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Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen takes fridges open source

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The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge touch interface
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge touch interface
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge touch interface
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge
The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge
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One of the biggest marketing miss-steps of the past decade surely has to be LG’s Internet Refrigerator that incorporated a Windows 98-based PC and 15.1-inch LCD touch display in the door, allowing users to surf the Internet for recipes, play music and videos or (theoretically) do some office work while standing at the fridge. Electrolux seems to think the world is now ready to embrace the idea and has developed an Internet fridge of its own in the form of the Linux-based Infinity I-Kitchen.

While LG thought its fridge would usher in the era of connected white goods, it turned out people weren’t overly keen to do computing tasks on what amounted to a low-spec PC the size of a 1970’s mainframe with cooling capabilities. Solutions such as the FridgePad or iPod Refrigerator that allow portable computing devices like the iPad or iPod to be easily attached and removed from the fridge are a more elegant solution, allowing users to access recipes and other kitchen-related content on the fridge, while still retaining the portability of the computing device.

The Infinity I-Fridge, however, takes the embedded computer model pioneered by LG’s offering. It includes a 480 x 800 pixel touchscreen and is powered by a Freescale i.MX25 ARM processor running at 400Mhz with 128MB of RAM. The Linux-based interface was developed by ProFUSION embedded systems, which developed the fridge in a joint effort with the Brazilian subsidiary of Electrolux.

The Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen fridge touch interface

The fridge’s memory comes packed with over 600 recipes, ranging from appetizers and main dishes to light snacks and cocktails. It also comes with applications such as Orkut, Calendar and contacts, while the display can also be used for digital slide shows. It also allows provides extensive control over the fridge’s functions, including setting different temperatures for the various compartments.

The Infinity I-Kitchen refrigerator has a capacity of 542 liters is available in Brazil for the suggested retail price of 5,999 Brazilian Real (approx. US$3,470).

Via Born Rich

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2 comments
Matt Rings
We had a $3000 GE Monogram microwave at our last house, with hundreds of pre-set menu items for supposedly perfectly cooking \"chicken, 4oz\" or \"reheat pototoes, 2 cups\"... guess what? The menu structure was cumbersome, so we just hit \"30 seconds\" repeatedly to heat up whatever we needed.

Sometimes, simplicity is the the better part of elegance and functionality.

A computer on my fridge? No thank you. Just give me the iPad I can carry into the kitchen and surf email while my casserole leftovers heat for another 30 seconds...
Doug MacLeod
I bought a complicated (and expensive) thingy to hold my iPhone in the car and it broke loose, swivelled around, dumped my phone in the footwell etc. etc. So, I sent it back and bought some black Velcro tape, put the soft bit on the phone and the hooky bit on the dash and, for about 10 Euro cents I solved the problem perfectly. I\'ve now put some more tape to hold the phone on my iMac and I could put some on the fridge, but the wifi doesn\'t work in the kitchen. Thick walls.
So, ten cents or 3,470 US dollars, hmmm, difficult choice...