House proud

Never mind if people think you're dumb. With hi-tech toys like these, the joke will be on them.

LG 55EM9600 55” OLED TV

The most exciting category of 2012 would be the idiot box. With a rumored TV from Apple in the pipeline, other manufacturers are upping their game. Samsung and LG showed off some beautiful, big and smart TVs. The best was the LG 55” OLED. The 5mm bezel is almost invisible, while the TV itself is 4mm. At 7 kg, it has dual-core processors that recognise voice.

LG ThinQ Smart Fridge

This smart fridge from LG wants to make us eat healthier. It lets you see what’s in it from your smartphone, remind you of expiry dates, and in some countries, can order groceries. Depending on what it has, it can suggest you healthy recipes to suit your profile. Voice recognition enables it to differentiate between family members. And if you also have a LG smart oven, it will send it the recipe and settings.

Samsung Smart Window

Samsung has smartened up the most inert part of our homes—the windows. The smart window is a transparent one-way glass, that illuminates by daylight and internally like any tablet device at night. It comes with a whole host of widgets from Samsung like weather, time, web browser, Twitter etc. What really caught our eye when Samsung recently showed this cross between a tablet and a window, were the blinds—you close them virtually, with the flick of a finger.

MakerBot Replicator

From MakerBot, it’s the first consumer-friendly 3D printer. It has dual-extrusion printing, which means you can ‘print’ objects in two colors. For the first time, it allows you to print objects above 300³ inch volume. You can use ABS (from which Lego is made) or bio-degradable plastic. From door knobs and toys, to thousands of other objects whose designs are available online, you can custom design whatever you want, cheap.