haier

A friend of mine is currently adding a second story to her house to accommodate her growing family. The construction is extensive enough that she, her husband, and their three children had to move out of the house into a rented apartment while the work is being done. She told me she didn't care about how many rooms the apartment had or how small the kitchen was--she just needed to have a washer and dryer in the apartment. Of course, her full-size machines take up quite a bit of space in her temporary digs--like, a living room's worth … Read more

In between attending track-and-field events and trying to locate uncensored Web sites, visitors to the Beijing Olympic Games will be able to experience a day in the life of a futuristic-home dweller.

China-based appliance manufacturer Haier on Wednesday opened the doors to its "Making the World a Home" Experience Center in Chaoyang Park, Beijing. The center, which will be open to the public for the duration of the Summer Games, will take visitors through 16 hours in the life of a consumer using Haier's U-Home (Ubiquitous Home) technology, which relies on the Internet, mobile communication, and fixed … Read more

When we remodeled our kitchen two years ago, we chose a bottom freezer French door fridge, a choice we have come to love and appreciate more each day. Storing groceries at eye level in the fridge just makes good sense. The interior deli tray drawer is a great place to store platters for easy serving. Overall, it's easy to find--or put back--what I need.

But my fridge--one of the earliest of these bottom freezer French door beauties--juts out from my counters and interrupts the otherwise clean lines of my kitchen. And it is just a tiny bit irritating to … Read more

I get that washing dishes by hand is probably more energy efficient than running the dishwasher. But I hate washing dishes, and if I didn't have a husband to pick up the slack, I'd leave mine in the sink for so long that I'd have to fumigate the house eventually. And that just seems like a terrible energy waste, not to mention what the chemicals would do to my kids.

I have to believe that I'm not the only woman out there who adores the convenience of modern appliances, so I'm a fan of dishwashers … Read more

Nearly 15 years ago, I rented a ground floor apartment with no washing machine. When my future mother-in-law suggested I get familiar with the route to the nearest Laundromat, I actually laughed out loud. Instead, I got a full-size washing machine that my soon-to-be husband hooked up to the kitchen sink. The washer wasn't really designed for that--the shaking of the spin cycle nearly wrenched the sink from the wall more than once. There was also the minor issue of not having any room to actually cook in my kitchen, but I am much less opposed to eating out … Read more

It's looking like the end of an era--or a century--for GE, which is drawing interest overseas in its 101-year-old appliance unit.

LG's CEO Yong Nam is considering a deal. "We are looking into it very carefully. I cannot share with you more than that," Nam commented cryptically at a news conference today.

Meantime, there's word that China-based Haier Group, which made an unsuccessful bid for Maytag in 2005, is also eyeing the unit, which might fetch between $4 billion to $8 billion, according to reports.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but at every CTIA I have to stop by the NTT DoCoMo booth just to see the cool cell phones that the Japanese company is showing off. Even though none of its models will ever arrive at a U.S. carrier, I still have to spend a few minutes playing with handsets like snazzy F905. Sure, the whole experience makes me rather bitter but I have to admit that the F905 is a sight to behold. The handset has a swiveling display, a crystal clear TV picture, a 3.2-megapixel camera and support for … Read more

We thought there was something familiar about this phone from a new U.K. company called Onyx, and our eagle-eyed colleague Kent German spotted the reason why: It looks remarkably similar to the "Elegance" handset introduced several months ago by Haier, the Chinese company of household appliances fame.

Haier, interestingly enough, described its version as a "lipstick-case-sized luxury phone" while Onyx is marketing its "Liscio" for the compact convenience of its 3.5-inch-long handset--perhaps accurately reflecting the difference in high-end standards between the two markets. It would be difficult to label this as a … Read more

Haier's booth was way in the back of one of the halls at CES, but we wanted to swing by to see if (and when) the company would be bringing its cell phones to the United States. The PR rep wasn't exactly forthcoming, but we did get a brief tour of the models the company is hoping to bring here. The most interesting of the bunch was the HG-N99, and we can only hope that it actually arrives on our shores (Haier says it is in talks with U.S. carriers).

The Windows Mobile handset may look like … Read more