Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

The Global Beer Fridge speaks 40 languages and opens on command

Lulu Chang
By

google and molson teamed up to create a voice activated beer fridge that understands 40 lanugages
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Every once in awhile, technology takes a remarkable leap forward, addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems — poverty, the environment, social justice. Sure, the latest Google-powered beer fridge that speaks 40 different languages may not be one of those applications of technology, but who’s to say that makes it any less impressive? A partnership between Google and Canadian beer company Molson has resulted in quite the lovechild — the Global Beer Fridge — which is simultaneously a terrible tease and a phenomenal innovation. You see, the fridge only dispenses a cold beverage when the would-be imbiber says “I am Canadian” (Molson’s slogan) in any six of the 40 languages the appliance recognizes. So work on your language skills, friends, or be doomed to thirst.

Molson’s Beer Fridge is heavily dependent on Google’s real-time voice translation services for its operation, and can recognize a wide variety of languages, including French, Hindi, and Mandarin. Of course, given Canada’s very multi-ethnic demographic, this is certainly an excellent attempt at increasing the country’s cultural awareness, on top of just being an all-around brilliant marketing play.

Global Beer Fridge (Extended) | Molson Canadian

The fridge was initially completed for an initial unveiling on July 1, Canada’s birthday. But if you can’t make it up north for that particular sighting, fret not — the Global Beer Fridge will be making another appearance at Toronto’s PanAm games next month.

Recommended Videos

This voice-activated technology may mean a whole new mechanism for vending machines everywhere, so even though this particular fridge may be serving a very specific, very Canadian purpose, it may have much broader implications for the future of our favorite snack dispensaries. After all, what better world could we imagine than one that spits out chips and cookies with nothing more than a vocal command?

So head up to Canada on July 10 to check out this one-of-a-kind beer fridge, and consider all the new horizons that we’ve yet to breach with vocal commands and vending machines.

Topics
Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more