Prego and StoryCorps made a dinner table device that records chats

In short: Prego has partnered with the nonprofit StoryCorps to create a small device that records dinner conversations, but it will be made in very limited numbers.

What happened

Prego, the pasta sauce company, has created a tabletop audio recorder called the Connection Keeper. It is a small round puck with two microphones, meant to sit on a dinner table and capture the conversation.

The project was developed with StoryCorps, a nonprofit known for recording personal interviews about people’s lives. Prego and StoryCorps say the idea is to encourage families to put phones away and talk to each other during meals.

This is not a widely available consumer product. According to the report, fewer than 100 Connection Keeper devices will be made, which makes it closer to a promotional item than a normal retail launch.

Why it matters

Many new gadgets try to do more by adding internet connections and AI features. This one does the opposite. It only records when you press a button, like a simple voice recorder.

The Connection Keeper stores audio on a 16 GB microSD card (a tiny memory card, like a removable mini hard drive) and can hold up to eight hours at a time. There is no Wi-Fi, no cloud connection (meaning it does not automatically send recordings to an online service), and no AI features.

Families can save recordings on a StoryCorps website or on their own storage, and they can choose to share them publicly or keep them private. If shared, StoryCorps says the recording can also be preserved in its collection at the US Library of Congress.

Source: Wired