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Google Wants Patent On Splitting Restaurant Bills
theodp writes "In a classic example of parody coming to life," writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop, "a newly published patent filing reveals Google's ambitions to solve one of the most troublesome challenges known to humanity: Splitting the bill at the end of a meal." In its patent application for Tracking and Managing Group Expenditures, Google boasts that the invention of six Googlers addresses 'a need in the art for an efficient way to track group expenditures and settle balances between group members' by providing technology that thwarts 'group members [who] may not pay back their entire share of the bill or may forget and not pay back their share at all.'
It's probably a part of Google space efforts. I've heard they've funded some research into bistromatics.
Ezekiel 23:20
Picture in your mind for a moment, that someone actually typed this shit up, had lawyers obfuscate the inanity within and filed this application in the name of em.... "innovation". 'nuff said?
I think Douglas Adams worked this one out a while back:
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Bistromathics
The third and most mysterious piece of nonabsoluteness of all lies in the relationship between the number of items on the check, the cost of each item, the number of people at the table and what they are each prepared to pay for.
You'd have thought that Google, of all people, would have checked to see whether there was an app for that already...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=restaurant+bill+app
"She's furniture with a pulse"
In a lot of places in Europe, the waiter/waitress does it for you. Like in Germany, for example.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This is a perfect example of why patents should be abolished. Maybe in the 19th century they had some value but that time is long, long past. Now patents are a block to innovation.
These kind of bullshit patents spring up when a company incentivizes it's employees to generate as much IP as possible during their day to day development, so as to mine the path for any other company trying to reimplement the technology and follow the same (obvious and non-innovative) path.
I don't know how Google does it, but my company offers a 2000$ monetary bonus for each submission that reaches the filling stage, the vast majority of which are accepted by the patent office. That's right, anything from inventing public key crypto to splitting the bill is patented and squirreled away in the defensive portfolio. The innovatory aspect does not even matter any more, it's all about quantity, they set up all sort of "innovation targets" that entail reaching a certain number of patents. A patent per year is required for any senior wanting to get a good year-end rating.
This is the most anti-competitive, anti-science and anti-progress way to do R&D that I can imagine.
I already use a voice recognition/voice activated app for this. It uses a two word 'trigger' phrase.
When the waitperson is within range, any party at the table faces them and say the trigger phrase: "separate checks."
When the meal is done, multiple bills arrive that are delivered to each dining party, with the amounts for each of their food & beverage items listed, tax and total. Each party can calculate a gratuity based on their own opinion of the individual service they received.
This app also allows for the parties to arrive, and leave, at staggered times.
This is fairly advanced tech, so don't expect to see it on phone/tablets for a while...
This isn't just "splitting the bill". The patentable part of Google's code is how it stores the information on who ordered what...
And the not-so-fine print is that anyone who is that creepy about itemising his/her expenses to that extent at a social gathering will be the individual who will not be invited again. The sociable thing to do (unless one member of the party consumes just half a leaf of lettuce) is to divide the bill by the number of people at the table. Sure, there will be imbalances, but over multiple occasions (in normally reasonable and congenial company) they should pretty much average out.
Assuming everyone is on roughly the same income level. If not, then some people may order cheaper things (or, for example, skip a starter) because they can't really afford it. If you then make them pay the same amount as everyone else, then they are likely to not join in the next time. If your peer group includes some vegetarian teetotallers then you'll be in a similar situation: without meat or alcohol, their meal cost is likely to consistently be lower than everyone else's and unless they are a lot better off than everyone else they're likely to resent having to subsidise everyone else every time you go out.
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