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Another Beer Please
jmichaelg writes "What do you get when you combine a glass, a PIC computer, two capacitors, a coil and a zener Diode? A wireless beer glass that signals your waiter when you need a refill. The circuit is an RFID transponder that measures the fluid level in a glass and transmits a globally unique ID coupled to the fluid level reading when queried by an antenna hidden in your table. The query provides enough power to drive the circuit so no batteries are needed. A technical paper describes the circuitry in the table and the glass." This hit the news over a year ago, but we didn't have the technical details.
Okay- this doesn't help our obesity issues at all. We're the only country with drivethroughs every 5 feet and now we are spared the exercise of raising our hand to signal the waiting staff for a refill.
Some use for RFIDs that doesn't lead to a police state! Only more beer for all! Horray for bread & circuses!
You don't want another drink, but your glass/table has ordered you another one, and teh waiter brings it over???
and then proceeds to add the drink to the bill even though you didn't drink it, but you did order it.?
Is it REALLY that hard to just walk around and look at peoples' glasses?
Yes, ideally, someday, we can all just lay around half conscious, being tended to by robots. It'll be great, because robots are NEAT!
I think it's good to be a bit of a luddite.
Because the more advanced we become, the drunkerer we get.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
So... RFID tags are our friend now? I'm so confused.
/goes off to get a beer
And I'm still sitting here trying to puzzle out how the signal from the table provides enough power to run the circuitry in the glass. I remember some talk about wireless power and I think Tessla had it figured out a long time ago, but it still boggles my mind :)
And I haven't even started puzzling how a glass full of ice is somehow different than a glass full of beer.
The things geeks play with when they get bored...
What's so interesting about a wireless beer glass--aren't they *all* wireless? Was there a failed wired beer glass prototype that /. didn't report on? ...as for signalling the waiter when you need a refill, it's already the waiter's job to look at the glass and ask the customer if he wants another. If the beer glass replaced this function, then I'd have to start tipping the glass instead of the waiter... and there's no way I'm going to tip my precious glass of beer!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Obi-Wan: These are not the droids you are looking for...
Storm Troopers: Actually sir, yes, they are. These droids have a globally unique identifier that signals they are indeed the droids we are looking for. What's it to you, anyways? *pause* Hey, wait a second! We just scanned your robe and found out that you bought your robe using your Imperial Credit Card....MR. KENOBI
Obi-Wan: Uhhhh... Uhhh...
Is it REALLY that hard to just walk around and look at peoples' glasses?
;)
You haven't been at the Oktoberfest yet
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One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
Also kind of throws the "Responsible service Of Alcohol" policy that we have in Australia.
How is the glass going to know how drunk the person is, and if they should be seerved any more alcohol?
I thought we hates RFIDs. No, no we loves them when they have beer involved! Shut up, you! RFIDs are our enemies. Hssssss! But beer is our precioussssss..... NO SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! We hates the RF-trickies. We hates them. I thought.... we liked.... beer... NO! LIES! They all hate you, and track you with RFID tricksies.... the beer is our friend, though, the TV told me so. Lies! Lies with boobies! Nobody likes you! Beer likes me beer was always lyinggg to you. Yess, tricksie. So they can track your beer supply and get you when you're... No! be quiet! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! *sob*
RFID tags are only as evil as those who use them. Just because your beer glass has an RFID tag in it does NOT mean you need a tin-foil hat to go to the bar.
You know, you coudl complain just as much about 802.11 and Bluetooth, because they can be used in similar ways with a little effort.
Monitor the general vicinity of your laptop? Record what store security systems your PDA enters? Hell, triangulate your cel phone signal (and now GPS it), a wireless electronic item quite personally associated with you by a corporate entity, nonetheless.
Please TFY next time. That's "Think For Yourself", and I think it should become as popular as "IANAL" and "RTFA" here on "/."
(Sorry if this was a joke, but the first thing I thought of when I read this article is "Great, another RFID bitchfest")
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
According to our logs you have been drinking way too much beer lately. Report to the nearest government office for rehabilitation. Failure to comply will result in severe beatings.
Not sure if this is just a Banks' (Midlands-based brewery) thing or if it's law, but staff in Banks' pubs are trained to give you a fresh glass each time, never refill on health&safety grounds.
I'd be willing to bet you would have to wait just as long for a refil, since your waiter is most likely responsible for more than just your empty beer glass. The wait time is not due to not noticing, it is due to being in a queue.
A friend of mine is a bartender. It takes me forever to get a refill if his bar is busy, because he knows I'm not going to get mad at him if I have to wait an extra five minutes to get a drink. (and of course, I will be understanding of the extra wait time because an entire evening of drinking costs me $20 with an included $12 tip)
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Squirrel
Why is it that engineers always invent the best stuff over beers?
At [former employer, large defense contractor], our entire design staff came up the best things at the local bar. Of course, it meant we usually went to the design meeting bleary-eyed and with notes scribbled all over beer-stained cocktail napkins (sometimes still damp).
Many employers give programmers free all-you-can-drink soft drinks. Engineers should get free all-you-can-drink beer. As caffeine boosts productivity for some, alcohol boosts creativity for others.
MmmMM... beer.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
This is just one more piece of evidence to subpeona against you at your DUI trial.
It has been announced that after signalling for the 4th drink it will also notify your partner to go into "sulk mode" and make up the bed in the spare room.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
(Betcha students can't sneak them out of the pub either.)
For a real beer drinkers heaven go to Stinkies a 24/7 pub, attach catheter, give waitress credit card, and begin bindge. Taxi or Paramedics will be called when beer glass is full without being drunk from for more than 2 hours.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Somebody would eventually pull up behind me and order. I would get whatever it was they ordered. If it was a big family, I would simply say I got trapped in the line and pass on thru, but if it was another single, chances are he ordered something simple too.. so I would just take it as if nothing happened pay for it, then pull around and park in the lot and watch all the confusion at all the subsequent orders being all out of sync.
Another funny thing is a lot of those order-taker panels were actually little two-way radios. With a strong local mobile rig, you could "capture" the carrier and make do like the restaurant. It was hilarious making do like the order-taker and playing with the customers.
And I post AC for a reason. There may be many out there that remember those pranks.
What of my paranoia?! It has RFIDs in it! It's evil!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"How is the glass going to know how drunk the person is, and if they should be seerved any more alcohol?"
How is the glass going to be able to walk over to the bar, hop under the tap, and fill itself up with more beer?
There's still a person in the equation, so don't worry about it.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Do you know that there is a low tech solution that is in use for years? In germany beer mugs have a lid. If the lid is open, the waiter knows you want a refill, if not you don't want a refill...
This solution is also wireless...
...will the glass report itself to be half empty or half full??
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
...the coffee pot computer.
Now what if those 2 could be combined? Hmmmm...
Laura
This advice on Oktoberfest bears repeating:
I don't need a mug that tells the staff I need another beer; I need one that tells me I don't!woof.
Read the article; it's far more ingenious than that. The coil is just feed into two PIC inputs, and the PIC's static-protection diodes do the rectification. A zener and a cap across the power pins complete the power supply.
It gets better. They use the clock pin as one of those inputs. Thus the chip is clocked by the received RF. And by briefing switching the other input to an output, they communicate pulses back to the sender. (That right -- no separate RFID chip, the PIC does all the sending as well as the sensing.)
Speaking of sensing, it gets even better. The capacitance measurement used to determine the fluid level is done by switiching two other input/output pins and a fixed capacitor to create a charge pump measurement. By counting the number of times a charge on the fluid-measuring capacitance has to be transfered to the fixed capacitor to bring it up to a logic level, they measure picofarad differences corresponding to changing fluid levels easily.
An utterly amazing bit of minimalist engineering!
Instead of having a sensor on/in the glass to determine if its going empty or not,, why not make a high tech table that has a spot or a button to place the drink when you want a refill so they know instead of rushing one to you when you finish. This would give the consumer the option to get a drink instead of having one after another till they are blitzed because some consumers (along with me) have the "if I buy it then I might as well drink it" mentality.
I am sure that this approach would be more cost effective then buying 200 of these glasses at $100 a pop.
Back when I frequented Mickey D's, I would often listen in on their headset freq. On a couple of occasions, I would turn the radio way up and cause feedback. "Owww! What the HELL is that?!?!" On one other occasion, the order-taker was being a smart ass. She would ask each and every customer..
OT: "is that everything?"
C: "yes"
OT: "are you sure?"
C: "uh, yes"
OT: "100%"
C: "YES"
so when she asked me if I was sure, I replied, "100%". The next few seconds of silence was among the funniest in memory.
Intelligent Life on Earth
who drink our beers straight out of the bottle, what do we get, aside from the enjoyment of watching a tipsy barmate look at his glass and mutter "this thing's broken" when the servers ignore him...
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
... monitoring hubby's beer glass. At glass seven he gets a call on his cell phone. "Harcourt? Harcourt Fenton Mudd, you're drinking again!? This is your seventh glass of beer! You KNOW how you get when you've had too much to drink!" And of course the prosecutor, may it please the court, can provide records showing exactly the number of drinks H. Mudd had to drink when he's brought up for public intoxiation charges.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!