4 ms·

Samsung’s Tweeting Refrigerator Could be Overkill

5 points by solipsist 16y ago

j_baker 16y ago
Perhaps Zawinski's law should be modified to say "tweets" instead of email.
trotsky 16y ago
Quite disappointed to find out that it doesn't tweet on its own.
- veb 16y ago
  Me too! >:[
byoung2 16y ago
I remember having the idea for a refrigerator that scanned the barcodes of any items inserted or removed from it. If a carton of milk, for example was removed and not replaced, the refrigerator would add it to the grocery list. If an item stayed in the fridge for longer than a certain period of time, the fridge would alert you to possible expiration. There would also be a feature that would give you recipes you could cook using items in your fridge. I'm still waiting for something like that to come along.
- ramanujam 16y ago
  I said the same thing for a PM interview at a big tech company and that was the main topic of discussion for that interview slot. I did have image recognition with learning for expired food detection in addition and a big line up of other possible features. Definitely something like this will come up within the next 5 years! Many interesting and open ended questions can arise. How about products without a bar code (apples from the street vendor)? How will the scanning take place without the user having to do it?
  - byoung2 16y ago
    How about products without a bar code (apples from the street vendor)? I keep my apples in a bowl on the counter, so that wouldn't be an issue for me! To make sure we got a more accurate inventory of everything in the fridge, I would imagine a combination of barcodes, rfid tags, internal camera with image recognition (and maybe crowdsourced image tagging), and maybe cross-referencing with Mint data (if I put a CPK bag in the fridge on the same day I have a credit card charge from CPK as recorded by Mint, there's a good chance there's BBQ chicken pizza in it). Of course since I'm not actually going to build this product, the sky's the limit on technology and programming.
- izendejas 16y ago
  Ha.. I had a similar idea. Mine would also know when you were running out of item X (eg, based on weight and average delta) and order groceries for you based on this. I like your recipe idea better though. Mine involved getting planned meals for the week and using that information to also pre-order groceries.
- solipsist 16y ago
  An automatic inventory of everything in your fridge and apps that could build on that inventory (Grocery List or Recipes) - genius!
- sorbus 16y ago
  Something along those lines has been a common idea for a while - it was one of the major use cases for RFID tags when they were still fairly new, for example. I'm surprised that it doesn't already exist, given that I first heard the idea several years ago (possibly >5, I don't really remember).

5 points by solipsist 16y ago

j_baker 16y ago

Perhaps Zawinski's law should be modified to say "tweets" instead of email.

trotsky 16y ago

Quite disappointed to find out that it doesn't tweet on its own.

veb 16y ago
Me too! >:[

byoung2 16y ago

I remember having the idea for a refrigerator that scanned the barcodes of any items inserted or removed from it. If a carton of milk, for example was removed and not replaced, the refrigerator would add it to the grocery list. If an item stayed in the fridge for longer than a certain period of time, the fridge would alert you to possible expiration. There would also be a feature that would give you recipes you could cook using items in your fridge. I'm still waiting for something like that to come along.

ramanujam 16y ago
I said the same thing for a PM interview at a big tech company and that was the main topic of discussion for that interview slot. I did have image recognition with learning for expired food detection in addition and a big line up of other possible features. Definitely something like this will come up within the next 5 years! Many interesting and open ended questions can arise. How about products without a bar code (apples from the street vendor)? How will the scanning take place without the user having to do it?
- byoung2 16y ago
  How about products without a bar code (apples from the street vendor)? I keep my apples in a bowl on the counter, so that wouldn't be an issue for me! To make sure we got a more accurate inventory of everything in the fridge, I would imagine a combination of barcodes, rfid tags, internal camera with image recognition (and maybe crowdsourced image tagging), and maybe cross-referencing with Mint data (if I put a CPK bag in the fridge on the same day I have a credit card charge from CPK as recorded by Mint, there's a good chance there's BBQ chicken pizza in it). Of course since I'm not actually going to build this product, the sky's the limit on technology and programming.
izendejas 16y ago
Ha.. I had a similar idea. Mine would also know when you were running out of item X (eg, based on weight and average delta) and order groceries for you based on this. I like your recipe idea better though. Mine involved getting planned meals for the week and using that information to also pre-order groceries.
solipsist 16y ago
An automatic inventory of everything in your fridge and apps that could build on that inventory (Grocery List or Recipes) - genius!
sorbus 16y ago
Something along those lines has been a common idea for a while - it was one of the major use cases for RFID tags when they were still fairly new, for example. I'm surprised that it doesn't already exist, given that I first heard the idea several years ago (possibly >5, I don't really remember).