Teaming up a home appliances company, Microsoft has announced that it will soon release a series of appliances that connect to the Internet.

Yesterday was the final day of the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But it wasn’t the appearances by Alex Trebek and the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.am that had attendees buzzing. It was the news that Microsoft is unveiling a Windows-based coffee maker.

Admit it. You knew this day would come. A moment when technology and coffee addiction finally led to computers doing something useful, like making coffee for you while you’re on your way home from work. In all seriousness, the coffeemaker is the combined effort of Microsoft and Fugoo, a young company that specializing in creating home appliances that utilize the power of the Internet.

The coffeemaker is the first in a series of products that combines Microsoft technology with ordinary household gadgets. Other ideas include an alarm clock that not only wakes you up, but reminds you about the day’s first appointment and calculates the time will it take you get to work under the current traffic conditions.

“The combination of Fugoo’s platform and Microsoft Windows opens up almost limitless possibilities for transforming ordinary household items, allowing them to perform all sorts of new functions and services,” Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer Division at Microsoft said in a statement released Friday.

Can your coffeemaker say, “I’m a PC”?

So what exactly does this coffeemaker do? Truth be told, and I checked several sites trying to find out, details are sketchy. However, in theory, the coffeemaker’s ‘net connection will allow you to contact it from anywhere and tell it to begin brewing. Microsoft hopes the day will come when these devices can be linked up, allowing your alarm clock to alert your coffeemaker that you’re awake and begin brewing coffee.
Needless to say, the critics are already out in force with one blogger from The Inquisitr.com already asking, “Would you like a virus or blue screen of death with your coffee?”

No word yet on when Microsoft and Fugoo plan to release their line of smart appliances. In the meantime, one industrious inventor has come up with this contraption. It’s also a Windows-powered coffeemaker, except this one runs on XP. To me, it looks like a 1980’s version of what home appliances should look like in “the future” (i.e., today), but it’s got an Internet connection that also promises to let you brew coffee remotely. This one has one up on the Microsoft version, though – it’s a touchscreen!

Unfortunately, the Internet offers little on how to acquire one of these machines on your own, since it appears to be a homemade device that’s not for sale. I guess we’ll all just have to wait for our flying cars before we see the day we’re able to brew coffee from hundreds of miles away. Of course, there’s always the low-tech way: asking someone else to do it.

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