Imagine you are in the middle of cooking dinner at home when suddenly you remember the nearly empty carton of milk for your son. All you need to do is say to your refrigerator, “Hi, Samsung! Find milk at E-mart.”

Or, if you’ve forgot the next cooking step, just call up a recipe from the fridge. It will read it aloud.

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday highlighted the enhancement of its voice recognition technology S Voice, as the tech giant launched its latest smart refrigerator model that went on sale here from Tuesday.

The latest version of the Chef Collection Family Hub features the company’s latest attempt to perfect an interactive refrigerator that applies a handful of latest technologies ranging from voice recognition, deep learning, cloud and connectivity. 

“In the past, humans learned mechanic languages to operate machines, but today, they are learning our language,” said Kim Min-kyung, a vice president for research and development for home appliances at Samsung. “It is only possible when a fridge is connected to a cloud system with an infinite amount of data accumulated from experiences, which helps it understand what humans say.”

Samsung said the accuracy of the voice recognition capability of the newest model is designed to fit the kitchen size and structure of an average Korean household, but declined to give an exact figure for the accuracy.

A user needs to face the screen on the upper right door of the fridge, where a microphone is embedded, to issue a voice command accurately. The refrigerator is priced at 10.59 million won ($9,511)

The current S Voice software will be updated as part of after-sales service, according to the company.

In the future, if Samsung’s ambitious artificial intelligence assistance Bixby makes a successful debut with the upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone, the AI program will also be applied to the Family Hub refrigerator.

Another key feature of the 2017 Family Hub is food management. A camera inside the fridge displays the current status of items with expiration dates, both on the fridge screen at home and user’s smartphone anywhere. 

 “A key point of this year’s model is to make a fridge that does not only keep food, but also manages what’s inside and refills what’s needed instantly,” said Koo Sunggy, a vice president for the home appliances business at Samsung.

The grocery shopping will be supported with Samsung Pay starting from April.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)