Aureole HP: Despite the annoying Flash, this is an interesting bit at HP about a 42-foot wine tower at the Aureole restuarant at the Mandalay Bay casino in Vegas.
With 10,000 bottles of wine, the list got a little long, so the hotel implemented it using Tablet PCs to help guests browse the list. So, cool for two reasons: (1) a 42-foot wine tower is just cool by definition, and (2) using Tablet PCs to slice and dice the list is even cooler.
(On a related note, why don’t restaurants use Pocket PCs and wireless to take orders from waiters at your table? This seems like a no-brainer to me…)
MICROS Systems Inc offers handhelds for restaurants (www.micros.com) Not a good fit for high end table service restaurants, customers deem them as "too impersonal", best fit is casinos and pool areas.
There are some restaurants that do use PDAs and wireless. There is a drive-in in Bellevue, WA that has had the carhops using them for at least a few years.
We sell PDA systems that let you even process credit cards from the PDA...
Apparantly McDonalds has started implementing takign orders from PDA's when it gets extremly busy as well as orderign from coutners, then the order is sent to monitors in the backarea, where they cook what you ordered as soon as u ordered it.
I don't understand why they don't just embed/attach a PDA to each table and let people choose to use a waiter or not. Next you have the food delivered in a funky, overhead conveyor system, leaving waiters completely out of it. Can you imagine walking into a restaurant and there being no waiters or greeters? Big initial investment but likely to get the money back over time and instead of paying for that staff, invest the money into restaurant entertainment. Someone must have done this already.
I have never seen waitstaff using PDAs in the US (maybe I'm eating at the wrong places), but this is relatively common in Australia. Most seem to be using Palms with either IR or wireless.
Menards is using a PDA-type thing for controlling customers hauling stuff out of their yards. I picked up some lumber and concrete the other day, and the guard at the gate used the PDA to scan my ticket when I went in, then used it to check me out when I left, and had me sign for my purchase on it too. It looked to be a pretty heavy duty unit; not something they picked up at Office Max.
Come to think of it, FedEx and UPS delivery guys have been using devices like this for quite a while, but I think they are pretty much custom-built units, and fairly high-dollar items. Not something any old restaurant is going to be putting to use.
