Your Turn washing machine makes sure it's your turn
A Spanish designer has created a new washing machine called the "Your Turn" that addresses the chore imbalance in certain households by making it impossible for the same person to operate the machine twice in a row. Both parties have to register their fingerprints using a biometric scanner that's plugged into the washing machine, which will only work if it scans a different finger than the one used before (you could also trick the machine and use two of your own fingers when you first set things up, but you'd only be fooling yourself right?). We'll leave it to the Judith Butlers and Donna Haraways of the world to divine the social implications of this attempt to bring gender parity to world of laundry-doing, and instead simply mention how this seems like a completely clever idea until your significant other goes away for a few days and you're stuck reprogramming your washing machine because you need to do a second load of whites that weekend. (The other major flaw with the Your Turn: the chore robot we built doesn't have fingerprints.)
[Thanks, Matt]
