Tag: FOOD

The future in which robot servants toil in our kitchens to provide us sustenance is slowly becoming reality. (And we do mean slowly.) Two PR2 'bots named Rosie and James recently teamed up to make pancakes at Willow Garage, where they've also been made to fetch beer. The flapjack flipping is surely impressive, but making breakfast for a family of three could take days. Video after the break. ...

Last week we introduced you to Chefs Dave Arnold and Nils Norén, the superhero duo of high-tech culinary artistry that coauthor the brilliant Cooking Issues blog. But that was only a taste, so to speak, of the epic (and, at times, dangerous) demo that the chefs gave us at the French Culinary Institute a few weeks back. In the video after the break, watch through until the end, when ...

The worst part about attending a sporting event or concert is waiting in long lines for food and drink. Thanks to 'FanGo' -- a new iPhone app that allows fans to order food delivered to their seats -- fans won't have to miss a minute of the action. The app displays menu options and pricing for concession-stand items located throughout a venue. Just make your selection, enter your seat number and ...

Gaming-themed food is nothing new to loyal Switched readers, but this recreation of the game 'Angry Birds' is certainly the cutest. Gat Sirivong whipped this up for his pregnant, diabetic wife who was prescribed bed rest and a strict diet. Gat livened up the her meals by staging scenes like this egg, waffle, fruit and vegetable concoction above. ...

The iPad has a new use in several restaurants, including the famous Bone's steakhouse in Atlanta, as a digital wine list. Diners are supplied with a ten-inch tablet, equipped with an automatically updating list that offers not only the name and price of a wine, but a description from the source vineyard and reviews from critics. Bones is reporting that, since the introduction of the iPad wine ...

Ferran Adrià, food science chef and owner of the soon-closing, three-Michelin-starred El Bulli in Catalonia, Spain, recently told an audience of adventurous gastronomes at Harvard University that he will begin posting a daily recipe from the research lab that his restaurant is scheduled to become in 2014. According to the Guardian, Adrià says he wants to create a "social networking ...

Food is only as fast as the corners cut making it -- or such has been the corporate, American idea of fast food preparation technology. Yet, the fast food restaurant 4food dislikes this philosophy, and is opting to open a three-story restaurant in midtown Manhattan and to break practically every rule in the, err, fast food book -- if there is such a thing. First off, there are over 140 ...

Who, besides vegans and the lactose intolerant, doesn't love ice cream? Nobody. (Even the dairy-averse have found alternatives for this universally adored frozen treat.) Although precursors to what we know as ice cream have existed for ages, Harold McGee -- food science master and author of the must-have 'On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen' -- notes in his book that "the ...

We understand that SIGGRAPH frequently exhibits the most outre and ridiculous tech experiments -- the ones that could be useful on a larger scale and within a different context. But Takuji Narumi of Tokyo University may be the winner of the Most Insane Research award for his Meta Cookie System, which seems to serve no purpose but to advance the idea that our future lies in a simulated reality ...

Share If we could design our dream robot, it would be one that could use its metallic dexterity to cook for us. Fortunately, some like-minded guys at the Italian Institute of Technology have made our dream come true. According to Make, Dr. Petar Kormushev and Dr. Sylvain Calinon designed a robotic arm, and then taught it to flip pancakes. The process is called kinesthetic teaching. Basically, ...

If other dieting solutions just haven't worked, why not try a personalized, robotic weight-loss coach? It may sound odd, but according to The Wall Street Journal, Intuitive Automata, Inc. hopes that its talking robot, Autom, can help people lose weight and lead healthier lives. Autom -- which will launch in the U.S. next year as a trial, and later for $500 plus a monthly subscription fee -- will ...

Share Apparently, enjoying a fresh slice of watermelon isn't a strictly American experience; just check out this Japanese-made watermelon cooler. According to Crunch Gear, it also has the ability to warm your melon (for whatever reason), or anything else you put under its plastic dome. For about $230, you can wheel your watermelon right up to the beach and bask in your lack of frugality. Now, ...

At a recently opened Burger King in Japan, customers can get a Whopper, french fries, a Coke and a shower, too -- not the wet and naked kind, but a "musical shower," designed to drench your newly sated ears in delicious sounds. According to Engadget, certain booths at Japanese BKs feature docks for your iPod and a clear, bowl-shaped speaker hanging above the table. As a result, your personalized ...

The AP reports that Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board is testing machines that vend bottles of wine at two Giant supermarkets. If successful, the vending machines could be placed in about 100 other locations statewide -- making Pennsylvania the first place in the country with booze on-demand. To make a purchase, a customer selects a bottle on a touchscreen, swipes his or her ID, blows into an ...

Few life experiences are more guaranteed to bring a smile to your face than plowing your way through a massive scoop of ice cream. But if you want to grab a frozen treat from a dispenser called the 'Share Happy,' you'd better start practicing your fake grin. Created for Unilever, the world's largest ice cream manufacturer, the Share Happy is, for all intents and purposes, the most moronic ...