When you were a kid, how often did you bother to thank your parents for making lunch for you? Ever? At the Interaction 2011 conference on March 10, a Japanese research group demonstrated this lunch box that records your mom or dad making lunch for you, and then records you enjoying it for them. Aww!

The LunchCommunicator lunch box communication system consists of one lunch box, a tasty lunch, and a small video camera and embedded computer. When someone makes you lunch in the morning, the video camera records the whole thing. Later, when you eat, the computer plays back the behind the scenes making-of video, while recording you stuffing your face. And finally, when you get home, the video of you eating and hopefully enjoying yourself is available for viewing:

If I had one of these things and someone to make lunch for me, I'd probably try and make every day a competitive food show. So like, as the chef was preparing the meal, they'd give commentary and talk about their culinary inspirations, and then for my part I'd give snotty feedback about how "the flavors just never quite came together" and "you need to make better use of the secret ingredient" as I was eating it. Sounds like fun for everyone, right?

Lunch Communicator, via DigInfo