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Here's Doom Running on a Samsung Fridge Thanks To xCloud (theverge.com) 54

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: I'm fairly sure cars were supposed to be flying by now, but instead we've managed something else that would have felt like science fiction a decade ago: playing Xbox games on your fridge. That's right, someone has managed to get Microsoft's xCloud service running on a Samsung smart fridge. Instagram user Richard Mallard has managed this feat of modern engineering, sideloading the Android version of the Xbox Game Pass app onto his fridge. The app runs in portrait mode on Samsung's smart fridge, but games appear at the correct aspect ratio alongside cheese, beers, and whatever other essentials you store in a fridge.
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Here's Doom Running on a Samsung Fridge Thanks To xCloud More

Here's Doom Running on a Samsung Fridge Thanks To xCloud

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  • And they laughed at me! (Score:4, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @11:13AM (#60603100)

    Well who's laughing now. Telling me a smart fridge is useless. What's your fridge do huh? Keep food cold like some kind of 90s technology! Lame.

    • Hmm, it is plaing the game on the fridge, or is the game playing in the cloud ("xCloud" implies cloud) and the fridge just has an attached tv/monitor? Wow, that's like being impressed that your TV can play online games after you connect it to the internet.

      • Full blown Android (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @11:29AM (#60603170) Homepage

        Hmm, it is plaing the game on the fridge, or is the game playing in the cloud ("xCloud" implies cloud) and the fridge just has an attached tv/monitor?

        The fridge is running a fricking full blown Android.
        - It has a modern browser that supports webasm
        - And you can sideload any shit you want.

        This peculiar instagram post happens to be about side-loading xCloud. So yeah, the peculiar video shows Doom Eternal being streamed from the Microsoft's own answer to Google Stadia.
        But you can also see posts with people running the original 90s DooM as a webasm web application [reddit.com] (so inside a Dobox that in turn runs in the JIT or AOT VM that runs inside the web browser that runs physically on the fridge itself).
        And I'm sure if you dig enough you'll find posts by people sideloading RetroArch and then running a MegaDrive emulator with Sonic the Hedgehog.

        • Hmm, my auto has the equivalent of a tablet computer mounted on the dash. Give me some sticky tape and I can put an android on my fridge too, or on my bathroom mirror, on my lawn mower (well the vibration will need something stronger than tape), or even on the back of my dog! Yes, I could play Doom on my dog! Now why has he suddenly run off to hide under the sofa?

        • Indeed, and what a pleasure to see some real 'nerd' stuff on /. instead of the Trump / Russia etc. crap. Way to go that man!
          Of course, the next OTA update from Samsung will probably disable the feature or brick the device...

      • Wow, that's like being impressed that your TV can play online games after you connect it to the internet.

        Actually it would be like being impressed that your TV can keep your beer cold while watching football.

    • It's a samsung. It doesn't keep food cold (disclaimer: very unhappy samsung appliance former user). At least you can play games on it.

  • I've seen these in stores but I cannot fathom why anyone would want one.

    How about an ice maker that makes square ice cubes? I'd pay extra for that..

    • The half moon style ice cube are much easier to make with an automatic ice maker. The square cubes are for when you want to pull the tray out and pound it on the table and curse that the cubes won't come out.

      • Yes.

        But the half-moon ice cubes form a perfect seal around the inside of the glass. Then the water pours over like a waterfall and I end up with water on my face. I hate that! Give me square ice cubes!

      • The square cubes are for when you want to pull the tray out and pound it on the table and curse that the cubes won't come out.

        Well yes, but I want my fridge to do that for me.

    • Purpose of Smartfridge (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @11:38AM (#60603204) Homepage

      I've seen these in stores but I cannot fathom why anyone would want one.

      Well, now, in addition to "a somewhat accessible place to edit your cloud-TODO grocery list as you check your fridge" and "display some vaguely useful information like weather forecast" you can append "plays Doom" to the list of useful features.

      ---

      More seriously, the end-game of this type of tech (not there yet, but probably within the next few years) is to harness some barcode detection (e.g.: shops that use RFID based codes, or have an array of cameras that whatch for visual barcodes as you put in and pick up stuff, or the Amazon physical shop-style based on automatic object recognition and tracking) to automatically remind you to buy milk as it runs past its date without you needing to yell it at Alexa/Siri/OkGoogle/Cortana across the room.
      (Laziness level: over 9000)

      While the company hosting the server sells the shit out of the marketing analytics they can do out of your shopping habbits.
      (Privacy: utterly raped and fucked)

    • Re:Smart Fridge? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @12:02PM (#60603290)

      They're absolute garbage. Fridges used to be exceptionally simple devices that used a bi-metallic switch as a temperature control. It worked for decades until the contacts finally burned out. The motor was sealed in a case with oil and also ran literally forever.

      Fast forward to today. You have a fancy energy efficient 3 phase motor (which is fine) and now a complicated controller with microprocessors and bottom dollar components. Something will almost certainly fail and require a tech to come out and fix it. He's pretty busy so it will take a few weeks. Once he gets there he finds the controller has gone belly up. He can fix it for you as soon as the shipment of spares comes in from overseas. If it happens outside your warranty period god help you in troubleshooting it.

      If and when my old "dumb fridge" dies I'm buying the simplest model available. And no I'm not one of those anti technology nuts who thinks carburetors and distributor points were better.

      • Neighbor has an LG smart fridge. The repair place had so many broken they ware lending out old fridges until parts came in as LG was backlogged. Hilarious, I saw the fridge they gave them and it was one of those 2 door units probably from the 80's or 90's.

      • I don't understand why something like a furnace or refrigerator needs a motherboard.

        I salvaged the compressor from my parent's 1970's fridge to use as a vacuum pump. The fridge worked for 30 years and I've been using the compressor to pull vacuum on air conditioners for 10 years.

        • If you are willing to accept the fuel cost of natural, convection drafting of combustion in your furnace along with a pilot light, it probably doesn't need a motherboard.

          Once you go to a forced draft furnace with electrical ignition, the operation gets more complicated.

          Received call-for-heat. Start the forced-draft inducer motor. Monitor that this motor is turning over at the desired speed. Monitor pressure readings that the force-draft airflow is not blocked. Continue for a set time to insure the

    • The newer "baller" fridges makes ice balls...

    • LG fridges make ice shaped like mini ice-tray ice. Not cubes, but vaguely trapezoidal. They work pretty well for not damming up your drink like those stupid half moon ones.

  • But if I want to play games I'll do it on a more appropriate device - my fridge is to keep food cold and it doesn't need a smart anything to do it. Nor do I need to be told that my milk/butter/eggs are going to run out because guess what? I could fucking see that for myself the last time I opened the fridge and got some!

    If ever there was a solution looking for a problem the smart fridge is it. But obviously someone is buying them. Fools and money etc...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • How in the world did fridges keep temp AND make ice before sticking computers in them?

      They even had frost free way before that! Amazing technology to not use a computer to control everything!

      -Oh looks like it is time to wind my watch.

      • How in the world did fridges keep temp AND make ice before sticking computers in them?
        They even had frost free way before that! Amazing technology to not use a computer to control everything!
        -Oh looks like it is time to wind my watch.

        Poorly. Just like your $10000 mechanical watch keeps worse time than than a $10 Casio.

        • But good enough, and they lasted forever (as I open a 30 year old figerator to get lunch out).

          • But good enough, and they lasted forever (as I open a 30 year old figerator to get lunch out).

            Why do you hate the environment so much?

  • There really isn't the magic of running DOOM on something it wasn't to meant to be on. Like a toaster. Or a watch.
    This is just an app and android tablet.

    • He could've downloaded and installed the Android port of 1993 Doom on it. Pair a Bluetooth keyboard or controller, and he's done. That's all he did, but with X-cloud.

      The only thing that made this a story was this Android tablet is built into a fridge. This is borderline clickbait, the type aimed at the general public.

      Really, this is not impressive.

      Now if he took a smart fridge from 10 or so years ago, something that was running QNX or maybe a proprietary OS, and somehow managed to get X-cloud to work with t

  • I admit I feel a bit like Zoolander yelling out "What is this, a school for ants!?!" when I say this, because I'm clearly seeing the trees for the forest here, but... why would anyone do this? Just boredom? If the guy needs a software problem to work on that has real value, I have about a dozen or so.

  • No room on my desk.

  • If said fridge were truly smart, it would be filled with hot pockets and baloney by the time I got home.

  • No wonder the cheese smells doomed.

  • We in CA are going to be bent over in the future by California electric companies because of state renewable energy mandates. Some refrigerator are set up to observed religious mandates for Jews in what is referred to by some as sabbath mode. I don't see many smart appliances for people how want to keep some of their money, why isn't there a time of use turn back mode similar to thermostats for refrigerators? Refrigerators with sabbath mode would seem to have the necessary hardware. Load curtailment is pro

  • I remember seeing the first Internet-connected Samsung and LG fridges about 15, maybe 20, years ago. They were ridiculous then, and they remain ridiculous now. But, hey, you can play Doom on them now.

  • Nope (Score:5, Informative)

    by EnsilZah ( 575600 ) <EnsilZah@@@Gmail...com> on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @03:09PM (#60604044)

    Doom is not running on the fridge, the streaming app is.
    I'd be more impressed by the original Doom running natively than this.

    • "Doom is not running on the fridge, the streaming app is.
      I'd be more impressed by the original Doom running natively than this"

      It's running Android, so yes, you can run the Android ports of Doom, Quake..anything that has an Android port for it.

      What's in this fridge is just an oversized Android tablet, and most likely has Bluetooth as well. Android Doom ports normally support Bluetooth controllers.

      Honestly, this is a non-story. Would running the X-cloud service/app on an Android phone or tablet make the news

  • Humankind has now reached the pinnacle of the species' evolution.
  • "I’m more impressed at seeing a functioning Samsung appliance"

  • At least it will keep the little tykes' mouths shut while their breakfast is being prepared before they are carted off to school.

      I thought this was going to be another "Oh look, I got [1993] Doom running on a $5 digital watch" type story, so it's refreshing to see a different variant of this trope. But technically impressive? Not really, as what's in the fridge door is still a full fledged computer somebody managed to get Doom running on by jumping through some hoops.

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