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Pizza Hut Tests New "Subconscious Menu" That Reads Your Mind
HughPickens.com writes Allison Griswold reports at Slate that Pizza Hut wants to help you order your food subconsciously with a new product that is being tested at 300 locations across the UK that uses eye-tracking technology to allow diners to order within seconds using only their eyes. The digital menu shows diners a canvas of 20 toppings and builds their pizza based on which toppings they look at longest. To try again, a diner can glance at a "restart" button. "Finally the indecisive orderer and the prolonged menu peruser can cut time and always get it right," a Pizza Hut spokesperson said in a statement, "so that the focus of dining can be on the most important part — the enjoyment of eating!" According to news release from Tobii Technology, the Subconscious Menu can determine which ingredients your mind and eyes have been looking at longest in exactly 2.5 seconds. The menu then uses a powerful mathematical algorithm to identify, from 4896 possible ingredient combinations, the customer's perfect pizza. "Tests on the Subconscious Menu have been incredibly positive with 98% of people, recommended a pizza with ingredients they love."
Sometimes I'm just reading the menu. Tracking what I look at or how long I'm looking at it isn't representative of my decision making process.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I can't say that I've ever considered it painful, or at all problematic in the slightest degree, to select toppings for my pizza. This isn't a solution to a problem. It is, however, a gimmick that will create a problem.
I rather like the concept, if applied well. What usually happens now is an impatient server wanting you to order asap. This could be a boon to those who like to take their time ordering. No need for any human to be involved until the menu says your order is finalized.
a Pizza Hut spokesperson said in a statement, "so that the focus of dining can be on the most important part — the enjoyment of eating!"
Anyone who cares about the enjoyment of eating wouldn't be in a Pizza Hut in the first place.
I was dubious until I read this sentence.
"The menu then uses a powerful mathematical algorithm to identify, from 4896 possible ingredient combinations, the customer's perfect pizza."
When I found out that it wasn't just any mathematical algorithm, but rather a powerful one, then I knew that this would be the ordering technology for me.
The only catch seems to be that the end result will be always be a Pizza Hut product.
Time tracking is a *bad* metric.
As someone who is trying to choose my last topping on an N-topping pizza deal, I will spend my absolutely most time trying to choose between the last two toppings, unsure of which one of the two I want more. That will push those two toppings way up on the list, inflating their supposed value to me, when in fact, they are chosen last precisely because they have less value than anything else to me.
This seems like a way to sell extra toppings for an up-charge.
Or maybe I was looking at the fly on the menu board and wondering if I wanted to eat there, and no you can't have my retina scan without permission.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If it's tracking by watching eye movements, I eagerly await their new Boob Flavored Pizza.
I always wanted to live to see where technology and general human advancement would take us.
Now that I know, I think I'll go off myself.
And I bet it delivers something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike pizza.
Whenever I frequent a fast food joint, I have to waste plenty of time looking at pretty pictures. I'd vastly prefer if there was a text menu, preferably with sensibly categories such as main dishes, desserts, drinks and whatnots.
This would be a great idea if Pizza Hut's main clientele base consisted of stroke victims who are paralyzed everywhere except for their eyes and are able to communicate only through eye movements. Last time I was in Pizza Hut, I didn't see too many such people there. So, I'm not sure what problem this technology is supposed to solve.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Salesperson: congratulations on your new car purchase! (unknowing) Buyer: But I was just looking at this car!?! Salesperson: Yes, so our software determined you wanted to buy this car, so we've already signed you up for a loan!
The conclusion is deceptive. They say 98% of people get ingredients they love. But that could be by chance since 98% of people probably like ANY pizza that does not contain anchovies.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Seriously! Is an alarm going to go off if I'm checking out the cleavage of the young lady behind the counter? I'll take my pervert money elsewhere!
No, it just adds Human Breast Milk Cheese to the toppings list.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
"I didn't order a pizza with the tits from the cashier behind register #2?!"
“After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with.
He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”