Last week, in honor of Valentine's Day, Tod and I put together another ThingM Technology Sketch, LoveM. It was a result of a process we regularly use: we look at a technology and apply "what if" metrics to it. "What if this technology cost 1/10 as much?" "What if it was 10 times more powerful?" "What if we could make one of these in 1/10 the time?" That sort of thing.
One of these discussions--"what if LCD screens continued to drop in price?"--led to LoveM. It's a chocolate box with an LCD display. When we came up with the idea, it started as kind of a joke, but then we went to a grocery store display to look at chocolate boxes and there was a $4 box of Valentine's Day candy with an LED blinker on the front. Sure, one LED does not make an LCD video display, but LED technology has existed for a long time and at current prices a chocolate box with an LED could have been done five years ago. It wasn't. I suspect because people weren't ready to have that level of technology in their food. That box and the relationship it implied made it clear to us that it was a lot more acceptable to introduce technology to food, and led us to pursue the idea and make a concept video (and give the box a cameo in it).
There's a more elaborate description on the ThingM site, but here's the video:
