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When Americans dreamed of kitchen computers (2021)

submitted by redshi+(OP) on 2022-04-21 12:14:25 | 50 points 60 comments
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8. joshst+hfd[view] [source] 2022-04-25 19:16:07
>>redshi+(OP)
I mean I have a dedicated iPad Mini 2 in my kitchen that I use Paprika [0] on, that feels pretty much in line with what was predicted (I don't do my calendaring or taxes on it but still). I know I'm far from alone in having this setup, multiple friends and family members use the same thing. Even growing up we had an older laptop in the kitchen for looking up recipes and the like (though that was very much so an outlier among my friends and their parents at that time).

[0] https://www.paprikaapp.com/

45. rmason+hKe[view] [source] 2022-04-26 08:09:23
>>redshi+(OP)
I lived through the era of the kitchen computers. I cannot prove it but I think this happened through a consumer focus group. In the sixties and seventies marketers loved consumer focus groups. They would always ask a couple off the wall questions. Like asking people if you had a computer in your house what would you imagine using it for and which room would it be in?

As a child in the sixties the only computers we saw on TV were either robots or the Jetsons kitchen computer. So this group decides that the kitchen computer is it. The Jetson's 'kitchen computer' would assemble and cook a complete meal from molecules. Similar to what Cana is doing for beverages.

https://www.cana.com/

So it became a fact that consumers wanted kitchen computers. Over a twenty year period multiple company's (mostly big stodgy companies wanting to get in on the hot new computer thing) brought out kitchen computers. I remember software companies for the TRS-80, Apple and IBM PC having recipe database programs.

They all were complete failures. People didn't want kitchen computers. What they wanted was to tell a machine what they wanted for dinner and it would build and cook it. As long as you kept the machine full of water and different molecules it would make Chicken Cordon Bleu one night and Duck a l'Orange the next night Still a neat idea and something I'd like for myself.

46. llsf+gMe[view] [source] 2022-04-26 08:33:45
>>redshi+(OP)
I feel like those new all-in-one like Thermomix (https://www.thermomix.com) are the closest to a computer in the kitchen we have now. Europeans (and some star chefs in US) swear by it.
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57. joezyd+Jmf[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-04-26 13:56:28
>>rmason+hKe
I grew up in that era too. It was interesting how narrow-minded the marketing was on these things, but we hadn't really explored ideas beyond the things you already did on paper (file recipes, balance checkbooks, track your investments).

Even Apple wasn't immune.

https://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/a2origi...

None of this really changed until VisiCalc came along.

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60. vel0ci+Egg[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-04-26 18:10:44
>>drewze+D8g
Artificial General Intelligence, or "strong" AI. A lot of the things we consider AI today is often called "weak" or "narrow" AI, in that its scoped to very specific tasks. Hotdog/Not Hotdog kind of things. General intelligence is more like our kind of intelligence, where it is adaptable to a wide variety of tasks without necessarily needing an entirely different model or structure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...

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