Pizza Hut may not be the world’s best pizza, but now that they’ve rolled out nationwide mobile ordering—via their website on any web-enabled phone, or text message on the rest—they’re certainly one of the easiest pizza joints to order from.
technology
Microsoft Testing Ads On Shopping Carts
By 1.16.08
If you buy groceries at ShopRite, you might start seeing special shopping carts with little monitors attached later this year, when Microsoft and MediaCart roll out a new loyalty program that tracks shoppers’ purchases and displays targeted advertising while they shop. Ostensibly, the monitors will also provide useful information, such as the location of products within the store, access to recipes, and personalized shopping lists. We’ll be curious to see whether any of these services are actually implemented in a useful way or are just used to disguise the advertising.
Buyers Beware: Current Blu-ray Players Won't Correctly Play Future Discs
By 1.12.08
After the past week, it seems more and more likely that Blu-ray will be the movie disc format of the future.
Apple Files Patent App To Allow Wireless Ordering At Stores
By 12.31.07
Apple has applied to patent a wireless ordering system that would allow shoppers to place orders from, for example, their iPhones as they approached, oh, let’s say a Starbucks, bypassing an ordering line altogether and going straight to the pick-up counter. The system would also allow stores to keep data on repeat customers to speed up future transactions.
Build An "Upgradeable" Home
By 12.27.07
Wired has a short article subtitled, “How our technolust helped bring down the housing market.” The article is more sensible than the headline, however—it really focuses on new developments in the housing market, and how expensive it is to retrofit even newly built homes with new (or future) technology: “‘[Remodeling] can be done, but you really need to want it,’ says Kermit Baker, a Harvard economist who studies the remodeling market.” What’s needed, the author argues, is an approach to new home construction that treats homes as dynamic spaces that can be more easily reconfigured to meet the requirements of new owners. Not that anyone is building a home right now, but it’s an interesting thing to keep in mind when you’re ready to leave your shantytown and re-settle in the suburbs.
New Microsoft Patent App Provides "Enforceable" Ads That Can't Be Skipped
By 12.21.07
Last year Microsoft filed a patent application, published yesterday, that explains a method by which embedded advertising can’t be skipped. From the application abstract: “Enforcing rendering advertisements and other predetermined media content in connection with playback of downloaded selected media content. Playback of selected media content is made conditional on acquisition of a playback token that is generated in response to playback of the predetermined content.”
Article Recounts Sony's Rootkit Debacle In Detail
By 12.18.07
Remember Sony’s cringe-inducing copy protection scheme a couple of years ago, where they secretly installed rootkits on millions of customers’ PCs and then pretended it was no big deal? (“Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” — Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG’s President of Global Digital Business.) There’s a new article (PDF) about to be published in the Berkely Technology Law Journal called “The Magnificence of the Disaster: Reconstructiong the Sony BMG Rootkit Incident.” It’s a very detailed and entertaining read that examines the conditions that led Sony BMG “toward a strategy that in retrospect appears obviously and fundamentally misguided.”
Stores Offer To Send Your Friends And Family An Invasive Holiday Wish List
By 12.2.07
Wouldn’t it be great if you could email your holiday wish list to friends and family without seeming like a self-indulgent clod? Well, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that several stores now feature self-promoting wish lists that magically email themselves or generate sales calls to potential gift givers.
130 Diverted American Airlines Flights Tracked On A Legal Pad
By 11.17.07
When a storm forced American Airlines to divert 130 planes from Dallas-Fort Worth last year, the airline tracked the diverted planes not with an advanced computer system, but with a legal pad.
Lacking any automated system for keeping track of all those diverted planes, Mr. Dillman and his colleagues furiously scribbled down details of where they had gone, how long they had sat there, and whether pilots had enough time left on their daily work limits to keep flying when the weather cleared.
Vote For Gizmodo For Best Technology Blog
By 11.8.07
Our brother blog Gizmodo is in the running for Best Technology Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards, neck and neck with Engadget. Do you really want an AOL-owned blog to win? Gizmodo breaks all sorts of cool technology news hot and fast and is always a fun read. We know you like clicking buttons so go over here and click the one next to Gizmodo. Apparently if you don’t they won’t let these kittens out of their cups. Voting ends today.
The Great Coffee Can Patent War, Starring Kraft and Procter & Gamble
By 11.3.07
If you drink Folgers or Maxwell House, the coffee can on your shelf is the subject of a patent war between Kraft and Procter & Gamble. Both are accusing the other of stealing the innovative technology used to contain your precious morning fuel in a resealable plastic can that can “withstand the pressure changes that occur between the factory and the consumer’s home.”
Walgreen Planning DVD-Burning Kiosks To Sell Movies
By 10.29.07
Sometime next year, Walgreen will introduce kiosks where customers can select and purchase movies—mostly older ones that aren’t as frequently stocked in stores—and have them burned onto DVDs while they wait (for about 15 minutes). Although the idea seems like one that someone should have had years ago, it wasn’t a commercial possibility until last month, when the organization responsible for licensing CSS—the widespread copy restriction software that’s coded into pretty much every Hollywood DVD release—expanded its licensing structure to make room for business models like this one.
R.I.P. Free Cellphone Games
By 10.27.07
The age of free cellphone games is dead, killed by the greedy profit gluttons in charge of major cellphone companies. One ambitious Slate writer set out to find a phone with “a good selection of games.” He failed, even after visiting five carriers.
In the early part of this decade, cell phones started to become less about the phone call and more about the ring tone. Mobile-gaming types began to realize two things.
OLPC Production Delay Means Shortage Of $188 Laptops This Holiday Season
By 10.24.07
If you’re planning on taking part in the One Laptop Per Child “Buy 1 Give 1” sale next month, be warned that there have been delays in starting production. Although everything is now up and running, the foundation is predicting a shortage of laptops and said that although some U.S. and Canadian customers may see their personal laptops arrive before the end of 2007, orders would be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Shopping Carts That Chastise You For Buying Too Much Junk Food?
By 10.16.07
Welcome to the future! We’ve seen (but been reluctant to use) shopping carts that let you ring up your crap as you place it into the cart, but now there’s talk of one that’ll give you a hard time about your diet as well.
Best Buy Says You Don't Know What You're Doing With HD
By 9.25.07
Best Buy hired a firm to take a survey of the state of the American public’s knowledge of HDTV, and sad results are in. You don’t know what the hell is going on with your television.
OLPC Announces "Give One Get One" Laptop Sale
By 9.25.07
Early adopters, geeks, technology bargain hunters and idealists rejoice: One Laptop Per Child is opening its high tech stash to private consumers, at least temporarily, in an effort to help get their project off the ground now that production has begun. For two weeks beginning November 12th, you can purchase one of their green and white, portable, solar powered, open source laptops with the super-bright screen, for yourself for a tax-deductible $399, and a second laptop will be given to a needy kid somewhere else.
German Department Store Launches RFID-Enhanced Men's Department
By 9.21.07
A German department store is trying a new RFID system in its men’s department, where it’s tagged 30,000 pieces with Smart Chip labels. When shoppers take garments into the dressing room, an integrated display shows the customer price, materials, and care instructions, as well as sizes and colors available. Later this year, the screens will also show complimentary pieces, a great help if you’re not good at matching clothes or are color blind.
