Refrigerator

Refrigerators have gotten some handy upgrades in recent years, with everything from Wi-Fi enabled touchscreens to blast chillers for quickly cooling a beer. Now, Samsung has partnered with SodaStream to introduce the RF31FMESBSR Four-Door Refrigerator, which comes with a built-in sparkling water dispenser for making homemade soda.  Read More

Despite being around for a few years now, fridges with internet connectivity and LCD touchscreens haven't really taken off with consumers. Samsung isn't giving up, though, previewing its 32 cubic-feet (906-liter) four-door T9000 model at CES 2013 that boasts a 10-inch LCD touchscreen option.  Read More

Appearing at IFA, Panasonic has unveiled a brand new refrigerator which the company states is the first-ever A+++rated two-door refrigerator – making it the most energy-efficient two-door fridge, worldwide. Named the NR-B55VE1, it consumes 262 kWh/year of electricity, which by our reckoning amounts to a mean power consumption of 30 W. Gizmag was on hand to take a look.  Read More

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have succeeded in using a new form of laser cooling method to cool a two and a half square millimeter semiconducting gallium arsenide (GaAs) membrane with a thickness of 160 nm from room temperature to four degrees above absolute zero - the temperature of liquid helium.  Read More

Few things can ruin a party like warm beer. You can pack ice around it all you want; you're still going to be waiting half an hour for it to get cold and probably still crack it open too soon. Someone over at LG must have attended one too many get-togethers that turned out this way, because the company unveiled a new refrigerator at CES 2012 that comes with the handiest feature since the built-in ice maker: a Blast Chiller that can cool a can of beer or soda to ice cold in just a few minutes.  Read More

According to legend, while Scotland's Robert the Bruce was on the run he hid in a cave and observed a spider repeatedly trying and failing to spin its web from one area to another. Although it's unlikely that electronics giant LG has been studying Scottish lore, the "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" maxim has evidently been embraced with the announcement of the upcoming release of the company's latest connected fridge. More than a decade has passed since its Internet Fridge first broke cover to a somewhat cool reception. Now LG believes that the world – and technology – is ready to welcome the Smart Refrigerator.  Read More

Any time there’s a prolonged power outage in warm weather, chances are that one of your first thoughts is “What’ll happen to all the food in my fridge?”. Well, imagine if instead of a week’s worth of groceries, your unpowered refrigerator was full of vaccines, vital to the well-being of an entire African village. In rural third world countries, power failures are common, as are high temperatures – not a great combination for things that need to be kept cold. Fortunately, some aid agencies have the option of using a True Energy Vaccine Refrigerator. It can store US$30,000 worth of medicine below 10C (50F) in 43C (109F) ambient temperatures, for over ten days at a time, without power.  Read More

Miele has announced its new smart grid ready domestic appliances at IFA 2010. These appliances have been designed to start automatically when electricity is cheapest, offering consumers energy savings. The first two appliances featuring smart-grid functionality will be a washing machine and a tumble dryer. The models can also be fitted with Miele’s gateway communication module, providing access to the appliances through a PC and the ability to monitor electricity rates.  Read More

The jury has wielded the axe on the 25 semi-finalists in the Electrolux Design Lab competition, leaving just eight finalists from the original 1,300 entries to battle it out for the prize of a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design center and 5,000 Euros (approx. US$6,350). The 2010 brief asked industrial design students to consider how people will prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes in the homes of 2050, when 74 percent of the global population are predicted to live in an urban environment. Let’s take a look at the lucky eight entries vying for the title.  Read More