You know, back in our day, we would've imagined a
digital cookbook being some virtual, possibly animated version of... you know, a book with recipes in it. These days kids and their fancy rock and roll cooking shows have taken over, and Belling's new Media Chef digital cookbook -- which looks like a glorified digital photo frame -- actually houses 48 cooking instructional videos from chef Brian Turner for playback on its 8-inch screen. Brian can be harnessed with an included compact remote control, and the unit can also act as a general media player, calendar and photo frame. It retails for £170ish (about $271 US) but we're not sure when.
posted Oct 4th 2009 8:37AM
Will this comment work?
It certainly does. Now go make me a sammich. With or without the digital cookbook.
This crap allready FAILED!
You can get it for only $35 canadian...
http://www.thesource.ca/estore/Product.aspx?aff=IntactEarnings&language=EN-CA&ref=2000&product=1618901
and the topics on SD cards for $1.96
http://www.thesource.ca/estore/Search.aspx?language=en-CA&keywords=mibook&pagenum=0
Nubs
I probably wouldn't want to watch videos of a cook while cooking, but, I wouldn't mind a digital photo frame that lets me use it as a document reader so I can instantly search for recipes near the stove.
slow day on engadget
That's poppy-cock, rubbish, just tune into food network and save a dime....absurd.
I can't reply to anything:|
You can get a netbook for similar price :\
This is the stupidest idea I've seen in a long time... agreed - you can get a netbook hooked up to Youtube and a little something called the internet for the same price... with access to millions of recipes. Major FAIL on this one....
Stupid is Stupid does..
Maybe people don't want to do that. You ever figure that? My great aunt doesn't even know how to send an e-mail so she doesn't bother with computers, but she cooks like hell. So how is this product the stupidest for her? Maybe you should view the product from other people's perspective instead of your nerdy own...
darbear5610, it's practically criminal to charge what these asshats are for a digital photo frame that plays pre-recorded videos. I bet it's clunky to use, so the easy-UI argument might be illrelevant as well. Cookbook DVDs have existed for a long time, and I'm sure your aunt knows how to press "play". So why would you stand up for this complete and total crapgadget?
Well, my mom certainly doesn't know what a netbook is, or really that you can get recipes on youtube.
So it's not a game changer, but it's not a bad product, if the videos it comes with are any good.
For me, it's all Alton Brown's Good Eats, and a netbook. That's actually why i got my netbook.
-Taylor
Oh yes I forgot about the DVD's and it couldn't be too hard to set up and 7" LCD for her and have DVD's for her viewing. I didn't mean to stand up for this product, but what I was getting at was that some people just haven't been introduced to computers and it would be hard teaching them all the things we consider simple =/.
If your aunt "cooks like hell" she probably won't need video recipes.
A well written recipe containing the ingredients, how to combine them and perhaps cooking/baking times are sufficient.
I can imagine video demonstrations as helpful for totally new techniques even for experienced cooks, but they usually *know* what moves to look for and don't have to ape them.
Cooking isn't magic - you need quite a few basic techniques to cover "everything", but after that, it's just experience.
No amount of cool videos will enable a cooking klutz to produce a good looking disk just by imitating what the presenting cook does.
Those hands look awfully pale...almost zombie like...
maybe the Palm Pre gal is moonlighting...
When will they bring out the Kama Sutra digital guidebook for the bedroom?
They already have. It's streaming on netflix....
I'd like to mention that they're working on "Showering - the long guide" and the antichrist of the Media Chef, the "Toilets - never too late to use them properly". They had problems with fitting and waterproofing the latter's videocameras.
uh, can you change the recipes and add your own (just the text, at least)?
sudo make me a sandwich
Looks quite good except for the tacky media chef logo on the front. Perhaps this is really Apple's new tablet in disguise?
i didn't know cadavers could cook......
I already have a device very similar to this that lets me view cooking videos, all of the major cooking and recipe websites, and a vast array of other media on demand. It's called a laptop computer.
Might be useful for someones gma..but ofcourse the alternatives are cheaper and overall better..netbook..
lets comment until the not-nice-with-apple-engadjet doesnt post when the new imacs air will came out
Please don't report on single purpose digital photo frames, Engadget. It's beneath you.
I'm no chef, but I cook occasionally and to be honest, this isn't really helpful even for those that don't cook This forces more people who already don't know how to cook to further dumb themselves down by having them try to follow whatever the chef's doing on screen and I'm sure pretty much what the chef does couldn't be replicated by commoners well enough for the recipe. I've seen it countless times happen to many people and have screwed up myself during the first few times I tried to cook, failing miserably at following verbatimly whatever the chef on TV says.
For $271, I'd rather get one of those
-Is there a character limit on comments now?-
Cont.
For $271, I'd rather get one of those
-I've figured it out now... When I tried to type the V that's open faced to the right to denote "less than $300", it cut my comment-
For $271, I'd rather get one of those netbooks under $300 and view online recipes instead and other tutorials for cooking techniques. Having the cook himself/herself search for the recipes and its many variations allows him/her to think and learn more about the individual components of the food he/she is cooking.
all those who think these things need an edit button say I
I never knew before that there was this technology on the world.
Unless they can work in Project Natal style hand gestures to scroll through the text, and make it text instead of special videos, this thing seems kind of useless.
Hey Guys....this thing is SUPER expensive
On the other side of the price spectrum for a digital cookbook is $5 for over 300 gourmet recipes available for iphone and ipod touch....
check out the link, theres a demo video
http://appsolutemedia.com/cookshelf.html
food is AWESOME!
check it out, tell me what you think
Most interesting, I recently blogged about the potential for a similar application but created to run on Apples *imminent* tablet.
http://toomuchgreen.eu/2009/09/cooking-apple/
I do think the tablet would be great for the kitchen, "something else" aside from the office or media, wipe clean...!
Richard.