This pasta brand wants to record all your intimate dinner conversations
Mind passing the salt and the device listening to our dinner conversation, please?
Prego, a pasta sauce brand owned by the tinned goods giant Campbell’s, said Monday it will soon release a $20 ‘Connection Keeper’ voice recorder.
The idea behind the pasta sauce jar lid-shaped device is that people put them on the dinner table so they can preserve conversations for all time.
We’re not entirely sure if this will include awkward small talk about school or your grandmother’s rather interesting hot takes about immigration.
The pasta and pizza sauce company has partnered with StoryCorps, a nonprofit that aims to record the conversations of Americans.
Prego says on its website: ‘We live in a world that captures everything. Photos. Videos. Messages. Moments made for sharing.
‘But the place where real connection still happens – the dinner table – is often left behind.
‘Prego believes the everyday moments and connections built around the dinner table matter.’
Prego says that the Connection Keeper has no WiFi or Bluetooth, doesn’t connect to the cloud and doesn’t use any AI features.
You just need to press a button on the puck to record a conversation with two microphones, then press it again to stop.
The conversations, which are stored in a 16GB microSD card, can be uploaded to the StoryCorps online portal from May 4.
Prego says the portal is encrypted and offers ‘full privacy controls’, though it does not elaborate further.
You’ll have the option to make a physical copy of the recording and add it to the Storycorps collection in the Library of Congress, a sprawling archive.
The company plans to sell only about 100 devices, which will be available to buy from April 27.
A news release says you get: ‘One Prego® x StoryCorps Connection Keeper’; ‘Prego® meal essentials, including Prego Traditional Pasta Sauce’ and ‘one Prego® x StoryCorps conversation prompt card deck to help spark real dinnertime conversations’.
Campbell’s has been approached for comment.
StoryCorps has been taping regular people’s stories for years, with some interviews aired on NPR and stored on the organisation’s website.
Elyce Henkin, a managing director of StoryCorps studios and brand partnerships, told Wired that everything is AI these days.
‘It interrupts the conversation and the flow.
‘We wanted to get rid of that and go back to the basics and have everyone talking to each other,’ she said.
Researchers have found that a third of families sit in silence while eating, but the coronavirus pandemic forced many back to the dinner table.
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