Prego, yes the marinara sauce brand made by Campbell’s of Campbell’s soup fame, is a technology brand now. The pasta aisle staple has partnered with a company called StoyCorps to launch the Connection Keeper – a $20 puck that sits in the middle of the dinner table and records conversations.
The device is being marketed as both a Mother’s Day gift (in the US, that’s it’s in May) and a segue into screen-free week. The partnership said the simple recording device will preserve the laughter, stories and “cherished moments that happen naturally over a meal and saves those recordings to revisit from years to come.”
The Connection Keeper Bundle wants us to keep our phones away from the dinner table – just like the good old days where everyone talked and connected constantly and was never distracted from anything anyone said. And so on. The $20 bundle even includes some dinner essentials, like a jar of the sweet tomato sauce, some spaghetti, and a pack of cards offering conversation starters if talking to your family while eating spag’ bol’ sounds a little bit daunting.
Recordings can be commenced and curtailed with the touch of one button of the USB-C rechargeable puck, with it possible to upload to an online repository. Users can choose whether they want to share recordings with other family members or keep them private.
If you haven’t heard of them before StoryCorps is a nonprofit dedicated to “recording and preserving the conversations of everyday Americans, to shine a light on the importance of the everyday conversations that happen around the dinner table and the lasting impact they can have on families and future generations.”
Families making the recordings can also have them preserved in the Library of Congress. We’re not really sure whether that row over who has the last roast potato, or who polished off the bottle of merlot really belongs there. Or maybe it does?
Anyhow, the Prego x StoryCops Connection Keeper is available from next Monday.
Read the full article here
