Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
MIT's Cornucopia Digital Robotic Food Concept
MIT's Cornucopia is a digital gastronomy concept that seeks to extend digital media concepts to the kitchen. Three concept designs are being advanced - The Virtuoso Mixer, The Robotic Chef and The Digital Fabricator.
(MIT digital fabricator)
The Digital Fabricator is a personal, three-dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients. Its cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user’s favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate food combinations with sub-millimeter precision. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by the Fabricator’s chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.
(MIT Robotic chef)
The Robotic Chef is a mechanical arm designed to physically and chemically transform a single solid food object, such as a steak, fish or a fruit. It allows for two types of transformations: localized and precise manipulations performed with an array of tools located in the toolhead; and global transformations performed through the underlying bed and two 5-degree of freedom robotic arms.
(MIT Virtuoso mixer)
The Virtuoso Mixer is a machine composed of a three-layer rotating carousel that provides cooks with an efficient way to mix multiple ingredient variations and experiment with subtle differences in taste and composition. At the top layer, we find eight containers that can be filled with off-the-shelf ingredients and are outfitted with weight scales, as well as temperature and humidity sensors for monitoring the properties and quantity of food they contain. The middle layer houses eight mixing containers with several types of crushing and mixing devices. The final, lower layer, functions as an extrusion tray where the final ingredient mixture is deposited. It is outfitted with an array of thermoelectric heating and cooling elements and an insulating glass cover for quickly baking and modifying the temperature of the produced mixtures.
Science fiction readers have been waiting with watering mouths for fabricated food. Consider the synthetic food dispenser from John W. Campbell's 1934 story Twilight, the Autonomic Food-Processing System from Philip K. Dick's 1964 novel Cantata 140, the food bricks from Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld and the food factory from Frederik Pohl's 1980 novel Beyond the Blue Event Horizon.
From MIT.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/25/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Food ")
Garçon! A Menu For Artemis II, S'il Vous Plaît
'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.' - Jules Verne, 1867.
A Beautiful Visualization Of Compact Food
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...' - Edward Page Mitchell (1879).
Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.
Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...' - Barbara Hambly, 1985.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
