SmartPhone Serves Up Food
Reporter -- Publisher on Jun 2 2010 _______________________________________________________________________________Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
_______________________________________________________________________________
Take a photograph, shoot a video, download your email, and once in a while talk to someone else on the phone. They’re called “Smart Phones,” “Mobile Devices,” and many other names. Now, they will deliver food. We’ve been unable to find one instance of the device actually producing the culinary delight. What is new is that using this ‘mobile app,’ a mobile application, the user can order their food, ahead. Use the App, order, pick up and then eat, possibly. How fast is fast and has this taken ‘fast food’ to an entirely new level?
Snapfinger, is a web and mobile app that allows the user to order takeout from chain restaurants. Kudzu Interactive owns Snapfinger and says it has raised $7 million from venture partners and early investors. We called Kudzu International and asked for a comment, they did not return our phone call.
Use the App to order your food, ahead, swipe your card or in some cases just pass your card over a ‘reader,’ grab the food that was made previously, for you, go somewhere and eat, or stay there and eat. What will people do with all the time they saved by using this App?
Simona Rich is a success coach and she says, “Being able to order your dinner from your smart phone saves time, but services as such do more harm than good. They encourage instant gratification, thus making people more impatient and intolerant. People caught up in the fast pace of life miss out on being present and it seems to them that life passes by very quickly. This constant rushing contributes to the lack of balance in life and can even make a person depressed.
Although it may seem that such fast services can save you time and therefore allow you to engage in your favorite activities for longer periods of time, that is not always the case. People who get used to instant gratification seem to get impatient even with the activities they really like. This further increases their stress levels and makes them unable to fully relax. I hope that in the future people will see the relation between rising stress levels and the increasing demand for such services and therefore will slow down this race to nowhere.”
Dr. Jim Taylor, a Ph.D. in Psychology says, “It’s positive because it is available on demand and efficient. People can order dinner anywhere at any time. As for negatives, nothing stands out other than perhaps feeding our instant-gratification, the world-revolves-around-me, always-connected mentality that new technology has exacerbated. Even the name Snapfinger has that I’m-the-king-serve-me feel to it. I can see Snapfinger being used mostly by two groups. First, the young and tech savvy who use their smartphone as their remote control for life. This group would include college students who want to order a pizza while studying, but don’t want to do something so primitive as make a telephone call. I can also see Blackberry business types using it while rushing between meetings or from airport to hotel.”
Dr. Toni Galardi points out some concerns about technology having too much information about individuals, “In and of itself, the only down side is that there will be most probably a way to track your preferences for marketing other products to you and creating more spam. The mobile phone will become a massive information system that we become very dependent on for our lives. If one is not assiduous about hard copying data that we use our phones to place orders and do our lives from, when there is a technological breakdown, the person’s entire life can be handicapped. And as I mentioned, Big Brother will have a lot of information about you from these smart apps. Use them with discretion in terms of what you want people to know about your daily habits.”
The Chief of Snapfinger, Jim Garrett says that restaurants using iPads running the App will eliminate the need for some servers.
Don Johnson, a Community Employment Director says that has the potential to hurt the “teen-age summer job market” as well as reduce jobs for Software Engineers and others who need a part-time job to, “feed their families.”
Simona Rich is a success coach who helps people understand their core identities and create lives full of meaning, purpose and fulfillment. She has a popular website at http://www.SimonaRich.com where she posts self improvement articles and advice.
Jim Taylor holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, is an adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco and blogs on the Psychology of Technology for huffingtonpost.com, psychologytoday.com, and many technology web sites. To read his technology-related posts, visit: http://drjimtaylor.com/blog/archives/technology/
Dr. Toni Galardi is the author of the groundbreaking book on change management, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. Her website http://www.LifeQuake.net
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/newshawk/public_html/newshawksreview.com/wp-content/plugins/advertising-manager/lib/OX/Ad.php on line 168
