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Burger King to offer Internet Access
Mockingbird writes
"The Associated Press is reporting today that Burger King plans to offer internet access from up to 20 workstations at a franchise in Hartford, CT. Value meal purchasers get 15 free minutes, but no porn and no e-mail. Have it your way, indeed. "
If I mega size it can I have a half hour?
If anybody's seen arguments break out between support staff and users at the Times Square visitor center you'll know this won't work too well. They have free internet access there, but only for 10 minutes. Someone's always arguing about something, not to mention the lines.
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "core dump"
Much as I use Linux all day, eevry day, the fact is that Netscape on Linux just isn't a rbust enough piece of software to leave running in a fire-and-forget fashion. Loath as I am to admit it, IE5 is a damned sight better coded than any current, 'finished' release of Netscape on Linux.
I think the moderators are trigger-happy today. I've seen more -1 scores on this topic than what is usual.
Hint to Moderators: It's real fscking hard to say anything deep and enlightening about putting computers in a Burger King. The quality of comments reflects the quality of the original article.
"This is Hartford getting national attention," said Ruth Schaefer, ... the one largely responsible for wooing Burger King back to downtown Hartford. "This is wonderful for Hartford."
...
Egad. I'm glad I don't live in Hartford. A town where redevelopment means getting Burger King back? How embarrassing. Better than Littleton, I suppose. But still
The BK on Lower Broadway near Wall Street in NYC gives you a password with your receipt.
It expires after 15 mins.
You need a $5 minimum purchase for more net time.
Who's gonna eat $20/hour in Whoppers ?
Thats the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. Ewwww....
It'd be interesting to find out technical details on the setup they plan to use.. more than likely they haven't considered some of the less expensive, more reliable operating systems? Though it may very well be the case that Windows might be an easier choice. I could very easily be mistaken however - it seems as though with fvwm95 you could probably trick the novice into thinking they were actually using Win95, so no "retraining" of the customers would be required ;-) Internet fastfood "cafes" -- interesting concept... now if it were only a pizza place or something :)
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Thank you - this looks rather interesting. Though i'm a little unsure why my original post was moderated down. *shrug* I thought it was pertinent to the conversation - rather legit technical point. Anyhow, once again, thank you.
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
It might be a good way to read Slashdot when you stop for lunch. Just stop in, read a couple of articles and responses while you eat your burger and fries, and get back to work/on the road in 15 mins. Basically, it's a way to read a newspaper or whatever while you eat.
I'm just worried about the condition of the keyboard/mouse on the computer after thousands of average people surf on them while eating greasy food. They would accumulate keyboard plaque at an alaming rate.
I read the internet for the articles.
Posted by spoonmix:
Actually I have met one of the success stories of this idea. I met a 14 year old kid who was in the Burger King in the World Trade Center. He hangs out there all day and gets reciepts from different people and use the connection to the web.. (the library connections are bull&^%^ around where he lives) using this connection he has entered E-Trade's mock-stock-market and is currently in 108th place out of 6000. The winner gets $50,000 towards college. I must give big props to this kid for tenacity and slyness...
over and out
spooner@netmix.com
Posted by mizzer:
It would be a bit hard to type with your arms hanging out of a car. Or they could give you a wireless keyboard...those things would work for all of a day untill little bits of chili and ranch dressing crept into them.
But seriously, I think this is kinda stupid..I mean i go to BK/McDonalds/Sonic/etc.. to get food and eat, not to go use a computer. Altough, if Sonic did this maybe you could hook it into your car stereo and Quake away! I imagine being fragged with 2 JL 10's thumping away behind you would rock.
Posted by Debarge:
So whats next now virtual hamburgers?
Posted by Brendan Byrd/SineSwiper:
Yeah, they have a lot of fat in them, but that's what makes them taste better. Why do you think the Whoppers kick ass? Two words: mayo and flame-broiled. Admit it...fat is better tasting than no fat. That's why no-fat items are tasteless.
McD's fries? Ugh! I'm better off eating a plain baked potato. Call me spoiled, but I like fries with some type of seasoning (ie. Rally's, Arby's, etc.). It's like ordering a Coke or Pepsi. Why in the hell would you order a Coke/Pepsi? There's Mr. Pibb, Big Red, Mt. Dew, Grape/Orange drinks. But, what do you do? Order a plain...standard...cola.
Oh well. Enough ranting on useless subjects.
--
Brendan Byrd AKA SineSwiper
Computer techie, PERL master, and all-purpose Internet guru
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I can see it now, some nut is going to go apeshit in this joint and start shooting people LIVE ON THE INTERNET.
This'll give the know-nothing talking heads on TV more "proof" that the internet and violent activities go hand in hand.
Burger King, this is a royally bad idea.
LK
Even if they use a keyboard with no moving keys, the thing will still be pretty nasty I think. They'd better have a bottle of sanitizer/degreaser and a roll of paper towels next to it at all times. Dunno about the mouse. Disposable plastic covers maybe? Maybe they'll use those new Microsoft optical mice. The kind with no ball. That could solve the problem of the buildup of gunk that will accumulate about every 5 minutes until the mouse becomes practically unuseable. Hmm..... maybe they've planned for this stuff. Then again, maybe people will avoid the computers due to the fact that it could be hazardous to your health to use them.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I'm in World Trade Centre and the BK opposite doesn't have it...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Uhh, actually, here in California the Carl's Jr. chain of restaurants brings your food to your table. You get a number when you order, then you go sit and wait for them to bring it to you. It works rather well.
For more information on WSOD, check out http://www.software.ibm.com/network/ workspace/. A list of features:
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Umm, why would someone need to advertise Burger King at Burger King? People are there. They've already succumbed to the advertising pressure.
Anyone have any idea of how BK plans to implement this? Are they going to have individual Windows boxes setup with 'Net access or are they going to have Macs or are they going to be truly intelligent and run X-servers. As long as Netscape or IE is up and running, I don't see how people will care.
In San Antonio, TX, Kinko's has this sort of 'Net access dealie where you can basically use their computers for anything (graphics editing, pagemaker work, surfing the 'Net, checking e-mail, et al) for a price. I wonder if people will be able to limit themselves to just a meal, though.
I have a picture of myself at a "cyber-burger king" on the Champs Elysee in Paris in 1997. I bought a little smart card with 20 minutes of use to go along with my meal. My wife was amused, but not surprised.
Why was I eating at Burger King of all places in Paris? I was tired, and it was cheap & quick. Don't worry, though, we had Real French Food (Algerian, if I recall) that night.
I thought this was supposed to be a fast food joint. Eat and run. Where does eating lunch or dinner and the internet go together? Sticky keyboards, indeed! What's the point? The novelty or being the first fast food joint to do it?
Would you like clean mouse balls with that?
Toss in Chick-Fil-A for chicken sandwiches. I'd kill to have one in MA. (Harvard doesn't count - they screw it up)
Wendy's for shakes. Burger King for burgers (haven't had Jack in the Box...)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
ugh who wants to use the keyboard with all the _grease_ that's on it after people used it
---
I did log in, and the preview said `Sesse' (my username), so I wonder what went wrong.
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
So what's to prevent an enterprising soul from coming in, yanking the blue cable from the PC and plugging it in to their Ethernet-capable laptop, and side-stepping all the ads and other bullsh*t that's sure to be on the BK-PC? (It wouldn't be hard to discover the IP address of the PC and reconfigure the laptop accordingly.)
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Anyone else think the new fries kinda suck?
Yeah, they've put some sort of potato puree over them, cooked them for longer and generally made them taste absolutely vile.
BK Whopper+Cheese is the best burger in existence, but I won't eat in BK any more because of these horrible King Fries
Just my 0.02e worth...
Incidentally, anyone know why superscript isn't in the Allowed HTML on /.?
Its a neat idea but it won't be free. The browser home
page will be burgerking.com, there'll be scrolling ad banners, popups, etc.
Fun Trick:
Many times, you can use the URL telnet://some.host.foo and the browser will launch the telnet app for you. The second "evil" thing is to attempt to get a file that has an unknown mime-type. The browser will prompt you what to do, and you tell it to open with telnet.exe. These things can be disabled, must most places don't go that far.
If they are blocking port 110 then no packets destined for port 110 will pass the firewall/gateway, even if you use your tounge on Cat5 to generate the packet.
:-)
Have you seen Ironstayn vs Supergovernment yet?
telnet://your.pop.host:110
-- If you met me, you probably wouldn't remember me. I'm pretty hard to remember.
If they don't have ssh, that's what S/Key is for.
There are Java telnet clients out there - pretty nifty too. You just need one of them on your own machine, so you could bring up said java applet, use it to telnet into your box, and read as much email as you like...
And maybe even play ttyquake as well.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
The idea is dumb for this type of business. Burger King, McDonalds et al are supposed to be fast food. How many times did you use the Net for only 10-15 minutes? Now exclude checks for an E-mail.
What if people would love this feature so much that they will keep surfing more then 15 mins? How they are gonna to enforce the limits? Fast food places are making their money on FAST rotation of people -- got your food, eat it and go away. This is not cafe where you can sit, drink coffee and enjoy your Quake session. It is not gonna work for the fast food chains.
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
- By no email do they mean Burger King isn't providing email accounts? Or can you not even use web-based email?
- I think they're going to have a hell of a time trying to enforce the no porn rule. Filtering software is all far from perfect... Although at least they won't have the same 1st amendment problems as libraries do. "Our software doesn't let you look at the N.O.W. homepage? Well, tough."
First, nobody says that the keyboards have to be touch keyboards. Look at the point of sale machines that they use... no buttons, just touch pads.
Second, a touch screen seems to be the perfect method for accessing a web-only device. Doesn't seem to be too difficult for an employee to use some glass cleaner (or whatever) every 30-60 minutes to keep those nasty germs away.
I saw a mention of "french fry grease." The greases and oils used in fast food tend to gum up things like keyboards, but point of sale technology has been around since the 1970's... it doesn't appear to be a problem with the majority of the fast food places you see around town.
I don't think I'd use it (I'd hate to be standing in a "line" behind a bunch of kids ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the technology). But... there ARE cyber-cafes right now. Why not cyber fast food?
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
I have yet to see a web cam which was useful. These are the people who treat technology like some sort of crystal ball. "Look, I can see the airport parking lot. Sure it took 10 minutes to update, and the resolution is too low to tell if there are any free spaces, but look--the airport parking lot!"
It is sometimes necessary to speak.
Bite the hand.
Or if they allow telnet you can just logon to your shell account and use Pine :-)
My understanding is that they will only have a client for http. Therefore, no e-mail, no telnet, no IRC. What they mean be no e-mail, I would assume, is that they will have no POP3 or SMTP client, therefore no e-mail. Probably if you had web-based e-mail, that would not be restricted by the proxy. But then again they may block things like SSL and user authentication.
They already said that they would be censoring access. However, it is not said whether they were filtering bad sites out, or good sites in. If they were filtering good sites in, meaning that the proxy server has a list of the sites you can view, instead of a list of sites that you can't view, it makes it more probable that they wouldn't let you get any sort of e-mail.
atw asks:
How many times did you use the Net for only 10-15 minutes?
Umm...all the time? I read Slashdot in ten-to-fifteen minute bursts all day long. I ordered tickets to Star Wars this morning in about five minutes. I bought a book last week in less than three minutes.
Whether it will work within their business model remains to be seen. Might be fun to see them delve into some other aspects of the technology: how about a distributed processing net with a node in each store location? That cool effects shot in your favorite movie might have rendered using spare cycles on Burger King's network of office computers.
--j, who sees some amusing possibilities
For instance, I use my Yahoo e-mail account to check my personal and work e-mail daily. I can't telnet or SMTP myself through the corporate firewall at my current client (good for them, actually) but Yahoo certainly can SMTP to my mail account.
This is ideal for corporate con"slut"ants who move around a lot -- coming from someone who never thought he'd use a freemail system ("I've got three e-mail accounts already! What would I do with it?") this is a big change in attitude.
I do concur with the earlier poster who said the only useful thing to do in 15 minutes is check your e-mail.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Kids today do not "ooh" about the internet. Kids today show their parents how to use the internet.
The parents are the ones making those "ooooh" sounds you're hearing!
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
For those of you who are interested, the local news just did a segment on this new Burger King, and here's some things I noticed: 1) It opened today(5/20). 2) They appear to be regular keyboards and monitors with no covers--spill your shake and they're out a keyboard(and you're probably out another $20). 3) No boxes in sight, so you probably can't BYO hardware. :-( 4) No visible signs of what OS it's running. No start bar, no Mac bar, and I couldn't see the cursor well enough to get an idea if it was X. 5) Purchasing a value meal gives you a token good for 15 minutes--if you wanted a long browsing session, you could collect tokens for a while and then piss off a lot of people waiting in line behind you. 6) There is an on-site admin. 7) There is a bar at the top with a time clock telling you how much you have left and it appears to have navigation controls. and, the kicker....(not directly related, tho.) 7) There are as many access terminals(2) in this Burger King as there are in the Hartford Public School System, which, BTW, is the only one run by the state of CT instead of the town.
--
sharkyfour.com
Every once in a while, I fantasize about getting out of the computer business, so I can relive my youth as an amateur. Those fantasies included applying for a job at Burger King. You know, go "on strike" in an Atlas Shrugged kind of way. Now I see I'll have to do something else if I really want to get away from it all and not worry about competition clauses.
"What do you mean, my new program is property of Burger King just because I wrote it while I was an employee? D'oh! That does it, I'm quitting and going to Wendy's!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I think many of you have missed the point here a little. I don't think that any of you are part of BK's target market for this scheme.
Obviously, all of you here have access to the internet, one way or another, and i am assuming that most of you can use it pretty much whenever you like, and as much as you like. Afterall, we are nerds aren't we?
So perhaps the target market is people that don't have regular access to the internet? People with Hotmail accounts that they check whenever they get the chance?
I wonder how many whoppers i need to buy to download a copy of Redhat....
Hmmm, I wonder why everyone of your posts gets marked down! Even the ones that are on topic.
---
French Fry Grease
"I want peace on earth and good will toward men." "We're the U.S. government. We don't do that sort of thing!!"
They have this already in numerous locations in NYC.. I'd use when I heat there, but the dual T's at work and my desk full 'o PC's are much more fun.. They have web cams tho, you can send 'video postcards.' whee.
Matt
If I was at a fast food joint, only had fifteen minuets at the net, they only thing I'd be interested in is checking my e-mail. I bet they would set up dumb NT stations that only had Exploder.
If by some mirical we were given access to a telnet program I could log on to my server and check my mail there. This is idotic personally.
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Steven Wright
umm.. try reading some of his posts... /. topic, I'd expect to get moderated too...
if I posted 20 inane mostly off-topic one liners on just about EVERY
am I the only one who is sick seeing the "cannibals" tagline everywhere?
...If you're consuming Burger King food, chances are you wouldn't remain in that stall long enough to type in a URL...
Blar.
Am I imagining things, or has there been a recent trend for corporations to decide that it's easier to build in a browser than to compete on the quality of their primary products?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I've been to places that have essentially similar concepts --- they are godsends when you are travelling in unfamiliar places.
Just think, you are a thousand miles from home, and you can pay $10 and get dinner and internet access.
Of course, it all depends on what they mean by "internet". I'll bet $10 that they don't allow telnet, ftp, or anything other than web access.
There are some useful web cams.
Example: there's a camera off of a hotel
looking over the beach in santa cruz. Check
it out: is the weather good for going to the beach?
Similarly, there's a camera which points at
HWY17 -- a two-lane each-direction highway over
a windy mountain pass connecting scruz and silicon valley. "How is the traffic going to be for the commute home?"
That's why I use Yahoo and Excite email. Okay, it's not the reason, but I will now be able to get net time @ BK.
No way that this is the *first* BK. There's a guy in NYC who's got two Burger Kings online. 3Com did a deal to put Web cams in the store in the financial district. I went there. Here's the picture from the 3com webcam:
HTTP://www.burgercam.com/pcard/3KDKEZ3BX6.htm
Will they let you go to the McDonalds website?
Actually, if they're blocking port 110 you can't really telnet to it and use the POP commands. And not all of us are lucky enough to have ISPs who provide shell access through a telnet connection.
I don't really see the point of 15 minutes of net access with no email (I guess I could eat a burger and skim Slashdot), but the important thing is that they used the words "Internet" and "World Wide Web" in a press release. Their stock should go through the roof! (*snicker*)
Quoting the article:
"Also planned is a Webcam where Internet surfers can call up Hartford's Burger King Web site and see a live transmission of action in the restaurant."
A live transmission of all the "action"? What action?!?
I say we just file this one under clueless suits use nifty buzzwords and waste bandwidth...
What the? What good is BurgerKing without the Porn? I mean, come on! How many people would really eat there if they didn't have Jugs, Hustler and Barely Legal at every booth?
BK left france around 97..so no webcam with the arc de triomphe in the background and a royal cheese in the foreground..but the perfume shop 'sephora' has a few PCs in the shop with a net connection.
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
I definately wouldn't want to touch that keyboard. Instant e.coli death. Voice recognition might work, but that would be pretty awkward in a quiet bathroom, hearing 4 different guys in stalls talking to themselves.
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
...and the computer rebooted. :)
/dev/tp."
Just imagine what kind of paper the printer would use:
"I'm out of toilet paper!"
"It's ok, just cat something to
/* Hoping the moderators tolerate my silliness */
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Because he's made so many bad posts that have been "legitimately" marked down that he now posts at a default level of zero, as Rob explained when he set up the moderation system. There was a brief period when the system was initially set up when people automatically posted at 2 and 3, because the thresholds for auto-moderation were set very low. As far as I can tell, he's currently the only registered user to post at a default level other than 1.
I'd like to killfile him, since I think there's a lot of other good stuff at -1 due to ignorant moderators.
is anyone else failing to see why this is a good idea? I mean, is the sacrifice of using a computer with whopper-juice all over the keyboard worth whatever you might gain in 15 minutes of internet time? Why exactly is the BK environment more appealing for computer use than a library? I for one feel nauseous at the thought of what that keyboard is going to look like after about a day. On the rare occasion that I do eat fast food, I get out of there as soon as possible.
-- First post (by a female living in a state that begins with M and does not end in a vowel with a birthday that falls
Mailreader....
Send my name, password, and mail server to these guys in the clear over the wire? no thanks.
Uhggh yuck! Who wants to get their fingers on the keyboard after everyone else has used it....and then eat?
What self respecting admin is going to basically
run an ISP out of a burger king. Good lord..
I can just see the resume now. Fry Guy/Sys Admin
Heh..
echo "80 stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.telnetd" >> /etc/inetd.conf; killall -HUP inetd
Hah ha ha ha
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Yeah... I found it mildly funny that they say "No Porn", and yet call themselves "Home of the Whopper"!
I think the original poster was referring to Burger King making the portal Burgerking.com and then selling ads to other companies on Burgerking.com (probably no fast-food ads tho).
~unyun~
*chuckles*
Well, that's one way for businessfolk unlucky enough to have a Web connection at work to get in a quickie-net-fix. And probably its main use.
I know I used to run to the library's public short-term (15 minute max) terminals when I worked at a non-web-enabled bank.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Yeah, there's an idea. Then again, public access to internet terminals would be the ideal hack spot, especially in a fast food restarurant.
Equipment upkeep, constant spills and lame customers who will have something else to complain about besides the food - "my terminal just froze, let me speak to the manager".
There's no way this will ever fly. However, I would go for the idea of having an ethernet jack at every booth in any restaurant for laptops.. now that would rock...
Shouldn't Captain Taco be writting about Burger King? I suppose this is their new image for the week.Make mine a restored Onion Melt,a deceased special of good value!How about,if Burger King serves you before AOL throws you off,you get 15 more minutes.
icey
But it's tasty.
First of all, if you eat at Burger King, McDonalds or any other fast food place, death will come quicker than if you never go there...do you know how evilly unhealthy that "food" is?
Second, this idea is just about as lame as BK's idea a few years ago to have your food served to you (like in a real restaurant).
They are two ideas that are counterproductive to fast food operations.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
That's what technical savvy janitors will be hired for (those 16 year old skript kiddiez will be perfect for it).
Reminds me of the tech support wanderers at Internet Cafe's like Cybersmith; they love cleaning pewp.
This reminds me of the netpod project. They had
any article in Linux Journal a few years back
discussing their pay/use internet terminals. I
checked out their system Summerville, MA and it
was pretty decent. Unix/X/Linux is well suited
to this application, because they are so customizable. X with the appropriate window manager can be dumbed down so the user doesn't get into trouble. Plus a custom look and feel can
more easily be accomplished, than with other systems.
I believe given a stable browser Linux would make
an excellent web term.
Like they're going to block hotmail, et al?
-
BlackNova Traders