This is a super cool example of kitchen meets geekery. "Ryan" from Auckland, New Zealand built a custom touch screen kitchen PC complete with a barcode scanner.
The idea was to build a system that could manage recipes, shopping lists, to-do lists, and access the Internet for tasks like Googling recipes. Oh, and watch TV. It's sorta like a Media Center for the kitchen!
As you can see from the picture, he used a iPod-style interface, and he's currently running on Windows XP. The actually PC, cables, and extra are hidden in a cabinet. He even went so far as to build extra cooling into the cabinet as he quickly noticed increased temperature could become an issue.
A project meant to be for his wife, he had the following instructions to follow:
- must be discrete and look like a digital picture frame when not being used.
- must be touchscreen.
- must have internet access.
- must be easy to use and not crash often
- must have barcode scanner for managing her kitchen database.
- the wires and techo stuff must be hidden and out of sight.
- should be able to view what's on the lounge TV in the kitchen.
While Ryan seems to indicate is to wasn't very complicated, I kinda doubt that... He clearly put a lot of time and research into it and seemed determined to build the most functional system rather than trying to cut corners to stick to a budget. He also built his own custom database with Microsoft Access.
He notes the total cost at $1980 NZD, which is a little over $1420 American. His future upgrades include Windows 7 and a new interface built with Adobe Flash.
Check out Ryan's awesome project here.
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