Not that we haven't seen LCD-equipped rangehoods before, but ILVE's VELA just has that art deco flair that so turns us on. All personal details aside, this here kitchen appliance was designed by Marco Valerio Agretti and features a 4-speed touch control extraction, optional automatic switch-on / speed regulation, all stainless steel construction, a light indicator for filter management and a washable anti-grease filter. Now that you've survived that snore-fest, here's the real details you're after: there's a 10-inch LCD TV built right in there, and with that comes a remote control and an RCA input / output for hooking up your cable box, a DVD player or any flavor of game console. Unfortunately, actual specifications of the TV -- as well as pricing for the entire unit -- are nowhere to be found, but it's pretty safe to assume those who have to ask probably won't be buying. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via T3]

Sure, building up a campfire in order to roast some eats in the wilderness could be fun for awhile, but for the reported "two billion people that use open fires as their primary cooking method," we're sure it loses its luster somewhere along the line. The University of Nottingham is hoping to change all that, however, by attempting to develop an all-in-one gizmo that acts as a "cooker, a fridge, and a generator," and relies on biomass fuels for energy. The £2 million ($3.96 million) SCORE (Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity) project seeks to create a "wood-powered generator capable of both cooking and cooling food," and it will purportedly rely on thermoacoustics to cut down on pollutants, increase efficiency, and be more reliable to future consumers in Africa and Asia. No word just yet on when this newfangled kitchen appliance will be ready to ship, but a portable version would probably do quite well in the camping market.

[Via CNET]

In a patent filing that appears to belong to Philips, an inventor is attempting to lock down the secret to no-look cooking, giving hope to clueless culinarians everywhere. The patent focuses on a method for determining the very moment during the cooking process in which the food "has reached a ready state," and seeks to use precise scales in an oven to determine exactly how much water has left the foodstuff and converted into steam in order to determine just how dry, crisp, and / or ready to devour it is. Of course, this fellow isn't the first bloke to iron out the details of automatic cooking, and interestingly enough, it seems this idea itself may have already been in the works, so we'd highly recommend consulting the folks behind Daewoo's autonomous microwave (and the subsequent technology) before boasting too proudly.

[Via NewScientistTech]

Although bribery isn't exactly smiled upon here in the States, we've got a hunch that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam political party in India is on to something. In news likely to cause turmoil (or not) among culturally-planted Americans, the DMK promised a bevy of new electronics to folks who cast their vote for them, and apparently, it worked. After falling from power in 2001, the party has stormed back into prominence by offering poor citizens niceties (such as stoves and TVs) which most could never afford on their own. By wording the goodies as "social welfare" benefits, the sets they hand out supposedly aid the voters in receiving news critical to their life, health, and work, which in turn benefits society the DMK as a whole. While America hasn't had the best luck so far with all these e-voting implementations, and considering a good few don't even cast a passing glance at anything political, we'd bet a "Free HDTV" campaign would result in surefire admission into the Oval Office.

[Via Fark]