| Pendle.Net -> News -> Internet (Latest) -> Internet: 12Feb1999 |
Internet Story: 12 Feb 1999
|
 |
Net Ice Cream It's meal time, you're dishing out food, the kids are screaming, food's flying, they all just hate that pizza (even tough it was their favorite last week), you're about to scream and you remember that there's ice cream in the freezer. They'll all like that... but the freezer is bare; you forgot to restock at weekend, arrghhh! Fear not, soon you'll be able to buy the very latest in internet attached devices - a fridge/freezer that is attached to the Net and can order your food for you. The Electrolux Screenfridge, as it is called, allows you to send and receive e-mail, watch television, pay bills and handle personal banking. You can also keep food in it. Due on the market in early 2000, the Screenfridge is a standard Electrolux Blueprint fridge with a 13-inch LCD touch-screen and bar-code scanner built into one of its doors. It works by allowing you to scan packets that are nearly empty with a bar code gun and create an electronic shopping list which can then be emailed to the local store. Should be great news for Tesco and the likes, who are slowly moving into this future lucrative market. Maybe one day Tesco (etc.) will offer to buy your fridge if you sign up for a one year contract which emails grocery orders to them! Same concept as cellular phones. See the BBC article and Wired article.
Awards Bid To Boost Small Firm E-Commerce A new series of awards for small businesses, designed to encourage the use of electronic commerce, has been launched by the Government. Backed by the Information Society Initiative, the awards were unveiled by Minister for Small Firms Michael Wills. The Department of Trade and Industry wants one million small firms to be actively using e-commerce by 2002. Reported by the Press Association, though it doesn't appear to have made it onto today's DTI annoucements page (be patient this link can take some time!).
Andrew Stringer, © Pendle.Net Ltd, 1999