GNU/Linux and Enlightenment Running On a Fridge 222
k-s writes "Linux, the GNU userland and Enlightenment and its foundation libraries (EFL) are known for their resource efficiency and flexibility, key components for embedded products. Today it was announced that such features led them to be used in a fridge that runs Linux and X11 with EFL. The Freescale i.MX25 based fridge by Electrolux (Frigidaire) provides the expected bits such as temperature controls and pre-set modes (vacation, party) as well as a special purpose drawer that cools your drinks and food with a beautiful UI. It also ships with handful applications for contacts, calendar, reminder, digital picture frame and even an illustrated recipe book from a famous Brazilian magazine."
Beer (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
So now we can have our free as in beer and drink it too!
Re: (Score:2)
So, Linux can now keep my beer cold, but can it bring me a cold beer?
This is the fridge that makes the blitz! Think of all the girls!!! They will bring it to you!!! It's just about the girls man!!!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And it seems their beta-testers have been using the calendar function to plan interesting things:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54577173@N04/5054479509/in/photostream/ [flickr.com]
(See top left)
Re:Beer (Score:5, Informative)
"Sex" is the three-letter abbreviation of "Sexta-feira", Portuguese for Friday. Yeah, I love to ruin everyone's party.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to use sudo for that.
Re: (Score:2)
It can if you build a robot and use Linux as its OS.
Cool..... (Score:2)
It's cold out here all alone at the top with a nice UI.
Re: (Score:2)
Apart from the first couple of days of owning the fridge to set the temperature to something sensible, in the last 6 years, the controls I've wanted to use are "defrost" (once). I can also see the use for the "just got home from supermarket, chill a bit more please" button, but it's not something I need as I'm close enough to the supermarket that my food is still cold when I get it gome.
Re:Cool..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the first couple of days of owning the fridge to set the temperature to something sensible, in the last 6 years, the controls I've wanted to use are "defrost" (once). I can also see the use for the "just got home from supermarket, chill a bit more please" button, but it's not something I need as I'm close enough to the supermarket that my food is still cold when I get it gome.
Just wait until they start putting RFID or something similar on food packages - then it'll be easy to patch in a "take inventory" mode, and have it tell you what you're out of.
Or for some of us, maybe a "time in fridge" monitor to warn us when something has passed "somewhat stale" and is heading towards "biohazard"...
Re: (Score:2)
...my fridge would need integrated speakers, though.
I'm sure with enough tech thrown at it, the doors themselves would make good enough speakers.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to have a fridge with hoses that run outside, bringing cold air into the fridge in the winter, and piping the hot air from the condensers outside in the summer. That would reduce electric and heating costs, and also reduce the power plant emissions.
It doesn't seem like it would take very complex engineering to do, either. A couple of digital thermometers (one in the freezer, one in the fridge, one outside ), electric shutters, and a simple computer to control it.
Oh, if someone tries to patent this,
Electrotux? (Score:5, Funny)
...
its first command (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:its first command (Score:5, Funny)
sudo make -k me a sandwich
FTFY. Must continue despite errors. Wouldn't want to not have any sandwich at all, just because you're missing the pickle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
cd ~/sandwich
./configure
make
sudo make install
At least that's what I've been told is the magic sequence.
Re: (Score:2)
Strange name for a woman, Sudo, she a foreigner?
I always said... (Score:2)
Yes I know, painful. I'm sorry.
Re: (Score:2)
No need to apologise. Chill.
Re: (Score:2)
Lets hope they continue development for this - I wouldn't like for this branch to be frozen.
*tap tap* Is this thing on?
Much as I love Linux .... (Score:3, Insightful)
.... really , this is just crazy technology for its own sake. All I want from a fridge is to keep stuff cool. Thats it. I don't need a multitasking operating system to do that or any operating system at all in fact and nor do I need a fridge to tell me when I'm running out of milk - I can usually see that for myself thanks - or re-order stuff for me since I might not want the same things again the following week thanks.
A fridge IMO is one of the white goods in which the KISS principal definately should apply.
Re: (Score:2)
> All I want from a fridge is to keep stuff cool.
Adding linux makes it 100% cooler.
Plus, the fridge obviously keeps the computer cool. Win-win. Help global warming!
Re: (Score:2)
Plus, the fridge obviously keeps the computer cool.
The fridge uses an energy-efficient, cool-running ARM CPU, so that's not much of an issue. Computers can be very energy efficient when they don't need to do something quickly / run Windows / play Crysis. A modern smartphone is more than powerful enough to be a home server - until a few months ago my PDA was more powerful than my home server. I could live with a laptop powered by a Marvell Armada 628, I'd love to have one in my PDA.
Re:Much as I love Linux .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If horses could already do 70mph , run for hours without a stop and be refilled in minutes they wouldn't have done. If you've already got something that works fine why replace it with something that is more complicated, probably more expensive and doesn't do a better job?
Re: (Score:2)
Horseless carriages are more complicated, more expensive, and for the kinds of transport people were already doing with horses, typically not any better.
You're letting your lack of imagination get the better of you. Currently your fridge doesn't do anything except regulate the interior to some specific temperature. But imagine any of these improvements, which didn't take me 3 whole minutes to concoct, and which are entirely within the limits of current, consumer-priced electronics and computing capabilities
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe at night we run longer, more widely spaced cooling cycles because we know the door rarely opens to lose our cold air.
You know that fridges only run the compressor when they warm up inside, right? So if you don't open the door, they don't warm up as frequently and the compressor stays off.
Re: (Score:2)
"Horseless carriages are more complicated, more expensive, and for the kinds of transport people were already doing with horses, typically not any better."
Horses need to be fed and watered often, tire relatively quickly, tend to shit everywhere, arn't particularly comfortable to sit on and generally can only take a max of 2 people. Not problems you usually get with cars.
Other than that, no , horseless carraiges are no better.
Re: (Score:2)
Horses need to be fed and watered often
Cars need to be refuelled and maintained often.
tire relatively quickly, tend to shit everywhere
overheat, pollute
arn't particularly comfortable to sit on and generally can only take a max of 2 people.
You know, there's a reason that cars were called "horseless carriages", Einstein. The name implies the existence of a carriage WITH a horse.
Re: (Score:2)
If horses could already do 70mph , run for hours without a stop and be refilled in minutes they wouldn't have done. If you've already got something that works fine why replace it with something that is more complicated, probably more expensive and doesn't do a better job?
WTF? Have you SEEN an early car? You'd be lucky to get them up to 15 km/h, let alone 70 mph. They were loud, inconvenient, overly complex contraptions which spent more time in the shop than they did on the road. A horse was a thousand times better. If we had stuck with your mentality nobody would have ever bothered developing the automobile to the point where they're actually useful. Luckily for man-kind, there have always been geeks who are willing to put up with all sorts of inconveniences and heada
Re: (Score:2)
:) Was thinking something very similar, just as I came to your post.
Re: (Score:2)
PS. Don't kiss your principal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe so, but to justify an expensive fridge's price tag by slapping on a calendar+digital frame+recipe book shows a disappointing lack of imagination.
If I were a billionaire geek, I wouldn't spend extra $$$ just so my fridge gets a stupid calendar.
I'd add better materials and functionally _related_ features.
Each of my fridges (hey why not have more than one right?) would have aerogel insulation, better door seals, and shelves+walls made of better and tougher material.
And add a bunch of air jets, thermal ca
Re: (Score:2)
A fridge IMO is one of the white goods in which the KISS principal definately should apply.
Ah, yes, like Apple products.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
if it does the above tasks well i don't see why not. it's not like if it was going to force reordering of what you need. But i'd like if it told me "eggs u put there 1 week ago are going to be bad tomorrow if u dont make them today" cause hey, we don't all always remember that stuff.
I'm not saying i'd pay extra for it, but if it's there (and will eventually be there) then why not. Can always open the fridge and check everything inside if you prefer that.
Re: (Score:2)
You sound like an Apple user.
So you want to find out if you're out of milk so you know if you need to pick some up on the way home from work, but since you're human you can't remember. You don't know if you need eggs either.
With a computerized fridge you could find out. It could also track it's own performance and tell you if something is wrong, rather than just seeing the difference on your electricity bill. It doesn't need to have a screen or a keypad, it could look like a regular fridge, but a little bar
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's called a thermostat. Or possibly, if you want to get REALLY advanced, a couple of them. As would be required for any computer-controlled system too.
Other than that, you've just complicated a mechanical problem to that of a fridge that occasionally requires rebooting, that the kids will crash and that won't perform any better than a non-techy fridge.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
One more way to help the average consumer save on energy costs.
Except you pay for it in maintenance fees, not to mention up-front cost. I recently had a problem with my gas heater - the 'starter' went out. Since when do gas heaters have starters? The repair man said it was to save on energy. Okay, but what do I now have to pay him for replacing something I otherwise could have fixed with a match?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, who buys vegetables? Now steak & beer, that's a whole different story.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. I find this kinda fun:
"the Infinity I-Kitchen provides the user with unparalleled control over his refrigerator"
I don't know about that. Unparalleled control? How? Already I can open fridge, close fridge, put in and remove stuff from fridge. Oh and set the temperature. That's about how much I wish to care about my fridge.
That just reminded me of this......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Re: (Score:2)
Instead couldn't you have a network-connected clock that didn't need setting? And now that you've got a network connection, wouldn't it be handy to leave a roast in the oven and turn it on an hour before you head home from work? Or to have your desktop notice that your phone is out-of-range and put the entire kitchen in "away" mode to ensure you didn't leave the stove or coffee pot on? Or to have your freezer scan the UPC of the pizza you're removing and signal the oven with the correct temperature and cook
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not really in the mood to prep a roast in the morning before I leave for work. I'll just make one in the weekend.
Re: (Score:2)
"And now that you've got a network connection, wouldn't it be..." ... a real bitch of someone hacked your fancy networked oven and your roast went up in flames along with your house.
"more self-diagnostic information to facilitate repairs. Which version better adheres to the KISS principal?"
You ever tried repairing a modern car yourself?
And all the diagnostics has led to is a breed of idiot at the local repairer who couldn't tell a spark plug from an injector pump without help from his computer and if the co
Linux on a fridge (Score:2)
Mass quantities of Bass Ale (Score:2)
E16 used to check for 'mass quantities of bass ale in fridge'... has this now become reality? I'm impressed
Re: (Score:2)
It's E17 actually.
Possible uses... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Well, it would be cool to have a list of contents with the date they were put in so you can keep track of things that need to be thrown out (useful for foodservice industry to keep only fresh foods on hand)."
So you want to sit and enter a date for every item you ever put into your fridge? As far as I know, no barcode contains data about expiry dates. If you did, you'd need one on every product. Then you (and your kids) would need to scan everything in and out in order for it to be anywhere near accurate
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently it's inconcievable in your world for your fridge to scan the UPC to determine the content of the container and assume a typical expiry period based on the product type and an assumption that the first time it is scanned is within the first day or three of the product's life.
As for tracking, things with UPCs could be easily tracked with no modification of user behavior. Even things that lose their UPC with use could be tracked -- cheese is scanned when first put into fridge with intact UPC. Cheese
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a lot of work, even when it works perfectly. I just scan articles with my nose whenever I doubt the freshness.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with almost everything in that post.
I didn't say the UPC thing *can't* be done. I said it *wouldn't* be done as a matter of course or be accurate enough to rely on. You're still gonna have to check if you have cheese before you go to the shops. And the plain assumption of an expiry date is actually pretty much a lawsuit waiting to happen so you won't see that, or it'll be a build-it-yourself thing.
Optimising energy usage? I agree you could do a lot. But then cutting out the display would pro
Re: (Score:2)
Don't buy fridges that lock their doors (silly American idea? I don't know but ours are just magnetic catches and they work just fine - even my 2-year-old can open it).
Try every refrigerator before 1956 when the American Congress passed the Refrigerator Safety Act. Of course, to be fair in-home refrigerators did start here, so we should be responsible for fixing them up, even though I'm sure a locking door was good enough for your grandparents and they didn't need some new-fangled magnetic gasket, by golly.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey this guy with a bitchin' beard ran up to me and said he needs your help raising a barn, might want to see what that was about.
Re: (Score:2)
Does the regular fridge come with the cash equivalent of the various subscriptions, packages and price increases involved in your rendition of putting some cheese in my fridge and writing down my weekly shop on a Post-it? Does it not involve my doctor having any insight at all into my private life other than what I tell them? Cool. Sign me up, if so. One regular fridge and a stackful of cash to buy stuff with.
Though I like the emailing of the SO to get stuff for you, it's easier just to let her do all t
Re: (Score:2)
I just want to know if it has an RJ45-connector. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I mean socket.
Re:Possible use: cold war (Score:2)
But does it run Linux... (Score:2)
But does it run Lin.... oh it does? Carry on then.
*yawn* (Score:2)
So what? Over a decade ago we had washing machines and fridges whose GUI was written in Java.
Re: (Score:2)
But this has effects from Enlightenment, which makes it so much better. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Dialing it in (Score:4, Funny)
*ring ring*
"Yes hello?"
"Excuse me, is your fridge running?"
"Yes, it has an uptime of over 3 months now."
"..."
*click*
I think I'm doing something wrong here..
Pictures! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
If it becomes any sort of successful, with both feet I'm sure.
GNU/Linux and Enlightenment Running On a Fridge (Score:2)
Cool!
Good thing it runs enlightenment (Score:3, Funny)
If it had KDE, you'd need a 3GHz i7 and a NVidia GTX480 just to open the fridge in less than a minute.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And if it was Gnome there wouldn't be a 'getting cold' functionality as it's for 'advanced users only'
*ducks*
"The Cramps" . . . (Score:2)
It's amazing how Slashdot can give me an oblique reference to a song, that no folks on Slashdot are old enough to have heard:
The Cramps Tv set Lyrics:
oh baby i see you on my tv set yeah baby i see you on my tv set i cut your head off and put it in my tv set
i use your eyeballs for dials on my tv set
i watch tv i watch tv
since i put you in my tv set
oh baby i hear you on my radio yeah baby i hear you on my radio you know i flip flip flip for my radio you're going drip drip drip on my radio am radio pm radio since i tuned you inside my radio... like this!
oh baby i see you in my frigidaire yeah baby i see you in my frigidaire behind the mayonnaise, way in the back i'm gonna see you tonight for a midnight snack but though
it's cold you won't get old 'cause you're well preserved in my frigidaire yahhhhhhh.
But does it run... (Score:2)
Interesting, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
All of this... (Score:2)
How about some real news on Enlightenment ... (Score:3, Informative)
... like 'Enlightenment 17 Final released'.
After all, it's only been in development for, what, 9 years or so? :-)
That better be one helluva desktop enviroment when they declare final release.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the Infinity I-Kitchen provides the user (Score:2)
with unparalleled control over his refrigerator,
How much control does a fridge need?
Sounds like a fridge from outer space to me (Score:2)
"The Freescale i.MX25 based fridge by Electrolux (Frigidaire) provides the expected bits such as temperature controls and pre-set modes (vacation, party)"
Expected bits? Preset modes? Pardon? Submitter must be from an altogether other planet where all the fridges hum cheerfull songs and do your groceries for you. My fridges, on the other hand, comes with a knob that reads 1-5 and controls the temperature. When I go on a long vacation, I pull the plug and jam the door with a stone so it won't stink when I ret
Photos/blurb of fridge (Score:3, Informative)
slashvertisment (Score:2)
Frigid (Score:4, Funny)
Nice pic of the GUI on Flickr [flickr.com]
Looks like this appliance can do more than cool your food (see top left of image)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Why does it say SEX on the upper left hand corner? *Busts out the credit card*
It's a callendar application and "Sex" comes from "Sexta-feira", which translated to English would be "Friday". In other words, whenever you use "Fri" in your callendar, we use "Sex". :P
That said, as a Brazilian, I never, ever, had noticed that or associated our Friday with sex. :-)
My Lawn Mower Runs MS Windows ... (Score:2)
... It stops for now reason and needs frequent rebooting.
Re: (Score:2)
now = no
Re: (Score:2)
"it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to have it run a webserver and service requests from DLNA devices around the house."
Oh please. This is sounding like one of those ridiculous Kitchen-Of-The-Future scenarios dreamt up by Honeywell or whoever in the 70s where we'd all be eating food cooked for us by a house robot, just updated for the 21st century. Networked hi-tech white goods may appeal to a small subsection of technology fans in their 20s but most people just want a toaster to be a toaster, a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We're not "most people".
Re: (Score:2)
Then you're even sadder than most of the crowd here. You think that the guy that deals with stupid users and tech support all day long WANTS to come home and have to reboot his fridge? Or check the event logs to see why it didn't stay cold? Or have to fix it after the kids prod too hard / manage to crash the damn thing?
Not all techies want to live their live in a bad 1960's sci-fi movie. I'm quite happy to have a fridge be a fridge. Hell, my last model was the first that was auto-defrosting and that ne
Re: (Score:2)
1. The software is tested (or formally proven) - there are very little inputs to account for anyway
2. There is a backup in terms of a thermostat or a FLC (in fact, I'm 101% sure that you could do the 'different modes' using a FLC with a number of different rules depending on the mode chosen).
I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to che
Re: (Score:2)
"The software is tested (or formally proven) "
Believe me , *no one* is going to spend HUGE amounts of money formally proving software for a fridge that sells for $400.
Anyway , just reduce the chances of software failure to zero - don't use any. Which is the situation we have at the moment.
Re:Interesting use of Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
A) Many modern fridges do have software, they just don't have much of a GUI. It's cheaper, more durable, and more energy efficient to build real controls instead of thermo-electro-mechanical systems.
B) You have to control the fridge with something. If you don't use software you need to use some equivalent piece of hardware that can break in new and exciting ways and is subject to the same sorts of design flaws. Plus it's really hard to apply a patch to your mechanical thermostat if it does turn out of to be flawed.
Re: (Score:2)
D) The original market for the internet fridge or similar converged devices is yuppies in small inner city apartments with spare cash. It's only really as silly as putting a pile of different functions on a telephone or those LCD photo frames that somebody must be buying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Going by things I've seen and bought myself, from just about every major manufacturer and every product type I've ever used, I'd guess that the designers *weren't* that smart. If anything, I bet it goes into a default mode but removes all control (i.e. you can no longer control the thermostat) if it goes wrong. I'm not saying that's certain, or that it's the way to design such a fridge, but it's several hundred layers of unnecessary bullshit in order to keep your food cool.
Hell, we don't even know if the
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Whats a Fridge? By the sounds of the previous comments it sounds like my icebox, you know the thing that I put the big block of ice in to keep my food cold for a few weeks? Dunno about this whole fridge thing, sounds kinda flaky and unnecessary I mean you can't go wrong with an icebox can you? It's a box with a bit of ice. Nice, easy simple. And well we're on the subject you can keep your electricity and indoor plumbing, who wants to live in a house that can spontaneously catch fire or flood? Not me th
Re: (Score:2)
Nice try with the analogy. Didn't work though. Ice boxes failed when the ice melted so it was an imperfect solution. A fridge however carries out its design task perfectly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just trolling?
Source code for anything GPL isn't required to be given to anyone other than those who have a product containing it. If you bought a fridge, then you are entitled to the source to it. Seeing as I don't think they are even on sale yet, it'd be difficult for you to obtain the source code you desire. Even then, it'll only be an ARM linux kernel with some desktop widgets and a closed-source application for doing anything interesting - it's a bit pointless to even *ask* for it, to be honest. To
Re: (Score:2)
Sure I'll call you when the first computerized fridge that monitors it's own temperature and power usage to detect air leaks and mechanical trouble is produced.