Amina Nazari is a product designer by training, so it makes sense that she was mystified by the things that people don't need, but nonetheless hang onto because of their sentimental value. Sure, we might attach a story to an heirloom--but what about all the stories of its previous owners, which have been lost to time?

So she invented a device that allows anyone to record their memories of an object, and hand those down along with it. The entire system is powered by RFID: First, an object is marked with a chip. Then, that chip can be scanned by a reader in the base of the grammophone you see above. Speak into the cone, and that audio snippet gets recorded and logged--anyone who scans it again can replay the message, or add their own.

Nazari shows how that might work, in a couple of pictures showing a jewelry box passed between family members:

[Amina Nazari via Design Boom]