Pandigital Beats Microsoft to Kitchen HDTV Punch

Every year at the Consumer Electronics Show, Bill Gates likes to get up on stage and make a fuss about "the connected home of the future" and its associated gadgets, which often include a smart kitchen counter top, refrigerator and recipe screen. Gates has been yammering about this for years, but haven't yet seen a kitchen gadget for sale from Microsoft.

Tiny digital picture frame manufacturer Pandigital, however, just announced something we would have expected from MS: the $400 Kitchen HDTV/Digital Cookbook/Digital Photo Frame, available in June.