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Blue Apron's meal kit service has had worker safety problems
Popular internet companies have a tendency to devote relatively little attention to their warehouse workers, lavishing the most attention on their software engineers. It's their code that makes it all possible, right? However, internet meal kit giant Blue Apron is getting a harsh lesson in the importance of taking care of all its employees. BuzzFeed has learned that Blue Apron's Richmond, California fulfillment center has had numerous crime and safety incidents, including employee violence and OSHA violations. There have been instances of staff brandishing knives, for example, and workers suffering accidents using equipment they're not certified to use.
NutriSmart prototype embeds RFID tags directly within food, traces your lunch from start to finish (video)
RFID tags are already used to trace everything from poker chips to hotel towels, but what if these little pellets were embedded directly within your lunch, providing everything you'd ever wanna know about that ham sandwich you're about to beast? That's the idea behind NutriSmart -- a food tracking system that revolves around edible RFID tags. Developed by Hannes Harms, a design engineering student at the Royal College of Art in London, these little markers would allow consumers to trace the entire supply chain behind every item in their cupboard, while feeding valuable nutritional information to dieters or people with particularly dangerous food allergies. Kodak, as you may recall, came up with a similar idea a few years ago, though Harms' prototype extends beyond the realm of medical monitoring. Properly equipped refrigerators, for example, would be able to alert users whenever their stock's about to expire, simply by scanning the tags. The NutriSmart concept also calls for a smart plate, which Harms describes as an "invisible diet management system." Just put your meal on the plate and an embedded reader will analyze your grub, tell you how many miles it traveled before arriving at your kitchen and transmit all of its history and caloric data to your phone, via Bluetooth. No word yet on what would happen to these tags post-digestion, though our inner 13-year-olds are giggling at the possibilities. Video after the break.
Fallen Earth Thanksgiving menus put the epic in epicurean
For many, Thanksgiving is now either fading off into our memories, or only remains as a pile of leftovers wedged in the back of the fridge. In Fallen Earth, it was a bit more sparse in terms of celebration, but there were those brave souls who did try to gather together new frontier foodstuffs into a vaguely palatable holiday meal. After some time spent judging, the Fallen Earth team announced the winners of their nomtastic Thanksgiving Menu Contest recently. Despite the fact that the chefs were all dealing with mutated, irradiated food, several entrants still managed to whip up menus that actually sounded pretty good!Sure, the simple, everyday Flat Beer was to be found in abundance, but after a vote, Reko Takeda of the Lotus Clan was the one whose cuisine reigned supreme. The winning menu not only sounded tasty, but even considered various interesting options, including a "children's menu" for the not-so-discerning CHOTA palette. So if you're in the mood for a good Fallen Earth holiday laugh, be sure to look over all the different menus that were submitted. Who knows -- there are other events looming. Perhaps their post-apocalyptic treats will inspire you to make something delicious for your clan. Alternately, they may just put you off the idea of eating altogether. You'll just have to read and see.
Apple's iPod Shuffle: the next great appetizer?
Although this won't go down as the first restaurant to mix in a little iPod action with the meal, it's fairly safe to say that Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal has melded portable audio with dining like no other. Apparently, the culinary guru "wanted to experiment with using sound to enhance a dining experience," which landed a person with a plate full of silver electronics and tangled white cord to compliment the rest of the Sound of the Sea dish. Aside from the food itself, the iPod was pre-loaded with "soothing sounds of the sea breeze and waves gently caressing the seashore," presumably to further enhance the eating experience. Still, we can't really envision how listening to sounds related to our meal would make things more appetizing -- you know, unless deafening moos just jazz up your taste buds when rolling by a burger joint.[Via Kottke]
