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Comment by haberman | Hacker News Reader

"For instance, Schinella predicts, we may one day be able to drive around Los Angeles in a "sports-utility" vehicle that can go from being a two-seat sports car to a beach buggy--thanks to a plug-in module."

Amazing that they can be so right and so wrong at the same time.

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Along the same lines, I liked the part about the husband trying to phone his wife and not reaching her (she wasn't at work or at home) but hooks up to his networked fridge and gets an inventory remotely.

Totally underestimates telecommunications, but grossly overestimates standard fridge technology. :-) (though my parents do have a Samsung fridge that can tweet for some reason).

Just out of curiosity, what is it tweeting about? I've always been interested by what refrigerators thinks.

"LOL, owner just did this!! http://goo.gl/ZTlJ8 #stupidhumans"

"@oven you're lookin hot today"

I don't think it tweets anything automatically. It just has an interface to twitter (for when you need to tweet something but you phone is all the way upstairs). No one in that house has a twitter account so it's never been tested.

Slightly more useful is the screen that can be used as an electronic whiteboard to leave notes. In practice that got used a lot in the first month and then never again (the interface is just too clunky).

Either that, or our fridge technology is much lacking behind.

Telecommunications and networking - the wife has to carry her exercise script on a physical card instead of the house sending it through the network.

I think it's interesting to note that the technology for a refrigerator that can automatically take inventory has been available for years. We don't actually have them because it would require a lot of cooperation among vendors (e.g. putting RFID tags in everything) that most have no incentive for.

Can RFID tags include expiration dates? If so I think there would be a lot of value in getting ppl to restock earlier and more frequently.

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