At the O’Reilly conference, James Larsson demonstrated how to create knives and forks that can pick up on whether the person across the table feels uncomfortable or pleased. “Geeks have major challenges dating,” explains Larsson.
The system relies on electrodes to measure the skin’s resistance to electric charge, like those used in lie detectors.
Lots of wires are currently needed to connect the knife and fork to a computer monitor, so the technology doesn’t allow for a secret monitoring of your date. And because they must hold both utensils to allow the stress-measuring current to run through their body, the device does not work with when someone eats holding only a fork.
The result is a computer that produces graphs to show when the person eating felt uncomfortable and when they were more relaxed.
For the record, Larsson is also the man who made a clock using a Marks & Spencer prawn sandwich and a BBC micro.