Intelligent home cooking appliance, associated systems, and/or methods

A cooking system comprising, at each of a plurality of home locations:

• a cooking appliance operable by a user;
• a display device operably connectable to the cooking appliance and configured to display a user interface;
• a network communications device configured to obtain cooking video content and associated cooking instructions from a remote location over a network connection to a network in response to a user selection from the user interface;
• a display controller configured to cause the video content obtained by the network communications device to be output to the display device;
• and
• a command parser configured to interpret the associated cooking instructions so that the associated cooking instructions are selectively (a) output to the display device and (b) used to control the cooking appliance.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium tangibly storing instructions that, when executed or interpreted, cause a cooking appliance to at least:

• display a video segment on a display device in operable communication with the cooking appliance;
• display, on the display device, one or more recipe steps to a user of the cooking appliance at time periods specified by the instructions;
• and
• selectively override one or more settings of the cooking appliance if the user does not act in accordance with a command included in the instructions within a time period specified by the instructions.

A method of controlling a cooking appliance, the method comprising:

• receiving a request for a cooking program from the cooking appliance;
• and
• matching the request for the cooking program with a corresponding cooking program distributable, the cooking program distributable including video content and instructions as to how the cooking appliance is to be operated;
• and
• sending the corresponding cooking program distributable to the cooking appliance,
• wherein the cooking appliance is configured to process the cooking program so as to (a) cause the video content to be displayed thereon, and (b) control the cooking appliance in accordance with the instructions.

A cooking program annotation system, comprising processing resources including at least one processor, the processing resources being configured to at least:

• receive source cooking program video;
• execute an annotation program module configured to generate annotations pertaining to the source cooking program video, the annotations specifying at least one of an action to be taken by a user, a time at which the action is to be taken, an indication of whether the action must be taken, and a consequence of not taking the action within a preset time period;
• execute a cooking program builder to package into one or more cooking program distributables a digitized version of the source cooking program video, or a portion thereof, together with instructions corresponding to the annotations, the one or more cooking program distributables being executable or interpretable by or for a suitably configured cooking appliance;
• and
• store the one or more cooking program distributables to a non-transitory computer readable storage location.

A method of annotating a cooking program, the method comprising:

• receiving source cooking program video content;
• generating annotations pertaining to the source cooking program video, the annotations specifying at least one of an action to be taken by a user, a time at which the action is to be taken, an indication of whether the action must be taken, and a consequence of not taking the action within a preset time period;
• packaging into one or more cooking program distributables a digitized version of the source cooking program video, or a portion thereof, together with instructions corresponding to the annotations, the one or more cooking program distributables being executable or interpretable by or for a suitably configured cooking appliance;
• and
• storing the one or more cooking program distributables to a non-transitory computer readable storage location.

An interactive cooking system, comprising:

• a cooking device operable by a user;
• and
• an electronic device in communication with the cooking device,
• wherein the electronic device is configured to process audio and/or video content instructing the user how to operate the cooking device.

A server connectable to a plurality of cooking appliances located in respective remote home locations via a network, the server comprising:

• at least one processor;
• a non-transitory storage location storing a plurality of downloadable cooking programs, each said cooking program storing related cooking video content and associated cooking instructions;
• and
• a network interface configured to cooperate with the at least one processor to communicate with cooking appliances to cause a requested one of said cooking programs to be displayed on and selectively take at least partial control over operation of a corresponding requesting cooking appliance.