We previously ran our own AT Home Tech poll asking you what you thought about having a computer in the kitchen. Turns out we were not alone. The Internet Home Alliance Research Council (IHARC), of which HP is a member, also ran a survey on this same issue and discovered that consumers are looking for a way to access digital calendars and weather updates in the kitchen, resulting in the HP TouchSmart PC concept.
The idea behind this PC is to support what we have come to expect as standard online entertainment and communications, but extending the capabilities a little further to support things like digital post it notes and voice recordings to share between family members via the integrated touch screen. As it stands currently, the hardware appears to be a bit on the large size and as many of you already use your laptop in the kitchen, we suspect that something this large simply would not do. Should HP be able to refine and shrink the design to a size that would be able to blend more seamlessly into the kitchen environment, especially small ones, then this concept definitely has legs.
We have solved the space problem in our kitchen of having a computer by stashing a desktop in the corner of a lazy susan corner cabinet (there's nothing there anyway) and hooking it up through the wall with a project. We then control it with a wireless keyboard and mouse. The computer is on at all times (it's our home music server) and to use we just turn on the projector which projects onto the wall of the kitchen and proceed to view receipes, find info, watch tv, etc... We installed this when we remodeled our kitchen so it did need prior planning to facilitate the projector...but its something to keep in mind and a pretty cheap solution. The desktop is a low end Dell and the projector was fairly inexpesnive as well (projector prices are dropping).
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