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The NutriSurface is an intelligent food scale with Obamacare beginnings
Obamacare is probably the last (loaded) term you'd expect to read about on a tech site -- no less in conjunction with a nutrition-focused gadget. But Andy Tsai, creator of the NutriSurface, actually credits the controversial healthcare program for redirecting his company ReFlex Wireless away from a focus on nanotech and towards a technological solution for the food and beverage industry. Pulling inspiration from a CNN segment documenting the new challenges and nutrition label requirements for major food chains, Tsai devised an intelligent scale/chopping board that would be able to streamline the information-gathering process for restaurants and grocery chains. The resulting NutriSurface, now its third iteration, has broken away from its modest incarnation as a one-way communication device into two separate models: a coaster and waterproof chopping block that not only transmit nutritional info, but can also be programmed remotely. Neither device is yet on the market and both are still undergoing testing, but Tsai plans to launch an Indiegogo campaign for the product and, if its current market success is any indication, crowdsourcing could help to expand its uses even further. As Tsai put it, the NutriSurface was "built to be a hardware platform where developers can [create] their own applications," thus leaving the modest device open to myriad uses.
