Intelligent cutlery helps you tackle weight gain and digestive problems

This new device is described as "intelligent cutlery" and will be marketed as a means to tackle weight gain and digestive problems. It has a sensor, which detects the loop made when you pick up food, put it in your mouth, and then return the fork to your plate. If it discovers you have carried out the action too quickly it buzzes in your hand to tell you to slow down.

Its inventor says he came up with the idea after his wife complained he wolfed down her cooking. "I knew that I was eating too quickly and I had to modify my habits," recalls Hapifork's Jacques Lepine.

"Although I tried to eat slowly, I'd quickly start thinking about something else - I couldn't control myself."