Sheesh. I did some Googling, posted this quick write-up thinking it was an interesting tidbit, went to bed, and woke up to accusations of ripping off a YouTube channel that I wasn't aware of. This was my "Simpsons already did it" moment. I accept that most of my thoughts are unoriginal, but please don't accuse me of intentional plagiarism. I'll try to be better about linking sources next time.
For what it's worth, here are some of the places I found info:
- GE describing their microwave popcorn functions
- Gizmodo article about Whrlpool's microphone system
- A 10-year-old Reddit thread on this exact topic
- A bunch of Quora entries on this exact topic