Drinking technology is rapidly improving, and it might just save you a trip to the hospital. An MIT researcher has invented “ice cubes” that alert you when you’re drinking too quickly.
After an alcohol induced blackout, I made self-aware glowing ice-cubes that beat to the ambient music. The electronics inside the ice-cubes know how fast and how much you are drinking. The cubes change color from green to orange to finally red as you keep drinking beyond the safety limit. If things get out of control, the cubes send a text to your close friend using your smartphone.
We’d all like to think that we know when we’re putting drinks away too quickly. It should be obvious, right? If you’re only on your second drink and the bartender still remembers your order from the first time around, you’re going too fast. If you’re on cocktail four and no one from your table has gone to the bathroom yet, you should probably slow down. If you’ve been at the party for an hour and already won Wizard Sticks, it’s too late, you’re going to the hospital.
There are some obvious limitations to this. Is my glass going to know that I dance like a spastic? I don’t need it turning on the red light like Roxanne and snitching to my friends. Not everyone can groove so smooth. It also won’t know that I’m chugging water between every 4 fingers of cask-strength scotch. The pros obviously outweight the cons in this case, though, because I’ve never let a red light unfairly stop me.
If you want to be at the bar or party for more than an hour or two, keep it under control. You can be absolutely shitfaced at the end of the night and still not blackout as long as you pace yourself. And if you really need to, you can always pretend you blacked out. No one know. Just ask Barry Badrinath. He slept with a monster and got away with it.
MIT researcher created glowing ice cubes to track his drinking [TNW]