So. It's the future now. We've got cameraphones. We've got Internet-enabled fridges. And we've got Matsushita, the company that has realized these are two great tastes that taste great together. Dig this new project they're working on:

The system consists primarily of an Internet-connected digital camera that will take a series of photographs of the inside of a refrigerator each time the appliance's door is closed. The pictures are then uploaded to a server, where users can access them over any Web-connected computer or a WAP-enabled mobile phone.

The idea behind the system is to allow consumers who are out shopping, or who may head to the supermarket on the way home from work, to have a better idea of what they need to buy.

"One of the needs of customers is to know what's inside their fridge when they are not at home," said Claudio Cenedese, manager primary electronics at Electolux's Core Technologies and Innovation. "This is something that can help solve that problem."

I should point out that this story contains my all-time-favorite quote in any news story, ever, in all recorded history: "Cenedese acknowledged that other technologies had already been launched to help people remember what is in their fridge."

Ah yes. Technologies like, say, your freakin' brain, or maybe a piece of paper and a crayon.

(Thanks to Techdirt Wireless News for this one!)