In honor of Electrolux's 90th anniversary, its annual Design Lab competition is looking toward the next 90 years, asking designers how tasks like grocery shopping, cooking, and washing clothes will change over the next century. A winner will be chosen at the Electrolux Design Lab '09 finals on September 24th, but in the meantime, you can vote for the People's Choice award and check out videos of the contestants of further explaining their designs at Electrolux's website.

Top 8 Electrolux Design Lab 09 finalists announced [Electrolux Design Lab via Universe Today]

Bifoliate by Toma Brundzaite, Vilnius Academy of Art, Lithuania

Putting away clean dishes from the dishwasher is often a tedious job. That's why Toma Brundzaite has designed "Bifoliate", a space-saving, wall-mounted double dishwasher that allows the user to put dirty dishes in one compartment and use the other as a shelf for clean dishes. The dishwasher uses ultrasonic wave technology to clean making it more efficient and eco-friendly than today's dishwashers.

Naturewash by Zhenpeng Li, Zhejiang University, China

"Naturewash" is a waterless washing machine that uses negative ions to wash nano-coated fabrics. Horizontal in shape, the washing machine has three touch screen settings: clean clothes, grass scent and flower scent. A user can lie or sit on Naturewash to clean or refresh the clothes they are wearing. For a more thorough clean, clothes can be placed flat on the washer.

Moléculaire by Nico Kläber, Köln International School of Design, Germany

Nico Kläber takes the marriage of science and cooking to a new level with "Moléculaire", the 3D molecular food printer. Moléculaire is influenced by chefs that scientifically and painstakingly experiment with food and food states to surprise and provoke fresh ideas in cooking. Kläber recognizes that this approach, as it currently exists, requires great skill, time and knowledge. The Moléculaire simplifies the process and acts as a computer numerical control (CNC) food printer for both professional and domestic kitchens. It autonomously prepares basic and otherwise difficult to create two and three dimensional parts of meals. It works with a layer by layer printing process using small particles from diverse ingredients. This provides simplicity, accuracy, repeatability and, of course, great tasting food!

Renew by Louis Filosa, Purdue University, USA

"Renew" is a smart steamer that refreshes and cleans clothes. With two steam blades, Renew "blasts" garments clean. An infrared scanner and radio frequency identification (RFID) gather information about a garment from specifically designed clothing tags. Renew is safe to use and disables the steamer if an unidentified object is detected, such as a hand. An OLED touch screen allows the user to interact with Renew and learn about their clothing. At 25% the size of a current washing machine, Renew conserves space and is made of recycled aluminum and glass.

Cocoon by Rickard Hederstierna, Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden

"Cocoon" is a sustainable response to the world's growing population and its desire to consume meat and fish. Similar to heating popcorn in a microwave, Cocoon prepares genetically engineered and prepackaged meat and fish dishes by heating muscle cells identified by radio frequency identification (RFID) signals. The signals detect the specific dish and then suggest the required cooking time. This process uses science to create food, lifting a burden on the planet by reducing the need for further intensive farming and fishing. The negative effects of this process, including the mass transportation of food around the world, clearing of land and distortion of ecosystems, are then negated.

Teleport Fridge by Dulyawat Wongnawa, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Dulyawat Wongnawa envisions a time when the technologies found in science fiction become reality, specifically teleportation. His concept, "Teleport Fridge", teleports food, eliminating the time and distance a person has to travel to buy fresh groceries or products from a store or farm. Using touch-screen technology as the interface for the teleportation process, the Teleport Fridge simply teleports food to compartments in its refrigeration and freezer units.

Le Petit Prince by Martin Miklica, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic

One small step for robots, one giant leap for humankind
"Le Petit Prince" is a robotic greenhouse designed to facilitate the future exploration and population of Mars. Le Petit Prince takes care of a plant it carries inside its glass case, which is mounted on top of its four-legged pod. In search of nutrients to care for the plant, the robot is programmed to intuitively learn the optimal method for this process. It also reports its movements and progress to its fellow greenhouse robots via wireless communication so that they can learn from each other.

Water Catcher by Penghao Shan, Zhejiang Sci-tech University, China

Penghao Shan has created a product that addresses water shortage. His solution is "Water Catcher", a flying rain catcher and water purifier. This automated device dispatches small flying balls in the air to catch raindrops. After the raindrops are collected, the balls return to a homing tray that purifies the water for drinking. Once purified, the balls take the drinking water directly to a person to be drunk. The homing tray also reads fingerprints to determine what additives should be added to the water to ensure the drinker optimizes their health.

• The Black & Decker Food Hydrator from Back fo the Future II: This is something you'd expect to see Ron Popeil infomercializing to you on late night TV, especially since he invented the electric food dehydrator, "You can make your beef jerky for $3 a pound!" We'll take the BTTF version though. Pop in a miniature dehydrated pizza, and seconds later you're enjoying a fresh pie.
• The Super Microwave from The Fifth Element: Leeloo has the biggest case of munchies we've ever witnessed since a Cheech & Chong movie, and as she barrels through a digital encyclopedia full of knowledge about Earth, she keeps popping chicken dinner pellets into the microwave and zapping out full-sized steaming dinners in the blink of an eye. We'd hate to see what it could do to Hello Kitty.
• The Toasting Knife from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: This one may be too far-fetched; a knife that toasts your bread as it slices. Maybe if Toshiba would just finally can their HD-DVD division and put them onto cool home kitchen gadgets, we could see something like this on store shelves within six months. Plus you could reenact lightsaber battles at home a lot easier by just nabbing this from the cutlery drawer.
• The Replicator from Star Trek: I'm sure some of the Trekkies out there will know the answer to this, but why did they employ cooks on ships in Starfleet when a replicator could just give them anything they wanted, ready to eat? The Next Generation used it to replace the food slots from the original series, and Picard himself used it to whip up piping hot Earl Grey tea on numerous occasions.
• The Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Not to be outdone by Star Trek's replicator, this thing would actually analyzes your brainwaves and taste buds and give you what would your body was craving, although it never gave poor Arthur any proper tea. In the film there's a similar device that Trillian says detects what your body is craving and gives her a donut. These things would put convenience stores out of business.
• J.F. Sebastian's Hard Boiled Egg Beaker from Blade Runner: Okay, so it's really just a tall beaker full of boiling water and eggs, but that doesn't mean someone like Proctor-Silex couldn't slap their name on a glass container and stick a heating element on the bottom. It would just look cool if you had bubbling hard boiled eggs ready whenever you wanted one, and it sure beats the briny jar full of pickled eggs that's a fixture at dusty dive bars.
• The Hanging Garden Center in Back to the Future II: One reason to double dip in the well of BTTF is that they nailed the cheesy plastic era of the future better than those black and white "The Kitchen Of Tomorrow!" pieces. The McFly dining table sports a voice-activated hanging hydroponic garden that can drop down to give you fruit on demand, then retracts when you're done unless you're a spaz like Marty Jr.
• Rosie the Robot Maid from The Jetsons: Rosie had to be the ultimate kitchen and home gadget. Not only would she cook and clean, but she's also keep your kids and husband out of shenanigans. Although she had a little bit of programmed sass because she was modeled after Hazel from the 1960s. She's a lot less creepy than the sweet potato pie-baking bots in I, Robot, and less annoying than Mr. Belvedere.
• Honorable Mention: Pee Wee's Breakfast Machine from Pee Wee's Big Adventure: This is something you could actually build in your kitchen today, it you had a lot of time and patience. But who wouldn't want a Rube Goldberg device that would make them bacon and eggs every morning? Although you have to add the Mr. T cereal on your own. The closest thing we've ever found to it is this Egg McMuffin machine, but it doesn't incorporate Abraham Lincoln at all.