Great home appliance revolution

By now, Huang Bing is an expert in cooking rice to perfection. He spent years working in the Midea Group's research and development laboratory that designs, among other things, new electric rice cookers.

The Chinese home appliances maker had Huang as its chief product manager for the past two-and-a-half years. He oversaw the electric heating appliances product development division. There, he may have cooked almost 2 metric tons of rice, enough to feed a four-member family for eight years.

"I also ate rice, normally finishing 10 bowls of rice each day at the laboratory," he said, smiling.