If you eat rice regularly, you probably regard the electric rice cooker as one of the greatest inventions of the last century. It would therefore hardly surprise you to know that the Japanese have taken it -- as they do with so many things -- to extremes.

According to CNet Asia's Mobile Ojisan, induction heating rice cookers are all the rage in Japan, with the top of the range model being Mitsubishi's Wclass NJ-WS10. Mitsubishi claims that this rice cooker makes better rice than other IH rice cookers because it has an inner pot made of solid carbon, rather than the carbon-coated ferromagnetic inner pot that comes with other IH rice cookers. The 7.5mm thick carbon pot, hand-made in China from a solid carbon ingot, even comes with its own serial number.

The price? 115,000 yen (about US$994).