Whirlpool's new fridgiputer.
The Internet fridge I saw at CES doesn't do what I want it to do. It does not know when I am running out of milk. It does not sniff out the moldy cheese hiding behind the mustard to tell me it's time to throw it out. What the Internet fridge does is this: It has a mounting bracket and a power port on its front so you can install fridge-centric devices.
Stay with me here.
Whirlpool makes the refrigerator in question. I really don't expect you're going to buy one. Another company, Data Evolution, makes a module that snaps onto the bracket and that holds its slim convertible tablet notebook ($800, as I recall). Since Whirlpool isn't going to sell a whole lot of fridges with docks, you're probably not going to buy one of those PCs, either. So where does that leave the software, Cozi, that was running on the CES demo?
Cozi is worth looking at. Sure, you can run it on your fridgetop if you have one, but even without one, it's a good Web-based application for families. Cozi is a simplified group calendar. It lets you schedule things for yourself and see other family schedules, and block time for group activities. As a corporate slave, I like Cozi because the installed version syncs with my Outlook calendar, and the sync is under my control. I can have Cozi read only the appointments that keep me away from home in the evenings; my wife doesn't see the family calendar crowded with my meetings during work hours.
If you don't need the sync you can use the Web-based version of Cozi, which, CEO Robbie Cape told me, is where Cozi is investing most of its development resources.
Cozi is also a super-simple hub from which you can send text messages to family members' mobile phones.
On the downside, it doesn't sync with other calendars real people might be using, such as Google, Yahoo, or iCal.
If you are looking for a good way to keep a simple family schedule online, I recommend Cozi. But put it on an ordinary cheap laptop that you stick in the kitchen; the PC-on-a-fridge thing is silly.
Robbie Cape shows the Whirlpool-branded Cozi app running on an ordinary tablet.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
For the past few days, Josh and I have been buried in Webware 100 nominations. We've gone through the 5,000-plus entries and whittled them down to about 2,000 qualifying candidates, and we are now extracting the 250 finalists that we are going to put on the ballot for the Webware 100 in a week.
It's been a gratifying process so far. Looking at all the nominees in a big pool has validated, for me, the need not just for these awards but also for the Webware blog itself. Although there is a ton of creativity pouring into Web 2.0 start-ups, there are also a lot of me-too sites. And clearly there are way too many new services for the average mortal to digest every day. I hope Webware is helping people find the good products, and I also hope the Webware 100, when it's complete next month, serves as a useful directory to the best of the Web.
In the meantime, I wanted to highlight a few gems that I came across while going through the nominations. These three products may or may not become finalists, but they're interesting and worth checking out.
- Cozi is a family organizer. It lets you keep individual calendars for everyone in the family, and puts them all together on one display so you can get a clear idea of who's doing what and when. More important, you can have Cozi sync family appointments into your at-work Outlook schedule, and can select which Outlook appointments you want to show up on the family calendar. I've been looking for something like this for a long time. Katherine Boehret covered this service in April for the Mossberg Solution.
The Visual Thesaurus view of English
(Credit: CNET Networks) -
Thinkmap has the very engaging Visual Thesaurus. A new twist on your grade-school writing reference, it shows a graphical representation of words that relate to each other, and the chart is navigable and malleable. The first time I tried it, it made me giggle, it's so clever and useful. The only downside is that it's not free if you want to use it regularly.
- Locr helps you define the location of, or "geocode," your photos. Until cameras come with built-in GPS receivers (it is only a matter of time), encoding your pictures with location data will remain a real pain in the neck. But if you set the clock on your camera correctly, get one of the new GPS recording keychains, and use the Locr service, you can have all your photos geocoded automatically on your PC. Clever. Actually, I'm not sure this is really a Web 2.0 function, but ultimately it will make Web-based photo sites (like Flickr) and mapping services (like Google Earth) better, by helping users encode more of their photos with location data.
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