool also has an entertainment fridge, but no HDTV.

This double door LG fridge, sporting an ice-maker on one door and a 15in HDTV with digital TV tuner on the other, was unwrapped at the recent 2007 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas. There’s also an FM radio and a port for hooking up a DVD player.

For those that can’t be bothered to look out the window, the new fridge will also deliver personalised weather forecasts based on your geographic area. It features a ‘recipe bank’ that stores a 100 pre-installed recipes from the Culinary Institute of America.

There’s also a handy child lock to keep little Johnny away from the Haagen Daaz. It’s due out next month – in the US to start – and will cost £2,000.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on May 16, 2007 in Active Home, Food and Drink, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

The kitchen might be the heart of the home but it’s certainly not the entertainment hub. Philips has decided to brew up a little audio-vision wizardry though in the shape of its clever, DCD778 Docking Entertainment System.

Forget the bulky 14in TV on the counter because this is designed to be installed underneath your presses/cabinets, and has a flip down 8.5in LCD TV screen. This can be used for keeping up with those all-important day-time TV chat-shows and soaps or – thanks to an in-built iPod dock – for playing back videos or music.

There’s a motorised CD/DVD drive as well as an AM/FM tuner, a pair of small speakers, clock and wireless remote. And, because it’s kitchen-based, you also get a handy cooking timer.

This goes on sale in the US next week for around £220 with a – hopeful – launch date over here in the coming months.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on March 20, 2007 in Active Home, Film, Food and Drink, Music, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3)

Now that fridges have been connected to the Internet and LCD TVs have been built into cupboards, it was only a matter of time before someone took another stab at another kitchen appliance: the humble microwave.

Daewoo’s approach is to give it voice recognition. The Voice Recognition Microwave is not just vapour-ware though with Daewoo planning to launch it to the masses next year. It stores up to 40 voice commands and will take commands from anyone that talks to it. That should be fun in a kitchen filled with screaming kids.

You can tell it what food you have put in and it will calculate the time and setting itself before getting down to some serious nuking. Via Bornrich.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on September 26, 2006 in Active Home, Food and Drink, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)