I have two reactions to this particular cutting board concept.
First reaction: “OHMIGOD! It’s a cutting board, but it’s also a sleek, Apple-esque gadget! My two favorite things!*”
Second reaction: “This may have been made by someone who has never cooked before.”
In all fairness, and to give you a little background, this was a project for a design class, to create a product that catered to a segment of the population, while being eco-friendly. That’s it. The student who created this didn’t need to back up his work or anything, he just needed to have a slick design.
In that, it works spectacularly, hence my first reaction. The essential idea of an active computer and screen in your cutting board, that can save space, and display recipes is a great idea.
In practice, though, two things happen:
1) When using a cutting board, it generally gets filled with stuff that was cut. So any area you needed to see the recipe on would essentially be unusable.
2) You need to cut on a cutting board. Which leads to nicks, and chips, and slice marks all over your expensive computer screen.
So yeah. Hence the “this guys has never cooked before reaction.
However, it’s easy to destroy, much harder to create, so here’s what I’m going to suggest: rather than picking apart this poor student’s work, I want us to figure out how to make this work. How can you have a cutting board, with all the functionality of a computer, without making it totally impractical to someone who would actually use a cutting board?
Thoughts? Comments? Complaints? Here’s a few more pics, to help you out.
*Being cooking and gadgets, not cutting boards and gadgets. I’d be a super lame-o if one of my two favorite things was cutting boards.
[Via Born Rich]
