Monday, January 10, 2011

Samsung's Fridge Is More Than Just 140 Characters

Now that CES '11 is all wrapped and everyone is back from Las Vegas, we are all trying make sense of the techno-binge that took place over the weekend. There were tons of product announcements, and Dave did a great job of covering some of them.

However, it was impossible for one person to cover everything that was unveiled, so I thought I'd talk about one product in particular that's been getting mixed reactions around the web.

Rather than just saying what the product is (where's the fun in that?), let me ask you the question that this product aims to solve: Have you ever been standing in the kitchen, aching to tweet out to your followers about how the milk spoiled?

That's right. Samsung, the company that brought us one of the top Android smartphone and the first serious competitor to the iPad, announced a new refrigerator...that's connected to Twitter.

And although the tweeting kitchen appliance has been mocked quite a bit since it was announced, the Twitter-readiness overshadows some other features that are actually pretty cool.

For instance, the refrigerator allows you to access Google Calendar, check the weather, and adjust the temperature from the appliance's touchpad. Most interestingly, the refrigerator let's you look up things on Epicurious (a popular foodie website) for recipes and tips.

So while the Twitter capabilities of this refrigerator are a bit over the top in my mind, I believe Samsung has tapped into a few other features that could become big trends in the future.