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If youve ever bought a bag of spinach only to come home and realize you already had a bag of spinach, you may appreciate this fridge. I had a chance to check out the GE Profile Smart Fridge with Kitchen Assistant at CES and was surprised to find I kinda wanted one. To be perfectly honest, most attempts Ive seen at the show to stick some AI in it are at best amusing but usually completely unnecessary. Here, though, the AI has a purpose. After seeing how the autofill water dispenser worked, I asked the GE Appliance reps how easy it was to change the fridges water filter. Jason May, a GE Appliances product management executive, walked up to the fridges (appropriately sized) touchscreen and said Hey HQ, wheres my water filter? (HQ is short for SmartHQ, GE Profiles assistant). Then, relying on information it had gathered from this models user manual, the AI assistant explained exactly where to find it (in the left hand door below the ice maker). It took another rep about two seconds to pop out the filter and, justlikethat, the task was on its way to done. As for the spinach conundrum, thats handled by a crisper drawer camera, called Fridge Focus. Each time you open the drawers, a built-in camera (that you can physically shutter or turn off in the app) takes a video snapshot of whats left when youre done. So if youre at the store and wondering how much kale you already have, you can take a peek and see. Checking out what's in the crisper drawer using the Fridge Focus feature. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Wendy Treinen, GE Appliances senior director of product communications, told me the camera can see whats in the crisper drawer, but cant see who accessed it. So if youre hoping your fridge will rat out whoever at the last of the grapes, youre out of luck. It can however, help that grape-eater easily add more fruit to the family shopping list. Thats the most unique feature the fridge offers: a patented, built-in barcode scanner. It lives in the water dispenser and when you walk up, a little green light activates and scans the barcode of whatever you hold up to it. So if youre drinking the last of the almond milk, you scan the container and itll automatically add it to your list. That list can be accessed through the SmartHQ app which you can either check off at the grocery store or, if you really want to get deluxe about it, use the Instacart integration and have it delivered to your door. I scanned a few products a box of vitamin C mix and a package of cinnamon raisin bagels both of which quickly popped up on the screen and joined the running list. Adding grocery items to Instacart with one button. Sam Rutherford for Engadget The scanner can recognize four million products, including household items like paper towels and trash bags, but you can add things a other ways too. The easiest is probably just asking your fridge to do so, saying Hey HQ, add paper towels to my shopping list. The app allows manual additions and you can add items using the recipe function as well. For the launch of the fridge, GE Profile has partnered with Taste of Home and will send 50 recipes each month to the fridge for users to try. Once you see the ingredients list, you can add anything youre missing to your shopping. Those 50 recipes will cycle out at the end of the month to make way for a new 50, so if you cook something and like it, youll need to to add it to your personal recipe vault. The AI assistant can also create recipes for you. The GE rep snapped a picture of an array of produce and asked SmartHQ what he could make with it. A list of recipe suggestions popped up and they all looked quite tasty (to be fair, I hadnt eaten yet and it was already 2PM). The recipe created from a picture of produce. Sam Rutherford for Engadget I mentioned the water dispensers hands-free auto-fill feature earlier. Thats been available on GE Profile fridges for a while and lets you select your glass capacity and walk away while it fills. You can also ask for, say, a half cup of water for a recipe. A new precise fill feature will dispense larger amounts in sequence. Say you need ten cups of water for soup. Since you cant fit a huge vat in the water dispenser tray, you can instead use a smaller jug and the auto-filler will fill it the correct amount of times. Another of my favorite bits is the screen. Fridges with giant, interactive screens make my eyes roll. Yes, its novel and eye-catching and perhaps amusing, but what possible problem is it trying to solve? The screen here is eight inches, which is enough to display scanned items, show recipes, and display the weather atop a pretty image when youre not actively using the interface. Finally! A reasonably sized fridge screen. Sam Rutherford for Engadget The GE Appliances reps were eager to point out that this is just the beginning of what they want to do with the fridge. My college Sam Rutherford asked whether the fridge would be able to alert you before your lettuce went bad, and we were told something that addresses that problem is on the horizon. It would likely work by recognizing when you purchased a perishable, and how long that perishable typically lasts. The company is also working with a chef on a feature that can reimagine your leftovers to create something new. During the demo, May told me that the whole idea around the fridges design was to do something other than just put a big screen on it with a bunch of apps that dont have ay relevance to anything. Instead the engineers started with problems people actually have knowing what to buy at the store, knowing whats already in the fridge, answering the eternal, unrelenting Whats for dinner? question and designed the frdge around that. Id have to live with it a while to know whether those problems were solved, but so far, I can say this is the most intrigued Ive felt about a smart fridge yet. The GE Profile Smart Fridge with Kitchen Assistant will be available in March from geappliances.com for $4,899. A good amount of organization. Sam Rutherford for Engadget This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/the-ge-profile-smart-fridge-stops-you-from-buying-too-much-kale-172433059.html?src=rss
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NASA has postponed an International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk that was scheduled for Thursday. "The agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex," the agency wrote. On Thursday, NASA added that ending Crew-11's mission early was on the table.The unnamed crew member is stable, according to NASA. Space News notes that Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was heard on an open comms channel on Wednesday requesting a private medical conference with a flight surgeon. However, those requests are routine on the ISS, so we cant assume the events were related."The matter involved a single crew member who is stable," NASA wrote. "Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11's mission."NASA astronaut Zena Cardman in her pressurized spacesuit, checking its comms and power systems ahead of the (now postponed) spacewalkNASACrew-11 was scheduled to remain on board the ISS until at least the second half of February. Its replacement, Crew-12, isn't slated to blast off until February 15 at the earliest.NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman had planned to exit the airlock on Thursday for the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. The short trips mission was to install a kit and cables in preparation for a new roll-out solar array that will arrive on a future mission.The agency said it will provide further updates within 24 hours.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-delays-spacewalk-due-to-a-medical-concern-with-a-crew-member-171900024.html?src=rss
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Star Trek is in a weird place right now. Less than three years ago we were living in a golden age with five shows on the air, all with different styles and intended audiences. But the universe rapidly contracted, with Picard ending while four other shows were cut short. Strange New Worlds still has another two seasons left, sure, but even that final season got truncated. As it stands, theres only one project with a firm future right now, and thats a brand-new show, Starfleet Academy, premiering January 15 on Paramount+.How this show is received could very well determine the future of Star Trek. Thats a lot to put on it, but theres something very appropriate given the subject matter. Starfleet Academy takes place in the 32nd century, 900 years after the adventures of James T. Kirk and company, and it takes place at the titular academy, meaning its principal cast is a collection of teens representing the next generation of Starfleet officers. That focus on a younger cadre has led to fans online derisively calling the series CW Trek without seeing a single episode. As Starfleet Academy is technically a Discovery spinoff, it picks up some of that series traits. The sleek, shiny sets are back, as well as a few plot threads originally set up in Discovery. The most notable is the collapse of the United Federation of Planets and the rebuilding of both the Federation and Starfleet. In fact, the series picks up on that as early as its second episode, with the Academy hosting a delegation from a once stalwart Federation planet thats now gone isolationist. Scenes from Star Trek: Starfleet AcademyJohn Medland/Paramount+While many complaints about the series have focused on how what fans wanted was an academy show set during the 24th century (the time of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, et al.), this particular episode plot works precisely because of the distant future in which it is set. In a fully-functioning galactic democracy like the United Federation of Planets, theres no logical reason for the average 18-year-old college freshman to be involved in interplanetary diplomacy. But in the 32nd century, the Federation is a lot scrappier and the individuals involved might be asked to wear many hats. Its a lot like an early-stage tech startup.The setting also lets the show be a little more creative with its cast: where TNG featured the first Klingon in Starfleet (Worf), 900 years of progress have created a Starfleet where no one bats an eye when a Klingon cadet like Jay-Den Kraag (played by Karim Diané) shows up to study science. Theres also a holographic cadet, Sam, who is the first of her kind to attend the academy (and shes super excited to do so). A few new species are present as well: Darem Reymi (George Hawkins) is a Khionian and Genesis Lythe (Bella Shepard) is a Dar-Sha, both aliens making their debut in the Star Trek universe.The cast of Star Trek: Starfleet AcademyJohn Medland/Paramount+However, the show does still lean on some Trek stalwarts, and its these characters that have gotten the most chatter from fans. Mary Weisman as Sylvia Tilly was originally slated for the cast, and there was even a backdoor pilot-esque episode of Discovery to tie her in to the new show, but shes no longer a regular and is nowhere to be seen in the first two episodes. Instead, we have Jett Reno (played by the wonderful Tig Notaro) as supporting cast, and Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) appearing in a few episodes. And old school fans have been abuzz by the inclusion of The Doctor, who first appeared on Voyager (and later Prodigy). As a hologram, hes practically immortal so his presence doesnt need any convoluted explanation, and after 800 years hes still the same gregarious blowhard (and its delightful).Theyre joined by new characters like Lara Thok, a part Klingon, part JemHadar security officer and a Lanthanite chancellor, Nahla Ake, played by Academy Award Winner Holly Hunter. And Hunter isnt even the only Oscar winner on the cast, with a major villain, Nus Braka, being portrayed by Paul Giamatti.Its a stellar cast, and the shows sets certainly rise up to meet the challenge. Like in the shows of old, a good portion of Starfleet Academy is clearly shot on location, though not in the familiar water reclamation plant that was used back during the TNG and DS9 era. This time its all being shot in Ontario, with the outdoor scenes in particular being filmed in Waterloo. Regardless of where its shot, it looks enough like sunny California to work. Scenes from Star Trek: Starfleet AcademyJohn Medland/Paramount+The indoor scenes, shot at Torontos Pinewood Studios, have a pleasant convention center quality to them, with lots of wide hallways and large windows in contrast to Discoverys cramped ship corridors. The hallways are full of students and teachers going to and fro, including some from species that would normally be off-limits to a show with a limited budget. But here robots and strange aliens roam freely in the background. The CGI cant have been cheap.And thats ultimately my biggest question about Starfleet Academy. Exactly how much is this costing Paramount? So much of it is being shot on real sets instead of green screens, established actors like Hunter and Giamatti couldnt have been cheap, and plentiful CG points to a robust special effects budget. Though Paramount doesnt release official numbers, estimates have put an average episode of Strange New Worlds at $10 million, so it figures that Starfleet Academy is probably more than that, with some online estimates as high as $20 million per episode. With 10 episodes scheduled, thats on par with a major motion picture budget but without the promise of blockbuster box office returns. No wonder Paramount has been doing so much cost-cutting, which includes axing every other Star Trek show.That said, Starfleet Academy is carrying a lot on its shoulders. Just as the success or failure of its class of Starfleet cadets will determine the future of Starfleet and the Federation, the success of the show may even affect whether this era of Star Trek continues. As a Star Trek fan, this can be nerve-wracking; no one wants the franchise to go dormant again. But Starfleet Academy has so far shown itself to be up to the challenge.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/star-trek-starfleet-academy-deftly-balances-teen-drama-with-intergalactic-intrigue-170253808.html?src=rss
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