YouTube-linked microwave shows vids as it nukes

Students have found a way to spice up microwave meals by attaching a tablet to their radiation-oven, playing YouTube videos while the food cooks.

The µWave uses the Arduino open source prototyping platform to read the cook time, which it sends to a server over an Ethernet connection. The server searches for a YouTube clip of the same duration, which subsequently plays on a tablet mounted to the front of the cooker, eliminating that boring two-minute wait watching nuked food rotate, Hack a Day reports.

Classmates at the University of Pennsylvania came up with the idea for the 2011 PennApps hackathon.

Check out the following video clip, or visit the µWave website for further details on how it was created:

Of course, not all students are wealthy enough to Sellotape fondleslabs to their kitchen appliances and leave them there, but it's a novel idea nevertheless.

Then again, there'd have to be some kind of filter on there - I can think of plenty of videos that would put me off wanting to eat altogether. ®