[Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News

Seems a good idea to get more sales but the bubbling around the glass to attact and let know the customer is time to refill is very annoying.

This strikes me as highly irresponsible. If the point of this system is to encourage people to have another drink when usually they would not, which is what the video implies, this is a major problem. We should be working on systems to reduce alcohol consumption, not make it easier.

Yet another waste of a good technology.

It’s probably a bad thing that I didn’t object to the blatant attempt to get me drunk, but to the idea that these prisms are taking up space in my glass…

Yeah, cool babe, nice red shoes, but I don’t want my drink-ordering habits controlled by a freakin table, let alone by a profit-motivated bar owner.

We don’t need to make it easier for crumby bartenders and waitstaff to keep their jobs.

It is a mark of good service when the staff is tuned into this sort of thing. Arriving at the table to check how your drinks are doing just before food arrives, paying attention to how your drink is doing so you don’t have to spend your evening trying to get the bartender’s attention… etc.

Would this sort of thing improve service, or just encourage already spaced out staff to pay less attention?

James:

You forget that getting drunk is the primary reason for visiting a bar in the first place. Do you want to drink and socialize, or spend your evening waving your arms trying to get the bartender’s attention?

The technology is good, but the focus of this video is wrong.

I would not want a table or a waiter to tell me or even give a slight suggestion that it is “time to refill!”.

However, if this would alert on the background the staff that there might be a new order upcoming from that table through the MS surface ordering system, that could improve response times and increase customer satisfaction.

As the idea is represented in this video, however, the system decreases customer satisfaction.

Great idea if getting people drunk and raising their chances of getting a DUI, killed or someone you know killed is the objective. Drink responsibly? The ONLY way to do that is to not drink at all or drink only when you’re not getting behind the wheel regardless of your consumption level. Typical commercialism thinking… forget that every DAY people die from drinking whether they consumed or the person that slammed into them did. Bars should be illegal. Drink at home if you must. Leave innocent lives out of the equation.

@Wide Angle
Yes, because the only possible way to get home from a bar is by single-passenger automobile – designated drivers, taxis, buses, trains, bicycles, or walking are all somehow impossible to use in this situation. (!?)
I completely agree that drunk driving is terribly irresponsible and shouldn’t be encouraged, but then neither, in my view, should your ridiculous obsession with it as the sole effect or goal of alcohol consumption. I’d recommend that you relax with some good friends and a pint, but I’m afraid you would end up stranded in the parking lot of your local pub, waiting for those last two molecules of ethanol to leave your bloodstream. Cheers!

“Hello, Microsoft LiveSurface support?

Your stuff is working Ok, but about about every 256 times, something happens: the 255th person’s glass always shows as needing a refill. No matter what we do (including as many refills as we can produce,) the message never stops.

Can you please tell us how to turn off this feature?”

;)

Hello, pjm?

Please clean the glasses, and give the system a good reboot. If all else fails, buy a new one for the next 256 times.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Microsoft Live Surface support.

i think the idea is briliant, only it shld be the client deciding if wanting a refill or ordering a different drink on the screen. If i had the $$$ I would open the first bar with this technology here in Barcelona!