Talking to myself

It depends on which refrigerator you are talking about.

Cold and darkness.

-- Boris

Solder paste.

D from BC

Developer for silk-screening. Do not confuse for milk!

From a quantum point of view, perhaps nothing until you look ;)

Cheers

PeteS

"Tim Williams" hath wroth:

Been there, done that. At one time, I had a PTZ TV camera and IR illuminator inside the fridge. The idea was to be able to inspect the contents of the fridge while still at my office, thus eliminating the need to document a shopping list before running out the door (late) in the mornings. However, my fridge was not organized in any manner suitable for remote inventory control. It would require at least 4 cameras to cover the volume, not including the freezer. There were also technical problems, such as water condensing on the circuit boards, and ripping the components off the board when the water turned to ice. The PTZ mechanics also tended to freeze. Due to the short distances involved, an auto-focus lens was required, which also tended to freeze. I gave up years ago.

However, the idea refuses to die. Internet Refridgerator by Whirlpool:

I can't tell if it has an internal camera, but it has an LCD display, MP3 player, and some manner of computah. A camera could be easily added.

The Electrolux Screen Fridge:

No camera feature that I could find, but it's a start.

LG and others have also introduced such refridgerators:

Also no camera.

Well, you may have sellable idea. However, it's already been patented by LG:

Wait for RFID on all products. There are already inventory control systems that can interrogate cabinets and refrigerators if everything is tagged.

No doubt my fridge will be displaying a flashing warning message, "Don't Drink the Milk!! The use-by date is long passed!!"

Without thinking about it too much, I wonder if a bar code scanner code put to use for tracking food in and out of the fridge? Beep! Steak out. Beep! Pickles out. Beep! Pickles in.. Beep! Margarine out. Beep! Margarine in. Beep! Milk out.. Beep! Milk back in... Sure...the milk might be nearly empty but there's at least a container of some amount milk in there. :)

D from BC

Depends on the fridge. Lets see:

- at work I have about 7 or 8 kg of solder paste in one fridge, some adhisives and underfill in another, then theres the enviro chambers in which one will go down to a frosty - 55 deg C with circuit boards in them. Oh, and some food in the lunch room fridge.

- At home, some more food.

D from BC hath wroth:

Try not to think about it too much. It was done about 20 years ago and failed miserably. I saw one in a restaurant fridge that was essentially disabled.

My favorite was the giant color bar codes painted on the sides of railroad cars starting in about 1968. By about 1975, 90% of the US railroad cars had bar codes. These were suppose to track cars and shipments, thus saving labor. So, labor solved their problem by not washing the cars. The optical readers couldn't see too well through the filth. The system was abandoned by about 1978.

For home use, it's too much work checking things in and out with no way to know if you have a full six pack of beer, or just one can left. Getting kids to check things in and out would be impossible. It also won't work for the single part epoxy and other chemicals I keep in the fridge. Same with last weeks failed culinary experiment, assorted batteries, 10+ year photographic film, and various pharmaceuticals. Monthly inventory reconciliation sounds like no fun.

Of course, the RFID fan club is certain to resurrect the idea, but that will need to wait until RFID is as ubiquitous as UPC bar code.

"Once you get home, you put your milk in the refrigerator, which is also equipped with a tag reader. This smart refrigerator is capable of tracking all of your groceries stored in it. It can track the foods you use, how often you restock your refrigerator and can let you know when that milk and other foods spoil." I can't wait. Supermarket RFID by 2005. Ummm.... right.

You know you're not rich when tracking fridge food is a problem...

"I don't play with food... Someone just brings it to me and I eat it.. Just like mom." :)

For fun...I have this ludicrous idea... Programmable fridges that travel in underground tunnels. :P One just enters in the stock items and a few settings and the fridge goes automatic.

Once food runs low, the fridge drops through the floor and zooms down a tunnel to the supermarket. Robots then load the fridge with food and it's sent back to the return address. :P

D from BC

So I run out of meat in the fridge. It's not so bad.. I'm happy I don't have to deal with messy blood and guts.

Documentary about working in a slaughterhouse.

I saw a thing on edjamacayshunal teevee where there was some blind guy who had a bar code reader that talked, so he could tell which package was which.

Cheers! Rich

Yeah, they have them, BUT! They are extremely expensive. They finally have started including some pre-programmed codes in them (originally, youi had to have someone record what each item was individually...) but you still have to custom record a lot of items. They are big and bulky, but they are better than nothing!

Charlie

Charlie Edmondson hath wroth:

I believe you're referring to this one: ($1,200)

There are others for as little as $200, but with limited storage and features.

In about 2000, Digital Convergence marketed a UPC lookup system which included a free bar code reader called CueCat. It was later also adopted by Radio Shack. The readers were immediately reverse engineered into general purpose bar code readers. I have about 5 of them. The EAN/UCC-13 database is commonly available:

and can probably be convinced to output in a format suitable for talking. There are also specialized bar code databases for records, movies, and pharmacy items. It wouldn't take much work to design a bar code reader, connected to a wi-fi enabled PDA, that does internet lookups and talks.

Probably, but the cue-cat (I have one...) needs to be scanned directly across the bar code, which can be difficult for a blind person. The expensive units are partially expensive, because they use a wide area scanner to make aiming the unit not such a difficult task.

It would be really nice if a store let this type of unit access its internal database to get item and pricing information, but unfortunately, that is a security hole to all the marketing types... :-(

Charlie

Charlie Edmondson hath wroth:

True. I know of several local experts on the topic of aids for the blind (mostly because they are blind). I happen to be yakking on the (ham) radio with one, who indicated that it was fairly easy to find the UPC barcode on most electronic boxes. He said they always put the RFID tag just behind the bar code, and he can feel that through the box. That doesn't do much for supermarket and pharmacy items, but it's a start.

Sitting in one of my customers warehouses, is a bar code scanner that will focus from 3 - 30cm and cover an area of about 100 x 100cm. I forgot the brand and model but can dig it out if anyone wants it.

I've also played with long range (10meters) laser bar code readers, that are especially useful for playing laser tag. T-shirts are printed (using heat transfers printed on a laser printer) with a bar code number front and back. The rest you can imagine. I personally credit myself with having dramatically reduced productivity in at least 3 warehouses over the years.

Whatever the model, I'm fairly sure a suitable scanner can be produced that would not required exact alignment. For example, the typical supermarket scanner is orientation insensitive. Same with the dual perpendicular CCD hand scanners.

No, they're expensive because selling any kind of medical equipment requires a substantial liability insurance policy. The recipient of the device is often subsidized by a philanthropic, research, or government organization, who often don't care what they pay for such things. For example, my father had a stoke in 1986 and required a "talking pad". This was donated by some foundation to the tune of about $800. Under the covers, was the guts from a TI Speak-n-Spell which was then selling for about $15.

Some do, but indirectly. The local Kmart (owned by Sears) has 5 Dell PC's, with a nice fast internet connection, near the check stands. You can walk over and lookup anything. I've used it for price checking, but have noticed that most everyone else is reading their email. I also suggested that Sears adopt a similar system, but was told that it was "anti-competitive", whatever that means.

However, if you just want the UPC numbers and their descriptions, you can download them yourself from:

It's only about 15MBytes compressed, and should fit nicely in any PDA that has external memory.

Personally, I've often thought that installing a full feature file server in my vehicle would the be the answer to such problems. Much of what I look up is static, historical, and repetative. No need to grab it from the internet in real time. A wi-fi access point and NAS (network attached storage) in my vehicle, and I'm mostly done. The UPC database would be a perfect fit, although my MP3 collection would take priority. (Yet another project).

There are a few stores that have bar code scanners for customers use to scan items as they load them into their carts. I guess the idea is to eliminate the bottleneck at checkouts (even the self serve ones). I'm sure they could be equipped with a speaker.

Are you sure about that? There's a nearby crossing that has a very powerful light that shines on the cars as they pass by (at night). This light is not positioned for safety - too far away to help in that regard, but it is clearly synchronized with the traffic gates. After the train passes, this light goes out.

I've been stuck a few times at this crossing and it does it every time. What's up with that? Are they photographing the cars...? Weird.