There's a microwave that has been getting some attention this week. It's called CastOven, and it plays YouTube videos while you cook your food. Not only does it play videos, but it plays videos specifically catering to the amount of time you have the microwave set for.

The CastOven was created by two designers from Keio University in Japan, Keita Watanabe, Ph.D. and Shota Matsuda. Their description of the CastOven reads as follows:

CastOven is a future microwave oven, which plays a You Tube movie clip to fit into your cooking time. Watching movies, playing video games, and browsing web pages are fun, but all of them require certain amount of time of us to spare. For example, one would hesitate to purchase a new roll playing game, because it would take him some tens of hours to clear the game. We think differently. One should not make his activities adjusted to a length of contents, but the contents should make adjustment to it.

Our effort around the concept of “Ubiquitous Society” was over. We have been taking a novel step along the idea of “how those products and services have users spent their time?” The next business market is placed at the core, where a time as a flow of user’s activities.

Seeing it in action is a little more impressive. Watch the following clip to see how it works:

Here's a look at how it's put together:



CastOven has already won a couple of awards: Best Demonstration at the Workshop on Interactive Systems and Software and the Outstanding Performance Award and Jury's Special Award at the Mashup Awards 5.

The CastOven doesn't appear to be a product that is available to buy at this point, and there is likely more work to be done on it, but it is a pretty interesting concept. Wouldn't you agree? Share your thoughts here.

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