Microwave bank pays bills before frozen food is cooked

How many times have you put a frozen lasagne into the microwave and thought: "If only I could get £20 pounds out at the same time"? Never? Well, according to the seers of 21st century technology, you will - and you won't stop at the microwave.

Indeed, in technology terms the microwave bank is old hat. It was first attempted in September last year by the Knowledge Lab, an international technology research consortium attached to NCR, the automated teller machine (ATM) manufacturer. A prototype microwave bank had an Internet connection offering similar services to current online banking facilities: account information, bill paying, cash transfers, etc.

And if you get the bills paid before your frozen food is piping hot, you can switch over to watch television or send your shopping list out into cyberspace hunting for bargains.

You could even ask the oven for recipe suggestions for a dinner party and it will offer ideas based on its knowledge of the tastes and preferences of your guests while taking into account factors such as the weather. So no hearty beef stews on a hot midsummer's day for a party of French vegetarians.

Mr Robin MacKay, head of emerging technologies at the Lab, says that behind this apparently incongruous mix of food preparation and financial services is an idea called "relationship technology".

In the future we will not have to adapt to technology, it will be designed to suit us and have the capacity to change as we change because it will understand us in the way the microwave bank understands its owner's friends. "We will have a comfortable, happy relationship with day-today technological gadgets and the quality of our lives will be enhanced as a result.

"If people are technophobic it's usually the fault of the technology, which is built by engineers for engineers," says Mr MacKay. "We're trying to move away from the PC which can do anything, but does nothing very well. "The microwave bank isn't just two technologies bolted together at random. It's based on research that people sit down in their kitchens and do their bills. We are trying to shape technology to fit in with the home. People have PCs in their home but they don't really fit in."

Although Mr MacKay and his colleagues at Knowledge Lab - who include artists, designers, neuroscientists, philosophers and biophysicists - champion the idea of relationship technology, they do not have exclusive rights. Its principles underlie most of the leading edge developments in financial services technology and it is being taken seriously by a large number of financial household names.

In Britain, Barclays Bank, Lloyds TSB, HSBC and NatWest are all members of the financial services arm of the Knowledge Lab. With this kind of backing it will not be long before more devices like the microwave bank will be sitting in people's kitchens.