The idea of smart chopsticks sounds creative, so creative that it’s hard to imagine a company as boring as Baidu would come up with.
The company claims Baidu smart chopsticks (named Chopsticks Search), using infrared spectroscopy, can analyze your food before you eat it, testing pH level of common drinks, level of sweetness, temperature, and the quality of cooking oil used. The data about food will be transmitted to the accompanying mobile app through bluetooth.
It also returns other information related to the food, such as origins and varieties, through Baidu Search. Baidu said they’d collect and analyse data generated from the chopsticks and the app.
Since food safety is a growing concern in China, some Chinese users may like to buy them. The company said more features would be developed to analyse certain foods Chinese consumers are worried about.
The chopsticks comes in four colors, red, blue, black and white. The mass production hasn’t been started, according to the company. The price isn’t announced yet, either.
Baidu launched the smart chopsticks at 2014 Baidu World conference today. At its annual event Baidu also unveiled BaiduEye, Baidu’s equivalent of Google Glass. Earlier this year Baidu hired Andrew Ng, co-founder of online education platform Coursera and former head of Google Brain AI project, to be chief scientist.
The company also launched today Non-stop Account (not official translation), similar to WeChat’s public account system, that will be added onto the next version of Baidu’s flagship app.
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