Pimp your kitchen (or your mom’s or wife’s kitchen) with the following five futuristic kitchen appliances:

1. Multi Function Refrigerator

Conceived by Whirlpool, the fridge is complete with style and functionality. But it’s more than just a cold storage machine and ice dispenser. It’s complete with cell phone charger, digital picture frame, interactive message board, satellite radio, CD/DVD player, and more.

2. Transparent Glass Toaster

Yes, now you can watch with fascination as your slice of bread slowly crispens and browns. Conceived by yankodesign.com, the futuristic toaster still hasn’t solved the problem of making the glass heat hot enough to be able to toast the bread quickly.

3. Floating Salt and Pepper Shakers

The salt shaking cases are suspended in mid-air, above the base plate, utilizing strong Neodymium magnetic repulsion. Add to your table landscape and make your dinner guests say ooh and ahh.

 4. Wall Mounted Kettle

This futuristic steam iron-looking kettle called Diamantine can be hung on the mounting rack on any wall, allowing to save space and just look pure cool. Although we aren’t quite sure if it’s electric powered or you still have to heat it on the stove, it still is an attractive, space-saving wall piece for the kitchen.

5. Microwave TV

Damn right. We’re going to kill two birds with one stone by incorporating an LCD TV into a microwave oven. This puts a whole new spin on the term “TV dinner.” The Holland Electro Wave TV is a 900 watt microwave with a built in card reader and DVD player that even supports DivX. Drool. Now.

San Francisco artist Tanya Vlach lost her eye in 2005 in a car accident and had to wear an acrylic prosthetic eye. Now she wants to do something that has attracted the attention of engineers — to build a mini video camera into her prosthetic eye.

“There have been all sorts of cyborgs in science fiction for a long time, and I’m sort of a sci-fi geek,” said 35 year old Vlach. “With the advancement of technology, I thought, ‘Why not?’”

She issued a challenge on her blog — for tech experts to construct an “eye cam” for her prosthesis that can dilate with light changes, and zoom, focus and turn on/off with a simple blink.

Dr. William Danz, Vlach’s doctor, states: “I’d always given thought to using cameras to restore sight to the blind. This is a little different, more like James Bond stuff.”

Tanya Vlach claims that she has “a lot of ideas floating around” including sync’ing the video feeds wirelessly to a smart phone or even record her entire life and shoot a reality TV show from her perspective.

“It is possible to build a wireless camera with the dimensions of the eyeball,” said Want, a senior principal engineer at Intel Corp. “You can find spy cams or nanny cams designed to fit into inconspicuous places in the home…. In a world where eye cams are common, they might serve as a kind of computerized backup to people’s memories.”

OLO Computer has introduced a conceptual design where a clamshell notebook computer will be powered solely by a socketed iPhone.  The computer looks much like a normal laptop, except there will be a slot for your iPhone on the palmrest. The iPhone will then double as a trackpad and as the brains of the computer.

According to OLO’s conceptual image on its website, the system seems to be running Mac OS X, although this may not be exactly accurate. Their website shows no actual specs, description, or pricing other than a message stating “Coming soon… Sorry but your PC is out!”

We are not sure if it will have actual “computer-like” features, or if is just a bigger screen and a keyboard for the iPhone. If the latter, then it will most likely flop like the Palm Foleo or the recent RedFly device.

General Electric has created a machine that “prints” lights onto sheets of special film. It coats an 8 inch wide plastic film with chemicals then seals the film with a layer of metal foil. An electric current is passed through and the sheet lights up with a soft blue-white glow. These lit sheets can then be applied like wallpaper to provide lighting for rooms, although there would still be a need for an eletrical outlet.

Calling them organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, GE believes these sheets could be the used as light sources in the future although it isn’t cost effective for the average consumer right now. The “light paper” could be wrapped around pillars, applied as blinds, or even have a translucent version applied on windows, to provide a gentle glow after dark. GE believes there are lots of ideas to be done with this technology and will begin to introduce them to the public in 2010.

Microsoft has confirmed that it has plans to offer customers a Blu-Ray player option to its console Xbox 360. Due to their unenthuasiasm for the BD-Java technology, the software giant originally had adopted the HD-DVD format which was recently phased out – leaving Blu-Ray the victor in the format war.

In the past, Microsoft had clearly stated that it will not be adopting the Blu-Ray format for their Xbox 360 unless there was a high demand. It looks like with the increasing sales of the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft is now quickly acting to offer a Blu-Ray option to match its console competitor.

Microsoft has contracted a Toshiba-Samsung joint venture to manufacture external Blu-Ray disc drives for the Xbox 360 console. The company is hoping to offer the new drives for about $100-$150 in order to compete with the Sony Playstation 3 in the video game console market.

There is no mention of when the drives will be offered to consumers as of yet, although there is anticipation that they may be available as early as the holiday season. Otherwise, it’s most likely Microsoft will be postponing the unveiling until the Consumer Electronics Show early next year in order to attract the most attention concerning the device.

A new image has leaked of what seems to be a MacBook Pro casing, possibly carved out of a single piece of aluminum. The photo seems to be very consistent with the recent rumors about the Apple “Brick” being a new manufacturing process for its computers. We’ll let you be the judge.

Photo appears to have originated from a Chinese forum site.

No, no, not that Cyberdyne that creates SkyNet and terminates the human race into near extinction. It’s a Japanese company that invented the HAL, or Hybrid Assistive Limb, a computerized robot suit with sensors that read brain signals directing limb movement through the skin.

A 22 pound battery operated computer system is equipped on the waist which powers the advanced exoskeleton’s mechanical limbs. Sensors capture brain signals and relay them to robotic parts such as leg braces attached to the thighs and knees. These parts then provide assistance to people as they perform actions such as walking or lifting.

The initial version will be for the legs only — a demo video showed a partially paralyzed person getting up from a chair and slowly walking in the HAL suit. Other videos have shown versions in which wearers of the suit can lift heavy objects.

Yoshiyuki Sankai, designer of HAL and chief executive of Cyberdyne, said a full device that covers the entire body will also be available, although there is no clear release date to the public yet. Sankai has refused requests from military entities to use the HAL and states that the technology is devoted to social welfare purposes only.

HAL is available in three sizes and will cost $2,200 per month to rent starting Friday. A one leg version is also available for $1,500 per month. There is no word when the suit will be available for ownership purchase.

The only thing we’re concerned about here at FutureNerd is if someone is carrying some ridiculously heavy object and then the HAL’s battery dies on him or her. Ouch. Better implement a battery warning signal.