Innovation of the week

There’s nothing worse than settling in for a movie with a bowl of popcorn and biting down onto an unpopped kernel—or worse, fishing a smoldering bag of charred popcorn remnants out of the microwave, said Colin Lecher in PopSci.com. Now a “more careful microwave” may prevent such mishaps. Whirlpool’s new, 1.9-cubic-foot microwave features a specialized “AccuPop cycle,” which lets users more precisely cook popcorn in much the same way people used to when they used a closed skillet on the stove top. The microwave uses a sound sensor that “listens to the sound of your food cooking, meaning it knows the rate that the kernels are popping, and can adjust the cooking time appropriately.” The device, which uses a convection cooking system, retails for $569 and also features built-in steaming technology for cooking vegetables, fish, and rice.

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