At the Consumer Electronic Show this year, there were the usual gadgets, including Smart Fridges. You can push a button on the screen and the fridge will tell you whether you have pickles.
First of all: Yes, you have pickles. Everyone has a jar of pickles in the back. Two: In order for the fridge to know you have pickles, you would have had to tell it that in the first place — say, by typing words on a touch screen. It had better have autocorrect, because if you type "puckles" by mistake, now the fridge thinks you have a jar of Kosher Puckles.
When internet-enabled fridges came out, no one bought them. No one needed them. No one wanted to even think about a day when they had forgotten the password for the fridge.
But now they're getting useful. The Fridges of the Future will have embedded bar-code readers, which ding when you put in a new item, and a scanner will read the expiration date. The app on your phone will send you notifications, so when you're in a meeting and your phone buzzes you can say, "It's my fridge, I have to take this." And then you will learn that your milk is six hours from its death-date, after which it converts instantly to a column of fetid white sludge.
Did I say app? How archaic. We will all be talking to digital assistants at the store, getting the info in our earpieces. "Alexa, do I have puckles?" It will respond, "Yes. You bought pickles on July third. The expiration date is 14 years away."
But how many pickles are left? Alexa can't know that. But there's good news: They're already making fridges with TV cameras inside, so you can call up a picture on your phone while you are in the store and confirm that you have a jar of salsa with a disgusting crusty rim. I love this so much. You will be able to stream HD video of your meat drawer, so to speak.
It gets better. The new LG fridges have screens on the door that show what's inside, triggered by verbal commands. No more standing with the door open, looking around like someone who just went through Ellis Island and is gawking at the tall towers; you can plan your mission in advance.
These are smart fridges. The fridge you have now is stupid. Look at it. Doesn't it look like a lummox? Oh, maybe it has a little niche that barfs ice: hurrah for that, but it's been coasting on that trick for decades.
