The Guardian has a stimulating new article on the development, by researchers at MIT, of the “kitchen of the future”.
You get home late, unsure of what to make from the random collection of ingredients in your cupboard. A while back you might have speed-dialled for a pizza but now, instead of worrying about eating a collection of this and that, you’re excited. You pull out each vegetable, a couple of jars of spices and the half-bag of pasta. You pass each one in front of a webcam next to your cupboard. A few moments later, a screen on your fridge displays a tasty recipe. After dinner, you take your plates to a box next to the sink. Instead of cleaning them, your machine recycles the material and produces new plates every time you need to eat. Later in the evening, you phone your other half, who is on a business trip half-way around the world. As you drink your cup of cocoa (added to your weekly shopping list by your internet-enabled cupboards when they saw you were getting low), it makes your other half’s cup glow on the other side of the world, another subtle way to keep in touch … Welcome to the kitchen of the future.
via The Guardian