Yesterday morning, rumors of a Super Mario cereal started making the rounds on the internet. The cereal, which is the product of a team up between Kellogg's and Nintendo, seems to be a promotional item for Super Mario Odyssey. Super Mario Cereal may end up being more than a mere novelty, though, as a leaked image of its box showed us that it also doubled as an amiibo.
Considering that Super Mario Odyssey is one of the biggest games of 2017, we'd expect Nintendo to do a certain number of product tie-ins to promote the title. After all, Mario has ascended beyond mere video game fame to become a globally-recognized mascot, so it makes sense that Nintendo would want its promotion machine to implant itself in as many markets as possible. This is where Kellogg's new Super Mario cereal enters the picture.
Domino's plans to use artificial intelligence to check the quality of the pizzas cooked by its stores, it has revealed. This system is called, appropriately enough, the Pizza Checker, and it involves a physical device that will be rolled out in some of its stores around the world. The customer can receive a photo of their pizza from the quality checker.
Domino's has expanded beyond its Facebook Messenger bot, announcing a new integration that allows customers to place an order through Slack. The integration makes Domino's the first national pizza chain to provide ordering on the messaging platform, though definitely not the first company to hawk its products through the platform. Ordering lunch at work just got a little easier, however.
Google accidentally ignited an Internet debate perhaps only rivaled by the great is-it-white dress debacle of 2015. The Internet giant, you see, released a cheeseburger emoji in which the cheese deviated from norm. That is, Apple and Microsoft both put the cheese above the burger patty, as is customary in many places. But someone -- or many someones -- at Google decided to thumb their nose at traditional and put the cheese below the patty.
Amazon has gradually been entering the food market for several years now, with Amazon Fresh grocery delivery, and more recently acquiring Whole Foods. But its next expansion may include home delivery from one of your favorite restaurants. The company has announced it's partnering with Olo, a platform that handles online restaurant orders, to help improve its existing Amazon Restaurants service.
Coffee, America's favorite beverage, just got a little more convenient thanks to some food scientists with Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The researchers have created what they call a milk capsule; it is a puck-shaped solid bit of coffee creamer that dissolves after being put into a cup of hot coffee. Unlike the little cups of liquid creamer that currently exist, you can't accidentally spill the milk capsule on your clothes.
Amazon, not content with just dominating consumer shopping and ebooks, is looking into launching a food delivery service that will utilize special technology for keeping meals fresh...without refrigeration. This tech was first created and used by the U.S. military, but it could prove a vital way for Amazon to set itself apart from competing food delivery services. Assuming the sources are correct and Amazon's project goes according to plan, we may see these meal deliveries go live in 2018.
A 100-year-old fruitcake has been retrieved from Antarctica, and it is described as being 'almost edible.' Though no one is going to sample a piece of this soon-to-be-ancient cake, the brick of dessert has undergone preservation efforts to keep it in good shape as a piece of exploratory history. The cake is thought to originate from a voyage to Antarctica that took place in the early 1900s.
Genetically modified salmon have made their way into the wild, so to speak. While the female fish of this GMO variety are sterile to prevent them from mixing with wild salmon, the fish have expanded beyond their AquaBounty farms, arriving on dinner plates in Canada. This marks the first time genetically modified salmon have been sold for consumption, a trend that will no doubt continue following statements from multiple authorities citing the meat as safe for consumption.
Does your kitchen counter need another single-purpose appliance? Wim thinks so, and its frozen yogurt maker aims to do for froyo-on-demand what Nespresso has done for coffee convenience. The $299 gadget takes single-serve bowls of organic yogurt mix which, when you add your choice of milk, are converted in reasonably short order into a dessert.
Blue Apron and lesser known services like it specialize in shipping all the ingredients for dinner to your door, leaving the actual cooking process to the buyer. It has proven to be a popular option that lies between take-out food and cooking from scratch, and now it looks like Amazon is getting in on the game. A trademark application from Amazon recently appeared from Amazon Technologies detailing 'prepared food kits' with the tagline 'we do the prep, you be the chef.'