Kitchen

The Asahi Refrigerator Robot holds and pours six cans

By Mike Hanlon

September 12, 2006 It might seem a trivial and highly specialised application for a robot, but the task of getting another beer that seems to be one that is ideally suited to a robotic servant and that’s exactly what the Asahi Refrigerator Robot does. The little fellow holds and chills six 350 ml cans and at the touch of a button will dispense a can, rip the top off and pour a perfect beer every time. Japan’s Asahi Breweries held a special promotion earlier this year and gave away 5,000 robots via a lottery for participants who had collected 36 seals from special Asahi beer cans. There’s no sign of the robot hitting the market just yet, but there is a video which shows the little tyke doing its stuff. We suspect a 12 can version will be required for foreign markets. Via Gizmodo Read More

The WinePod micro winery kitchen appliance

By Mike Hanlon

September 5, 2006 Man has been making wine for more than 10,000 years but never has it been this easy. The WinePod is a new domestic device for artisan winemaking – a US$2000 micro winery just being readied for launch and seeking international distributors and we see this as a winner because it is just sooooo sophisticated. The insulated, self-cleaning, fully computerised, three foot tall, metallic urn-shaped appliance includes everything required to make 75 litres of the wine of your choice and is above all, easy to use. It wirelessly connects to your PC/Mac, which monitors Brix, pH and temperature to keep things happening exactly as they should and the WineCoach software mentors you through the wine-making process to obtain the best results for the particular variety of grapes you choose. Wine Coach enables you to collaborate with professional winemakers who are dedicated to the different wine types so you can learn the fine art of winemaking from your own personal consulting enologist. The software also enables you to compare notes and interact with fellow wine enthusiasts using the system and it can all be self-contained in an apartment or in a cupboard with the obvious rewards that the final product will bring. The waiting list already runs to April 2007 but a few orders might prompt an increase in production and we’re very bullish about the prospects for this baby. Read More

New machine provides power, water and refrigeration

By Mike Hanlon

August 6, 2006 When disasters happen, be they natural (hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes etc) or man-made (war), three essentials top the list of must-haves: water, electricity and refrigeration. Now two University of Florida engineers have created a single unit that can provide all three. With further development, it is expected that the unit will be made compact enough to fit onto a large truck. The system marries a gas turbine power plant to a heat-operated refrigeration system. The refrigeration makes the gas turbine more efficient, while also producing cool air and potable water. The turbine can run on conventional fossil fuels, biomass-produced fuels or hydrogen. Read More

The Messermeister Magnablock Pro

By Mike Hanlon

June 6, 2006 One thing that all fine culinary artists have in common is a love of their knife collection. The knife is the primary tool of food preparation and a fine knife collection is sure sign of someone who takes pride in what comes out of their kitchen, be it a professional pastime or otherwise. The Messermeister Magnablock Pro will probably find its way into the homes of many master chefs as it’s the best way yet that we’ve seen to artistically showcase cutlery. While traditional, bulky knife blocks store knives in slots, the Magnablock Pro securely holds knives on its exterior in a beautiful fan-like shape. Cooks can easily identify each knife for the specific task at hand. Shaped at 90 degrees, the inside of the solid beech wood block consists of strong magnets that securely hold up to 10 knives, with five on each side. Read More

The folding cutting board

By Mike Hanlon

February 16, 2006 Living proof that you don’t need a 2GHz processor and fuzzy logic to have a gadget that makes life easier is this folding cutting board from the MomaStore. The outer portions of the cutting board fold upward so you can ensure the food you’ve lovingly chopped all goes into the pan. The polypropylene board is designed such that the integral hinges snap between being locked flat for cutting and locked into a chute for pouring while a patented cross hinge manages the lockout and snap action. Read More

The AeroPress Coffee Machine: a new concept in an ancient art

By Mike Hanlon

January 16, 2006 There’s always a better way – ALWAYS! Humans have been consuming coffee for 1200 years, the first coffee shops opened 500 years ago and coffee is the world’s second largest traded commodity, behind only oil. More than 1.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day with the US market for coffee machines at 20 million a year and growing. You’d think we would have already perfected the best way to produce a cup of coffee from coffee beans, but several years of research by Stanford University mechanical engineering lecturer Alan Adler (the inventor of the Aerobie flying disk which holds the world throwing record of more than a quarter mile) appear to have found a better coffee machine. Independent reviews suggest the new Aerobie AeroPress delivers the smoothest, richest, purest and fastest cup of coffee (under 30 seconds) you’re likely to find and the bonus is that the AeroPress costs just US$30. And while it might look like a French Press because both use immersion and pressure, it works quite differently. Read More

Refrigerator with the lot - Maytag Ice2O

By Mike Hanlon

January 13, 2006 There’s not much more you can expect of a refrigerator than this. It’s Maytag’s newest and top-of-the-range refrigerator, the Ice2O French Door Bottom-Freezer with an external ice and water dispenser. The Ice2O combines the best features of a side-by-side and bottom-freezer refrigerator in one design, along with the largest-available fresh food capacity. Read More

The Kitchen of the Future

By Mike Hanlon

January 12, 2006 You are at the office and decide to invite friends over for dinner that night. What's for dinner? Just pick up the phone and call home. Your kitchen can give you a heads up on what foods you have in the refrigerator and pantry, suggest menus that use some of those foods, and once you've selected the menu, it will supply a grocery list for other items you need to pick up. Use the same call to leave a message for your spouse to put some wine in the refrigerator to chill. Sound impossible? When the brightest minds at the Industrial Design Operation of GE Consumer & Industrial were asked to design the Kitchen of the Future - that is how they imagined it. For a demonstration of GE's Kitchen of the Future, see this WMV movie, and for a video explanation, click here. Read More

Tassimo's new micro coffee brewing architecture

By Mike Hanlon

September 5, 2005 There is ALWAYS a better way, no matter what the endeavour and it seems the capsule-based single cup brewer market comprised of Nespresso, Senseo, Illy's

E.S.E Espresso pods, the Keurig system at al, is in for a further shake-up. The pod system offers convenience, cleanliness and in a world starved of the one commodity you can never get enough of (time), a semi-automated micro system providing top quality makes infinite sense, particularly when it comes to delivering one of the world's most loved commodities. Coffee is the world’s second largest traded commodity, second only to petroleum – 1.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day in the world, more than half the U.S. adult population drinks coffee daily and they average 3.5 cups a day. Coffee makers constitute the largest segment in the small kitchen appliance category with over 19 million coffee makers sold every year in the U.S. But now, there’s a new system that uses a microprocessor that makes intelligent decisions for you and refines the science of coffee making enough to give it a competitive edge – using barcode scanning. The Tassimo system has two key components: the Tassimo brewing machine and proprietary Tassimo discs (T-DISCS). Through Tassimo's smart technology, developed and designed by Kraft Foods, the machine's microprocessor reads the bar code printed on the T-DISC label after it is inserted into the machine and automatically calculates the correct water quantity, brewing time and temperature to prepare the perfect beverage. Read More

LG's jewel-encrusted refrigerator

By Mike Hanlon

August 19, 2005 There’s something distinctly nouveau riche about the new limited edition jewel encrusted DIOS refrigerator from LG. Aimed at the Taiwanese market, the R-U719GWN three door refrigerator has all the usual LG high tech domestic wizardry such as an ice-maker and LCD panel, but comes with an extra helping of bling in that it has several inlays of Swarovski crystals – 4900 of them. What we can’t quite understand is why it’s so cheap - KRW 3,990,000.00 – approximately US$3900. Perhaps there’s a discount for being so over the top. Read More

The intelligent coffee drinker's mug

By Mike Hanlon

August 17, 2005 Have you ever wondered what possesses human beings to heat liquids to boiling point and then systematically pour them on the second-most-sensitive area of their body? It’s what Jolex, the inventors of the Brugo travel mug calls the “perfect temperature zone” for drinking coffee, soup, tea – the most common liquids we use in a travel mug – and it’s estimated to be between 150 degrees and 170 degrees Fahrenheit (65-75 degrees Celsius). It’s the point at which the aroma and flavour are greatest, but it’s an elusive zone and one that heated liquids are only in for a short time. By using a simple “tip and sip” motion, BRUGO transfers sip-sized amounts (one fluid ounce) of the hot beverage to the temperature control chamber, where it immediately reaches this “perfect temperature zone.” Only the liquid in the chamber is cooled and only this liquid exits the sip opening. A seal keeps the remaining coffee at its hottest and most aromatic. This inventive system eliminates the need for coffee drinkers to blow on their beverage, add ice to it, or wait for it to cool. Instead, they have immediate access to their hot beverage, and they can enjoy it longer at its peak freshness and flavour. Read More

Nespresso’s compact coffee-made-simple System

By Mike Hanlon

August 15, 2005 One of the greatest challenges in life is to create a coffee at home which is as good as the best coffee you can buy in your favourite coffee shop. It's a complex equation involving obtaining the right equipment, refining the technique and obtaining the freshest and best quality coffee. There's a definite affinity between computers, high-performance people and coffee - we're not sure what the common elements are but high clock speeds seems to be part of the equation and there are few technology environments where caffeine is not the staple diet. Which sort of accounts for why coffee is one of the largest cost-centres for this humble magazine - all press briefings are over coffee, we have our meetings over coffee, and we drink coffee in our spare time, sometimes so often that the entire staff can levitate by 4pm in the afternoon on a busy day. So the news that Nespresso has unveiled a new compact coffee system was significant for us. Now while Nespresso is clearly related to Nescafe, the concept behind it is at the other end of the connoisseur scale, as we have previously explained. Indeed, Nespresso is so focused on nurturing the brand’s upmarket pedigree, it has opened dozens of coffee boutiques in the world’s cultural centres selling just Nespresso-produced coffee. Read More

Four door convertible fridge

By Mike Hanlon

May 11, 2005 Samsung has unveiled a four-door convertible refrigerator with four zones, each with adjustable temperature settings to allow customised food storage. The four zones each have independent temperature control and can hence be configured to specific needs as needs change, offering unprecedented flexibility for food storage. For example, consumers can convert refrigerator space to freezer space to prepare for holiday entertaining, then they can increase their refrigerator capacity to store the leftovers when the party is over. Read More

The Acropolis Concentric Kitchen by Pininfarina

By Mike Hanlon

April 21, 2005 Italian design is synonymous with names like Pininfarina, Giugaro, Ferrari, Alessi, Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo, Valentino, Versace and more recently, Snaidero. Snaidero began as a small carpentry shop 50 years ago and has grown into one of the icons of Italian innovation and design with several of its creations being exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York – not bad for a company that only makes kitchens. Now these are clearly not ordinary kitchens, but kitchens of immense beauty and practicality such as the Acropolis. Designed by Pininfarina, the concentric kitchen combines visual appeal with the ultimate functionality- optimising every movement for minimum effort. The Acropolis has recently been revamped. Whereas the original design was a complete circle, the new version has shed its closed and strict round shape to now gently “unfurl.” The price has remained unchanged at US$157,000 Read More

Iannello-designed Voodoo Knife set

By Mike Hanlon

March 6, 2005. The theme was fortune, magic and lucky charms but with his project, Raffaele Iannello chose to probe the world of black magic with this knife set and distinctive holder. The striking result has gone through several iterations and is now to be produced in commercial form by Viceversa, so we guess Raffaele was lucky after all. The final Voodoo Knife set will be released in the near future at Viceversa. Read More

The all-in-one, relocatable kitchen

By Mike Hanlon

February 7, 2005 The circular kitchen is a new approach to kitchen design based on the changing needs of apartment dwellers and modern lifestyle. After centuries of conventional kitchen design, the self-contained circular kitchen challenges many of the notions of a normal kitchen, treating it more as an appliance than a dedicated, inflexible room. It can be easily added or relocated to any space, be it apartment, office, holiday home or factory and comes complete with all the facilities and storage space of a conventional kitchen. There are no conventional cupboard doors, so access to the kitchen’s various components is by rotating the central unit through 180 degrees, or the top unit which rotates through 360 degrees. Read More

Whirlpool 'In.Kitchen' designs suit 21C living

By Gizmag Team

November 23, 2004 Whirlpool Europe has unveiled its vision for a new style of built-in kitchens that are more highly integrated and lifestyle oriented than those currently available. Entitled "in.kitchen: design landscapes for a new built-in experience", the design concepts are glimpses of possible domestic environments that could be achieved in the near future through well-orchestrated partnerships within the kitchen industry. Read More

Entertainment branding invades the Kitchen

By Mike Hanlon

Disney Consumer Products announced the launch of the new Disney Smoothie Maker and Disney Popcorn Popper, on September 29, continuing the convergence of convergence of entertainment and lifestyle into one of the most important gathering places in the home; the kitchen. The company's line of consumer electronics appliances are designed for kids and families and combine Disney's entertainment content with technology and design. Both products will be available in October at major US retail outlets, just in time for the holiday season, and are the first in an ongoing line of appliances that will continue to be introduced to consumers. Read More

Kitchen in a carton

By Mike Hanlon

December 20, 2003 Getting three square meals a day has a whole new meaning for American troops thanks to an innovative new package which provides everything necessary to feed up to 18 troops hot food in one small package. The Remote Unit Self Heating Meal (RUSHM), also referred to as "Kitchen in a Carton," takes the hassle out of serving hot food to warfighters in far away places.Developed by the Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Centre in Natick, Mass., the latest prototype of the remote meal reduces the carton's volume compared to previous prototypes by 20 percent by reconfiguring the package, trading larger dining trays for smaller ones, and swapping paper cups and beverage mixes for new resealable drink pouches. Read More

Nespresso simplifies the coffee equation in style

By Mike Hanlon

We drink a lot of coffee at Gizmag, so when we got the opportunity to sample a machine which was claimed to produce extreme quality coffee which is EXACTLY the same every time, and reduces the time devoted to the ritual of coffee making by several minutes, and eliminates the mess, we jumped at the opportunity. First things first - the name was a significant problem to overcome - Nespresso conjures up pictures of synthetic substances manufactured by unnatural means, of a low-cost substitute for people who don't have any taste and who couldn't tell the difference between good coffee and instant home-brand coffee if it hit them on the head with a hammer. Read More

Home networking control from the kitchen

By Mike Hanlon

Friday August 1, 2003: The iCEBOX FlipScreen is an LCD touch screen interface designed specifically for use in the kitchen as part of a networked home. A washable, wireless keyboard and remote are included in the package that provides television and DVD viewing, CD Player, Internet access, FM Radio and video monitoring of the home. Read More

Australian design team unveils Robotic Kitchen

By Mike Hanlon

Imagine having a pantry that would talk to the refrigerator and the oven to co-ordinate and prepare meals, all while you dished out the orders from a computer terminal in the office. That's the scenario proposed by the iK (integrated kitchen), a design concept that explores the possibilities of future domestic kitchens Read More

Watching TV in the kitchen window

By Mike Hanlon

A bay window that's also a home entertainment centre, invisible insect screens, downloading recipes to the kitchen window or watching TV on the same "screen" while washing the dishes... Read More

Refrigeration efficiency breakthrough

By Mike Hanlon

Kelix Energies has developed a heating and cooling system that performs effectively without the use of a refrigeration compressor. Read More

Oven that thinks it's a Refrigerator

By Mike Hanlon

The Polara range of ovens from Whirlpool combines the two most incompatible kitchen appliances - it's an oven that acts like a fridge. Read More