Accenture is developing a whole new genre of video conferencing: The Virtual Family Dinner. With this innovative tool, you can connect to family member anywhere in the world with just a push of a button. It is installed much like cable television, but is tailored specifically to your family and their whereabouts. Elderly people who eat dinner alone are the largest target for this type of media seeing as they are usually the ones that are unable to travel to be with their families.

The concept is simple. An elderly woman in, say, California, makes herself dinner. When she gets ready to sit down and eat, the system detects it and alerts her son in Chicago. The son then goes to his kitchen, where a small camera and microphone capture what he is doing. Speakers and a screen — as big as a television or as small as a picture frame — allow him to hear and see his mother, who has a similar setup.^{USA Today}

There are concerns that this will just end up being another tool for the government to keep tabs on the average citizen. The benefits seem to be outweighing the predicted consequences, though. Keep an eye out for this technology to be hitting the market soon.

Read [Y! News for more info]