January 6, 2000

The online oven?

Here's a prime example of convergence making close friends out of companies that once lived in utterly unrelated universes: Cisco, Sun Microsystems, and...Whirlpool.

The home-appliance maker announced agreements that give it access to Cisco and Sun technologies, which it will use to build Internet-enhanced appliances. At CES 2000, Whirlpool is displaying a connected refrigerator and an online oven—able to download recipes and automatically program itself to cook them. Specifically, the agreement means Whirlpool products will incorporate Cisco's Open Platform for Internet Homes and Sun's Java and Jini technologies.

—by Matthew Miller