Maestrowave Bar-coding Mircowave Oven
It seems that we, as a society, were moving to fast. Parents have to work twice as hard just to “keep up with the Jones” and there is rarely time for dinner anymore. That is, the traditional family dinner where a wife spends the entire day just preparing a wonderful main course, then all gather around the table to eat it. Once the microwave ovens hit, now all that has to be done is just “nuke” it. Families everywhere not only dropped the well-prepared meals for pre-packaged microwavable goods, but also neglected the coming together at the table. Most families eat out of necessity only, microwaving their meals on a whim.
I would hope that we would learn and change our ways. Unfortunately, our technology has just got “better”, so we don’t have time to take the precious seconds required to set the microwave.
That’s right, RH Hall, a catering business giant from the United Kingdom, has designed Maestrowave technology, which allows the user to swipe a barcode before its built-in scanner that automatically sets the amount of time and temperature required to make the meal. This comes in especially handy when you’re in the catering business, where food disappears on the banqueting table constantly. You need a Maestrowave to quickly heat something that needs to be refilled.
RH Hall says that this technology is in the prototype stage and it will be out soon, but I have heard no discussions of getting this technology to everyday households. Something tells me that Black and Decker and other microwave companies will try and market this bar-code scanner.
After all, who wouldn’t want to be able to take out a frozen burrito, scan it, and then let the Maestrowave do the rest? Of course, I think there will be some things that won’t work well with it.
For example, popcorn. My microwave has a “popcorn” button on it, but it inevitably draws the time out for too long. As a result, I have nothing but ash-black popcorn when the timer dings, which has the worst odor. It is no wonder that Seattle banned microwave popcorn in certain office buildings. You really have to listen to know when your microwave popcorn is done, and a barcode on the package would discourage consumers from this proper microwave discipline.
Still a technology like this will easily give birth to all sorts of waves of microwavable delicacies, if that is even an appropriate term to use that as a descriptor for something microwavable. No, the future we are looking at is one of bar-coded meals that we scan and bake. That’s the American way.
