How many times have you had to work straight through lunch, only to wonder if being lightheaded affected your job performance more than taking a half hour and eating something substantial. But sometimes you just can’t leave your desk. So does that mean being chained to cubicle and eating cold food the rest of your hectic career? Well how about a USB microwave which can heat small dishes right where are? It’ll have the ability to feed you hot food and drive workmates nuts with the wafting scents of cooked food coming from your cube. That’s where the strangely named Beanzawave comes in as the world’s smallest portable microwave oven.

About the size of a portable camping light, the Beanzawave is run by USB and can cook a tiny snack sized meal or warm a beverage. Currently in prototype, the Beanzawave is a tad over 7 inches tall by 6 inches wide and 6 inches deep. How can USB create the kind of power used to generate microwaves? Well, the reality is that it doesn’t use microwaves at all, per se. It uses the same sort of waves used for cellular telephones (which should give everyone pause considering we all have a phone next to our ears every day) to generate the heat needed to cook or warm up the food or drink. And the Beanzawave can tune those cellular wave frequencies to generate exacting head to cook a wide variety of small foods including pot pies, cups of soup, or even a hamburger.

The Beanzawave was developed by Gama Microwave Technology in association with Heinz (yes, the ketchup company) which hopes to pair it with their new snack food line known as “Snap Pots.” The current prototype also gives the option of powering it with lithium ion batteries making it completely portable for camping and outdoor sportsman activities.

Cost is projected to be about $150.

Hat Tip – Daily Mail