WEBVTT - Kitchens of the Future 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.640 Forward Thinking. Hey the every one, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.520 the podcast that looks the future and says, well, get 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.880 out from that kitchen and rat all those pots and pants. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:27.040 I'm Jovin Strickland, I'm Lauren, and I'm Joe McCormick. So, yeah, kitchens, future, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.600 what how will these two things collide? Are we all 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.200 cooks around this table? I'm the cook in my family. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.240 I'm not I'm a baker, not a cook, but I'm 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.839 the cook in my household. Also, but so so. Baking 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.479 is is certainly a part of the whole cooking subset 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.159 of food creation. I'm actually not very good at that. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:49.240 I'm good at all the other kinds of cooking, but 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.320 not at the baking. Oh, it's much more orderly. I 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.080 I the freedom of cooking drives me a little bit crazy. Yeah. 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.120 I think the difference between baking and cooking is sort 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.920 of like the difference between being a chemistry lab researcher 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:09.520 and a soccer player. Well, as we have established, we 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.720 are recording this as the World Cup is still going on, 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.600 and UH and I have determined that the rules for 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.839 soccer allow you to team at least forty seven people 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.080 on the field at a single time. This is just 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.520 based upon my own observations. I haven't actually looked into 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.479 the rules, so I'm gonna go ahead and say sure. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:32.360 But getting into getting into what we actually gathered here 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.600 to talk about kitchens before we talk about the stuff 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.920 we we have in our notes, One thing I wanted 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.320 to mention is that the kitchen of the future is 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.559 one of those things that gets gets looked at fairly frequently, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.520 and it can be a lot of fun to go 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.160 back and look at what past predictions of what future 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.760 kitchens is in stuff that's now in our past, why 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:56.880 they would look like do do you know? So? Earlier 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.800 today we were all watching this video from the All 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.520 Know What year was seven, and it was predicting the 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.600 kitchen of nineteen that's exactly right, ninety nine and it 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:14.000 is a rawlic we uh frolic. It was a looking 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.400 good time. Yeah, it was if you like your misogyny 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.160 with with Peppie jazz tunes. Yeah, it imagines that in 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.079 the future you won't have to do any work to 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.919 prepare meals, but mom's still in the kitchen. Yeah, she's 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.280 not allowed to leave that room. Don't don't take that 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.520 away from women. That's all we have that in valium, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.560 apparently because she looks so happy. Yes, she would contact 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.799 her family with the very personal touch of turning on 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:45.160 an enormous bank of television monitors to check in, and 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.440 her husband, the loving man that he was, made specific 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.959 demands on what the meal should be for lunch. He's 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.040 so grumbly that she won't make him a cheeseburger. For 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.080 her son. She tells her son that lunch will be 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.520 ready in two minutes, so he starts counting down the 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.639 seconds because you know, kids are adorable. Well, it's the future, 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.600 so it's a robot son. I guess that actually makes 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.079 way more sense now. It certainly didn't seem all that 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.680 life like so at any rate, the the episode goes 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.280 on some stuff that they predict is kind of interesting 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.440 because it's stuff we're still talking about today. Well, it predicts, 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.720 for example, the miracle that in the future all meals 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.359 will be pre frozen in advance. I was going to 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.400 actually talk about one that was true Joe, which was 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.240 that the the idea that he had the computer that 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.960 gave the nutritional value of a proposed meal, and it 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.000 said this is four calories above what was suggested, so 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.720 you should really think of an alternative. And here's a suggestion. 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.920 That's actually something that we see with apps right now 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.240 you can put in what you were going to make. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.080 And so that part was actually realistic. The part about 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.680 all the food being frozen, I hope is not a 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.640 realistic view of what the future is going to be 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.560 because I like to have some fresh food once in 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.800 a while. Yeah, well, I was just commenting on the 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.680 bizarreness of how they seemed to see this as a 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.160 really great thing. Well, it's the idea was that for 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.480 the convenience, right, And it was all automated in the 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.320 video and the video she she essentially said what each 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.200 person was going to eat, pressed a button and then 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.840 magically this frozen food went through a microwave all at 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.320 the same time and then came out on a very 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.800 institutionalized looking trade you know, it's got a conveyor belt. 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.039 And then this white cardboard barge of food comes out 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.920 to serve up the gullets of the family and they 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.200 and did you hear they said they had the the 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:37.520 color coordinated disposable plates like This was very much a 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.000 make and throw away kind of culture, which is something 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.599 that you would have seen back in the late sixties 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.200 but not so much today. It was specified in a 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.120 in a different video. Walter Cronkite also wound up on 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.320 this set at some point, and there's another video with 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.600 him talking about this amazing kitchen of the of the future, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.920 and and he specified that the plastics that the plates 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:00.760 were made of would get mel to down and made 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.320 into new plates for the next so there would be recycling. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.960 So there was was recycling. Also, I love personally melting 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.960 down plastic in my own home. So there's nothing like 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.200 that smell. As we have learned as we've worked with 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.279 the three D printer we now have in our office, 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.240 the smell of burning plastic is in fact a very 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.760 soothing odor Um tried the new model with lead plates. 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.039 So and Joe, you pointed out something else that Walter 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.279 Cronkite said that that got you kind of chuckling about 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.600 the the interface that you would use to uh to 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.600 in the kitchen of tomorrow. Right. I can't remember what 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.120 was it. I said it was the punch cards. Joe, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.280 He's like, yeah, you'll plan your meal or your you'll 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.760 enter your meal preferences with a typewriter or punch card. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.520 So the point that Joe was making, and it's something 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.160 that we need to point out too before we get 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.279 into any of our predictions, it's that often the predictions 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.839 we make about the future are based on extending out 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.800 what current technology is capable of doing, and some things 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.039 we end up going way off the rails thinking about 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:08.080 stuff that may not really be within technologies uh scope 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.640 of being able to do, and other things are going 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.040 to be far too conservative because it's based upon interfaces 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.320 that we're familiar with now and we don't anticipate what 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.919 that next breakthrough is gonna be that's going to completely 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.200 change things. Yeah, it is pretty funny the way we 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.240 just we can't level our expectations for the future. We're 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.200 always being way too optimistic about some things and not 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.440 even closed to optimistic enough about others. Right, So some 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.400 of the things we're gonna talk about today will it 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.679 will include a little bit of criticism and skepticism about 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.880 a few of the items because they're ones that it 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.839 may turn out the technology is not sophisticated enough to 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.560 really deliver upon the promise, may not within the next 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.360 couple hundred years. Yeah, hey, okay, I don't want to 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.000 leave the nineteen sixties yet. I want to I want 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.160 to take us back in the way, back to predicting 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.719 the future in the past machine, right, okay, okay, so 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.960 that's a very specific machine. Actually not that wouldn't be 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.560 exactly right, not predicting the future, just talking about the 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.320 miracle of technology. Sure. Uh. Some nights I found this 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.360 ad copy from a newspaper ad that was running in 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.040 the late sixties, like nine sixty nine for a microwave oven, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.520 and I just want to read you this copy. The 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:26.320 indoor Outdoor Miracle Worker cook or derves in seconds a 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.120 five pound roast in thirty seven minutes, a baked potato 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:34.800 in four minutes. The amazing Amana radar range microwave oven 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:39.320 cooks with microwave energy, faster and cleaner than gas or electricity. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.280 Though I assume you have to plug it into the wall. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.800 But it's not an electrical right the Yeah. Uh. What's more, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.880 it's portable, so if you're having a cookout, you just 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.040 wheel the radar range to the patio and plug it in. 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.080 With radar range, you're always set for an instant dinner party, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.320 and you haven't stood over a hot stove, suffer catd 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:04.320 in smoke, or scrubbed a single pan because radar range 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.040 heats only the food, never the chef. See radar range 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.960 in action at your Amano dealers. If that doesn't make 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.280 a believer out of you, it's a miracle now, you know. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.440 The microwave was really seen as kind of a miracle device. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.640 You know how it was invented? Right? Or how how 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.040 the right? Yeah? Yeah. So there's a fellow named Percy 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.160 Spencer who was working with radar tubes. It was his specialty, 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.440 was what he was working with. And he realized that 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.640 while he was working next to one radar tube, the 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.080 candy bar he had in his pocket had melted, and 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.319 he got him to thinking about what might be going on, 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.839 and he realized that was an interaction of the microwaves 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.320 agitating molecules inside the candy bar and making them vibrate 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.560 essentially and warm up. And that became the basis for 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.200 the microwave oven and uh, and it really was considered 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.760 sort of this miracle technology. There was no open flame, 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.480 there was no heated element, and yet you would put 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.640 food into this thing. You'd hear maybe a fan going 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.360 off to help distribute microwaves and maybe uh fan away 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.400 some some you know, steam and other stuff coming up 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.000 from the food, and it was magically hot, like it 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.760 had cooked magically to be To be fair, I'm still 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.840 pretty impressed by microwaves today. I mean I grew up 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.160 with them. I've always had one as far back as 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.920 I can personally remember, and that's I mean, it makes 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.240 my food warm. That's great. Well, it is pretty great 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.600 if you want to like defrost something quickly or left over, 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:32.959 if you've got a frozen dinner, like if you're if 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.480 unlike the the pictures of the future where everything is 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.719 frozen and it's wonderful, most of us are thinking about, well, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.480 you we will depend upon a frozen dinner because it's 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:46.920 economical or it's efficient. It's not because it's a miracle 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.120 of modern gore mat cuisine. Right. I want to point 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.480 out in this ad copy I just read that the 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.679 incredible tone deafness about what we like in food and 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.880 uh and how the esthetic dicks of food and social 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.800 gatherings fit together. So they're imagining you want to make 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.200 a roast, I guess like a like a red roast 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.160 or something a five pound roast in thirty seven minutes. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.760 So you want to put the roast into the microwave 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.000 and just turn it into a moon rock, or or 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.760 you you're having a barbecue, they say take it out 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.440 on the patio and barbecue withrowave, because that's exactly like 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:29.719 cooking a burger on an open flame, exactly replaced the grill. Yeah, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.880 it's not the only technology from back then that was 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:38.320 greeted with wide eyed enthusiasm and and awe right, I 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.160 mean there are other technologies that entered the kitchen. They 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:46.080 got incredible amounts of response. But you know today we 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.559 just look back and say, really so uh sure. Well, 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:55.280 like in when the single armed water faucet hit the market, 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.200 it was big news. You didn't have to have you 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.560 no longer were you slave to two knobs for turning 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.960 on your water. You can now you could have a 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.719 single control where you can go from boiling hot to 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.760 ice cold in the span of a micron. But but honestly, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.880 probably every single appliance that we use today, refrigerators or 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.680 blenders or toasters or toaster ovens or whatever, whatever, we're 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:25.520 probably at one point marketed as the whatever thing of 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.320 the incredible future. Before we started this, I made Joe 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.480 watch a tex Savery cartoon, The Home of the Future, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.680 which obviously was meant as a spoof on that sort 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.920 of stuff and is completely outrageous, and at the same 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:39.960 time you think, yeah, this is dead on. This is 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.520 exactly the way that those sort of items had been marketed. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.240 And some of them, you know, some of them turned 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.800 out to be pretty cool and they stuck around. A 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.400 lot of the stuff that's been marketed as the kitchen 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.680 of the future has not panned out to be practical 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.920 and has not been widely adopted. Yeah, some of my 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.160 favorites from the nineteen fifties and sixties include tractable motorized 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.160 appliances so that all of your surfaces are streamlined. Just 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:05.800 like if you want to blend something, you push a 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.320 button and the blender comes up out of the countertop 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.280 or back out from the wall or something like, etcetera. 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.120 That'll be fantastic when it breaks. See, I would just 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.040 want I would want that, But I wanted to be 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.920 like young Frankenstein's style, where you you know, you you 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.880 move the salt shaker and then suddenly the wall pivots 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.640 and then there's your blender, and that's what I want. 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.760 You climb into it occasionally Indiana Jones and his dad 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:35.000 are there. Also motion activated appliances, because if I ever 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.400 flail like a muppet, as I do basically every three 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.200 and a half seconds, I really want that to turn 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.120 on my oven. That sounds amazing. I'm sorry, I just 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.840 had a horrible image, but it's you, you cooking, and 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.120 you like catch your sleeve on fire on the stove, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.040 and as you're flailing, all of your appliances are coming 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.480 or you just do the thing that happens to all 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.080 of us. Sooner or later, something you are cooking ends 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.240 up setting off the smoke detectors, so you start fanning 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.000 the smoke detect to try and get the smoke to 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.480 clear out, and meanwhile you're making all your appliances go 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:09.640 completely bonkers. Microive starts cooking dry. Yeah, I can see 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.960 why they didn't catch on. Also also waterproof appliances so 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.079 that you can just like, you know, pressure wash your 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.960 entire kitchen. I am in favor of that. Oh so 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.080 it's like those uh those public restrooms in Europe where 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:26.560 the door just closes and then it sanitizes every surface exactly, 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.200 best not be in that restroom and that happens, you 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.559 will you thought some things you will never forget. Yeah, 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:34.480 whenever you walk into a room and you see a 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.240 drain in the center of the floor, you know some 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.679 serious stuff's about to go down. Yeah, it's either it's 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.640 either like a slaughter house or it's an elementary school bathroom. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:48.160 Welcome to your abattoir of the future. No, but, but some, 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.600 but some of these ideas are absolutely legitimate. Like one 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.360 of the ones that I was also running into and 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.880 my research a lot today was this crazy concept for 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.400 electronic photo heavy recipe cards that you can just pull 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.640 up whenever you want them. And I was like, oh, okay, 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.240 that's that's an iPad or d dot com essentially the Internet. Yeah, 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.280 and there are tons of apps obviously as well. Some 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.520 of them are specifically geared towards living a healthy lifestyle. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.840 They might be part of the fitness app that will 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.200 give you ideas for recipes that will help you on 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.200 your on your plan to either lose weight or gain 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.360 muscle mass or whatever it may be that you're doing. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.840 So that's one of those that actually has panned out. 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:29.640 It's kind of like we were talking about that video 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.200 at the very top of the show, the bit about predicting, Hey, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.000 this particular meal that you have planned doesn't meet your 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.960 nutritional guides that you have set up. Therefore you might 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.400 want to think of this other thing. That's pretty cool 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.680 that some of those things are starting to pan out. Now. 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.720 I think we should transition to today and start making 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.120 our own wild and crazy predictions that people in the 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.320 future will make fun of. Okay, let's do that, but well, no, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.920 let's actually let's do that, but let's also try to 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.000 introduce a little bit of levelheadedness and say maybe maybe 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.280 not where we feel it's warranted. But I think the 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.200 main thing I want to get at first is how 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.160 the Internet of things, this concept we've talked about before, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.920 will apply to the kitchen. And we actually already talked 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.400 about the kitchen a little bit back when we were 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.480 doing our original podcasts and video about the Internet of Things, 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.720 but we wanted to go into more detail about that today. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.960 And some of that just means keeping track of what 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.280 you have and what you don't have, right, That's one 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.680 of the basic things the Internet of things. Whenever you 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.720 see anything about a refrigerator, for example, almost always. One 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.680 of those is inventory control, where it keeps track of 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.480 exactly what you have in there at any given time. 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.960 So if you have decided, hey, I would love to 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.800 make such and such tonight for dinner, and you put 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.120 that in, it can actually cross reference your fridge and say, oh, well, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:47.480 if you want to make that, then you need to 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.040 go to the store and also pick up these two 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.560 other rest two other ingredients to make that dish. Yeah, 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.680 that I think that's a great idea. We should probably 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:56.960 do a brief aside, just for those who have not 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.640 seen our previous Internet of Things content, to define the concept. 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.920 The Internet of Things means we just take the same concept, 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.720 but a smaller proportion of all these things you interact 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.280 with our virtual documents. A lot of them are real 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.160 appliances and objects and things in your environment. So you're 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.560 the lamp and the refrigerator, and the stove and the 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.400 couch and the lock on the front door are all 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.200 communicating with your computer and your mobile device, right and someone. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.440 Sometimes they'll even just be communicating with one another, and 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.600 you don't ever have to get into any kind of 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.640 control situation with your laptop or mobile device at all. 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.840 These could be completely automated devices that are relying on 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.440 input from sensors and then based upon some change in 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.400 the environment, they react in a in some ways. So 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.360 for example, you walk through the door and all your 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.040 lights come on, or you know, it turns to a 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.600 certain time at night and certain lights either dim or 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.000 go out, that kind of thing. It's all basic stuff 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.640 that we've seen gradually evolve over the last few years, 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:57.880 and now we're getting to a point where we can 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.360 seriously start plating this technology in all all sorts of things. Right, 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.480 So to get back to what you were talking about earlier, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.160 you can immediately see how this could be really useful 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.040 if if you just had, say, a refrigerator that talked 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.399 to your to your phone and new was able to 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.919 somehow know what was inside it. So you're on the 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:17.919 way home from work. You know you need to go 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.040 to the grocery store, but you can't remember if you 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.560 already have eggs, and you can just check. You can 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.600 just check the app on your phone. The refrigerator comes on, 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.520 scan says, yes, you have four eggs in The refrigerator 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.640 may even be able to tell you whether or not 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.080 the stuff you have is still good. It may say 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:34.760 you know what you want to buy in some anyway 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.440 because these seven weeks ago. Yeah, it makes me think 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.720 of the King of the Hill thing, where you would 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:42.800 get a little text from your on your phone and 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.879 say there's some milk in the fridge that's about to 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:50.600 go bad, and about three seconds later there it goes yeah, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:52.760 And this isn't all that far off in the future. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.199 LG is currently working on a system that would let 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.040 you text your appliances and like talk to your appliances 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.600 as though they are living things like the Brave Little Toaster. 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.400 You'd be going like, hey, fridge, do we have any 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.760 eggs and it could answer you, or hey, oven, let's 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.280 cook a pot roast and it would pre program itself 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.920 for optimal pot roast temperature. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.280 can see this being in fact very easy to do 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.119 if if you're talking about packaged foods, because package foods, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.720 I think would be pretty easy to encode r F 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.720 I D into the package, which some people are incredibly 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.760 resistant too. But I'll talk about that in the second. Right. 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.000 Oh sure, I'm not saying we necessarily should do this, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.880 but uh, if you so you put the new coffee 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.560 creamer in the fridge. The box it comes in has 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.199 our f I D. The fridge knows that there's coffee 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.639 creamer in there and when it came into the fridge 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.320 for the first time. So that seems easy. It seems 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.240 harder though, how you might manage things like meat and produce. 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.480 Maybe you would just put those in a package. Also 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.320 though that then you're talking about increasing more and more 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.879 plastic and stuff like that, exactly like, how do you 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.840 how does the fridge know what is in it? And 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.080 are different ways of going about that. There's the r 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.679 f i D chip like you were saying, which some 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.040 people say, well, there's a couple of different concerns there. 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.400 One is for people who just don't like that kind 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.280 of technology period, They find that to be invasive. Yeah, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.840 because essentially, who else knows that I have this stuff 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.080 in my fridge? And it doesn't matter whether the stuff 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.760 in my fridge is something that I should be ashamed 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.840 of or whatever or or you know, worried about. It's 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.199 that on principle, no one's business but my own is 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.560 what you know, that's that's my fridge. You do have 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:33.880 no business knowing what's in there? Right? Oh sorry, quick 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.639 diversion again. Just if you don't know r F I 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.000 D radio frequency i D. So it's sort of like 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.359 having a bar code that you can identify with a 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.320 radio signal. Right, And another concern is that by including 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.160 r F I D you end up increasing the cost 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.960 of the items because they have to incorporate that into 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.040 the packaging. And you know, anytime there's a big change 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.200 in packaging, whether it's you know, it might be something 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.080 that's mandated by the Food and Drug Administration, if there's 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.520 a discovery that a certain type of packaging can be 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.679 dangerous than obviously this plastic we've been using and everything 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:09.600 is leaching chemicals exactly, so now you gotta change everything. Well, 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:11.879 that can mean that the cost of the item may 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.840 go up, so there's some people who object on that basis. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.280 You could have something where it would be more for 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.439 packaged foods, things that already have like a barcode on 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.800 it where you scan the code before you put it 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.560 in the fridge, either with an app on your phone, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.560 or maybe the fridge itself has a little scanner. Imagine 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.119 it wouldn't be hard for the fridge to do it automatic. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:34.720 You just have to have a scanner that you could 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.040 have the code face and it goes. Really, I mean, 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.120 anyone who has used a scanner at one of those 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.800 grocery stores like a self service thing knows they're incredibly fast. 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.240 But it means that you do have one extra step 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.760 besides just grocery shopping and then putting everything in your fridge. 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.359 I could I could envision some kind of weird, sort 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.240 of creepy technology that would let you while you're scanning 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.520 your items out at the grocery store, it's a message 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:02.800 out to your fresh sure and says, hey, these are 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.399