David VanderWaal of LG and Mike George of Amazon announce their expanded partnership today at CES. (Via webcast)

LAS VEGAS — LG Electronics will put Amazon’s Alexa voice-enabled virtual assistant in a new Smart InstaView refrigerator, allowing people to ask questions, play music, check calorie counts, and add items to their shopping lists by talking to their fridge.

“I could just simply say, ‘Alexa, add milk to my shopping list,’ ” explained David VanderWaal, LG vice president for home appliances and consumer electronics, unveiling the partnership at the company’s news conference at CES this morning.

“Or you could buy the milk if you wanted,” added Mike George, vice president of Echo, Alexa and Appstore at Amazon, underscoring the tech giant’s ambitions in the grocery business.

The fridge, which runs the WebOS operating system, features a large touch-screen display and comes with a panoramic camera that can send an internal view of the refrigerator to the user’s mobile phone, to check what’s on hand when they’re at the grocery store.

No word yet on pricing or release date for the new refrigerator.

It’s the latest in a series of Amazon Alexa integrations expected to be announced at CES this week. Shawn DuBravac, the chief economist for the Consumer Technology Association, predicted yesterday that 700 Alexa applications could launch at the show this year.

Here’s the archived live stream of the announcement at the LG news conference.

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