A chilling idea? Technology finally reaches ice cube tray.(Mile High Equipment Co. signs X-traWeb Inc. contract to allow online ice machine monitoring)

Two Denver-based companies are boldly taking ice machines where few thought these low-tech but vital devices could -- or perhaps should -- go: into the Internet age.

Mile High Equipment Co., maker of the Ice-O-Matic brand of ice machines, has signed an agreement with Internet company X-traWeb Inc. to Web-enable its newest model.

That's right. These babies are wired, thanks to an ice cube-sized Web server (measuring 1 inch-by-1 inch), called the X-Node, that's attached to contacts with the ice machine. This circuit board collects information about the Jce-O-Matic, such as cube-making cycle time, number of cycles and the percentage of time that the machine is full of ice each day.

The Web server is connected to X-traWeb's Internet gateway so that the ice machine's encrypted vital statistics can be …