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We're not sure if this is an actual article from The Guardian, or an out-take from The Onion: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who'll be fattest of them all?

Apparently French scientists have devised a magical mirror that will show you what you'll look like in five years based on your lifestyle. While Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid, and our other daily muses run screaming in horror, The Guardian tells us:

Researchers at Accenture Technology, in Sophia Antipolis near Nice, have devised a flat liquid crystal display television screen linked to a set of cameras and some powerful image processing technology. Its first role is to capture the real you, the one you present to the screen.

But the computer-powered mirror will also be picking up data from a network of discreet spy cameras around the house, which will monitor the time spent watching television, eating pizzas, drinking beer and paying sly visits to the fridge and the biscuit barrel. It will also ask—by vocal or text messages —to confirm the pattern of self-indulgence.

It will take the data, and a sophisticated software package will begin to assemble a picture of the likely effects of the day's diet and exercise, or gluttony and sloth. And then, at the touch of a button, it will reveal the future you, five years on.

This is, in a word, horrible. Just last night, the president told the nation that "a society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable, we must strive to build a culture of life." And here are the French trying to create an epidemic of mass suicide. Merde!

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who'll be fattest of them all? [Guardian]