Cooking your Turkey with Laser Beams, and other Gadgets for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I thought I’d do a roundup of gadgets to help on Turkey day.

1. Qooq (pronounced Cok) http://www.qooq.com/ Approx $520: Qooq is a device meant for the kitchen that connects to your home network by Ethernet or WiFi to look up recipes. You can even subscribe to a monthly update that includes tips and recipes. This device also has a meal planner, so you can put your entire 4 day Thanksgiving meal spread in there and look up a new way to prepare cranberries. The Qooq can also be used to get weather updates so you will know why some of your guests are late, internet radio can bring in some holiday music, and it can also be used a s a digital picture frame.

The Qooq comes with 500 preloaded recipes and features a touch screen so you don’t have to mess with a mouse or keyboard.

2. Sharper Image Rechargable Wine Opener http://www.sharperimage.com $39.99: After that 5^th bottle of wine, the traditional method of poping the cork might be asking a little too much. Sharper Image to the rescue! The Rechargable Wine Opener removes the cork with just a push of the button.

3. Digital Measuring Cup http://www.comforthouse.com/taylor3890measuringcupscale.html (Taylor Model 3890) $30: If the rechargeable wine opener has been in use, maybe a digital measureing cup will be necessary this Thanksgiving! Taylor’s digital measuring cup will handle all your measuring needs for the big day. Dry goods or liquids, this measuring cup will do it all. The cup is one liter in size and will automatically calculate volume from weight. The digital measuring cup will measure in pounds, grams, fluid ounces, cups and millimeters

4. LED Fridge Magnet http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/new-arrivals/digital-video-memo/index.html about $50: The screen is 1.5 inches and has a built-in camera to record images or video. It can store up to 30 seconds of video and can be plugged into your USB port on your computer. Maybe capture some of the family memories in the kitchen and keep it on the fridge until at least the next holiday. Although this gadget won’t help you prepare the meal, it entertain those that seem to congregate around the food.

5. Cook your Turkey with Lasers! From a competition by Electrolux, invented by French student, Ludovic Peperstraete http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_details.asp?individual_id=200276 : Still a prototype, but maybe for next Thanksgiving. This oven uses three lasers to ZAP your food. The cooking dsn’t come from the lasers individually but from the lasers criss-crossing each other to make heat. Hopefully you won’t blow the turkey up!

6. USB Microwave-Beanzawave- $160: Lastly, maybe you have to work at your tech support job on Thanksgiving. Heinz brings us Beansawave, a USB powered microwave. You can nuke some Thanksgiving beans right there in your cubicle while fixing a network adapter in Newark. This little gadget uses mobile phone frequencies to cook the meal in less than a minute. Being advertised as the smallest microwave, the Beanzawave (horrible name) is less than 8 inches tall and is currently not available to the public, but it should be available in the very near future.