billso.com

From ZDnet: technology companies and restaurants are experimenting with electronic menus. These can be deployed as portable devices like electronic books, or built into a table-top display screen like Microsoft’s Surface technology. Customers could place an order with the electronic menu, play games, and monitor their order’s progress from the kitchen to their table.

Restaurateurs may see reduced error rates and lower expenses if order-taking becomes more automated. Electronic menus might be tied directly into kitchen, POS (point-of-sale) and inventory systems, allowing restaurant chains to develop more accurate real-time sales data.

Seasonal choices can easily be accommodate with an electronic menu. When the kitchen is running low of an item, the menu might indicate that there are only “x servings left” this evening. When the supply is exhausted, the menu suggests an alternative.

Electronic menus could also drive increased impulse sales of high-margin items like beverages and desserts.

The adoption curve for electronic restaurant menus resembles mobile phones in some respects. There may be several iterations of widely incompatible systems before consumers are interested enough to try the technology. Costs are likely to be high.

Waiters and other floor staff may reject the concept completely, especially in Europe. Someone still has to bring the food and beverages to the customer, and those employees may receive lower tips if they did not take the customer’s order.

Europe and Hawaii may be excellent regions to try a key feature of electronic menus. Just like e-books, an electronic menu could support any number of languages through Unicode and graphical displays. A tourist might order competently from an e-menu, instead of guessing at cognates and grumbling about the results. Happy customers are more likely to come back for more, and to tell their friends.

The Washington Post reported yesterday on allegations that US Customs agents have inspected and confiscated laptop computers, iPods, and mobile phones during passenger inspections. Passengers claim they were asked to provide passwords and open files. In some cases, mobile phones were inspected and returned with purged call logs. One person claims their laptop has been held for an over a year.

According to this article, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Asian Law Caucus have filed a civil lawsuit against the Federal Government, based on 20 complaints from Northern California residents. The goal is disclosure of the US government’s boder search policies. One sourse of concern is an apparent pattern of racial profiling, in which agents targeted Asian and Muslim passengers.

The US Department of Justice asserts that electronic equipment falls into the same category as a briefcase, and may be searched and confiscated for inspection.

However, the scenarios described in this article sound more like coercion or out-and-out robbery.

Of course, many corporate travelers have confidential or private information on their computers and phones. The Post article cites a Canadian law firm that sends corporate travelers headed to the United States with “empty hard drives”. There’s an operating system and a web browser on the laptop, of course, but employees access their email and documents through a secure Internet connection such as a virtual private network (VPN). This helps keep confidential data off the drive, as the law firm fears discovery by search more than a hacked Internet connection.

BoingBoing and the Consumerist each had articles about the Post report, although both blogs misidentified US Customs as the TSA.

Sadly, the activities alleged in this lawsuit do not surprise me. BusinessWeek recently reported on Indian IT outsourcing firms that have systematically underpaid IT workers who were brought to the United States on H1-B visas. These workers make tempting targets, as their outsourcing companies can send the workers back home for any reason. By the time some workers determined they would never get their back-pay, they were no longer in the US. It seems that only a few lawyers or client companies will step in to help these guest workers.

Courtesy of BoingBoing, here’s a photo of at least five different electrical outlets that are available at each seat in a European conference room.

It’s not just the power outlets that are different. The outlets provide different voltages and frequencies of alternating current (AC), depending upon the standards. This Wikipedia article has a good discussion that I used to develop a key for the above photo. Going from left to right:

1. Type G or BS 1363: 240v, 50 hZ. Used in the UK, Singapore and South Africa
2. Type E: 220v, 50 hZ. Used in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and other European countries.
3. I have no idea what standard the third plug uses.
4. Type J or SEV 1011: 250v, 50 hZ. A Swiss model.
5. Type B, NEMA, PBG: 120v, 60 hZ. The standard 3-pin plug used in the US and Canada. Japanese plugs look similar, but use 100v and 50 hZ.
6. Again, I have no clue which plug this might be.

Every couple of months, someone asks me about a power issue. It might be electric plugs, battery life or power adapters. International travelers sometimes learn a hard lesson about voltage. If an outlet supplies too little voltage, the device will not work well or at all. This is a common issue for European visitors to Hawaii, as our 120v outlets provide only half the power that a European device might need it.

If the outlet provides too much voltage, the device might start smoking or burning. American visitors to Europe sometimes encounter this issue when they force a 12ov Type B plug into a 220v or higher European outlet.

I’ve long thought that the standard USB type A connector might become a standard electrical connector for low-power devices. USB usually provides only 5v of direct current (DC) at 100 or 500 milliamperes. That’s either 1 or 2.5 watts, so USB only useful for charging or running small devices.

DC is the common standard for batteries, and is also used inside almost every electronic device. Batteries have a limited lifespan, even when recharged.

But USB is an international standard, so more and more digital cameras, mobile phones and small devices use this interface for charging. Better yet, perhaps some company will start offering USB power outlets that can be installed directly into a wall.

Starting this afternoon, I will be offline until Monday, 15 October. Students who have questions about the current assignments should email me, but I might not respond until Tuesday, 16 October.

I’m disabling the comment features on this web site, as I won’t be able to moderate and respond to these comments over the weekend. In general, comments aren’t the best way for students to contact me. Email is always a good option.

I’ll post another reminder next week, but I will be off-island from 18 to 23 October. I will have limited Internet access during that time, and my email responses will take longer than usual.

Students, please plan ahead and send me your emails well before the next IS 6100 and IS 7010 assignments are due.

This web site and our TurnItIn.com sections will be available, of course.