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."

Comments

Dumb idea

[kuzb]

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.

Re:Dumb idea

[frovingslosh]

And I'm sure that couldn't possibly be a scam to try to get people to order a few slivers of onion or green pepper at an extra cost of $1.50 each (while taking away some of the pepperoni at the same time).

Re:Dumb idea

[houstonbofh]

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.

"Why does it always want to give me oniones? I HATE ONIONS!"

Yeah, I can see that being an issue.

Re:Dumb idea

[geekmux]

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.

Ah, I think you really need to review the definition of subconcious again.

Point here is even you won't know how dumb the idea really is...until it works.

Re:Dumb idea

[FatdogHaiku]

And I'm sure that couldn't possibly be a scam to try to get people to order a few slivers of onion or green pepper at an extra cost of $1.50 each (while taking away some of the pepperoni at the same time).

They may take our pepperoni, but they'll never take our heartburn!

Re:Dumb idea

[BarbaraHudson]

For the same reason that your smartfridge will keep ordering eggplant when you hate eggplant and throw it out immediately.

"High turnover of eggplant == must be your favorite"

And why your voice-activated blu-ray player won't let you watch all of Top Gun - "Eject Eject! Eject!" Click. Bzzzt.

Logic fail

[JohnFen]

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.

powerful, it says

[clovis]

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

[tlambert]

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.

Dumb idea

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's tracking by watching eye movements, I eagerly await their new Boob Flavored Pizza.

This would be a great idea if...

[BitterOak]

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.

Re:I wont read TFS

[duckintheface]

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.