What's on the fridge?

More and more people, forced by the life on the go, are using their kitchens as a hub for their every day activities. Often little kitchens happen to be the most crowded areas of many houses. Seeing that, companies are trying to attract potential customers by compacting kitchen appliances and making even the smallest kitchens look bigger. Last spring, LG hit the market with world’s first high-definition TV refrigerator, equipped with 15 inch LCD screen build into the refrigerator door, FM radio and a wireless weather channel. This luxury and stylish unit cost $4,000. However a year later, the company forgot about its high-def refrigerator, preferring the customers to focus on build-in wall ovens with touchscreen control system. Combining personal technology with the most used kitchen appliance has been a challenge for many companies like LG for the past few years. Maybe it seems quite easy to put and LCD into fridges door, but even the smallest and the most miniaturized technology has to occupy some amount of space, which refrigerator doors just don’t have. So the companies are trying to solve the problem of cluttered space in different way. The customer complains about lack of the counter room. Again the solution may seem easy: squish everything together, make it more compact and technologically advanced. But the really question is: how? No matter what the companies do, something eventually ends up on the counter top. Finally Whirlpool company has created a fridge combo that, as company hopes, will fit most of customers expectations. They achieved that by putting together one of their best refrigerators and small computerized unit. The new appliance has a modular space on the upper left side of the door that can be used to swap out a digital photo frame, an iPod dock and speaker system, a convertible computing device or a message center. It can use memory cards from a camera, or even connect wirelessly to your laptop. All that functions are controlled by 15 inch touchscreen that itself acts as a screen. As a result of combining the newest technology and one of the best refrigerators is a kitchen appliance that functions as a dozen of devices, but takes up space of only one.
LG wouldn’t be worried about their product if not the Whirlpool fridge price of $3,000. Declassed by Whirlpools product, more companies are starting to engage in the race for consumer. As of today the Whirlpool is at the lead, but not for long if only the promises of competing companies are true.

More information on:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24586600/