The Smart Chopsticks

When faced with chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant, we’ve long considered the ‘smart’ option asking instead for a knife and fork . Not for much longer...

Chinese search-engine giant Baidu has just launched ‘smart chopsticks’ (or Kuaisou as they’re known by those who can actually use them) that allow diners to know exactly what they're eating and how safe it is.

“A new way to sense the world,” was how the company’s CEO Robin Li explained the new state-of-the-art culinary tool, which he added could detect “the origin of oil, water and other foods – whether they’ve gone bad and what sort of nutrition they’ll contain.”

Linked to a smart phone, the contamination detection capabilities of the chopsticks take the information and then send to a user’s smartphone, telling them whether it’s good or bad, measuring PH levels and even temperature and calories.

This new geeky way of eating hasn’t just been developed out of a need to speed up the progress of flying noodle bars a la Blade Runner, there’s a more serious issue at play – over recent years, China has suffered from a major food safety problem, with even glow-in-the-dark pork generating unwanted news headlines.

Not that anyone needed a robotic pair of chopsticks to put you off that specific dish.