Tag Archives: food

4 January 2025
Leave a comment
Bez kategorii

The Illusion of Progress: Are AI-Powered QR Code Menus Truly Enhancing Dining Experiences?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In recent years, the hospitality industry has increasingly adopted modern technologies aimed at improving service and customer satisfaction. One such innovation is the me&u system, which utilizes QR codes and artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize menu suggestions based on a customer’s previous orders. The goal is to streamline the ordering process and tailor offerings to individual preferences.

About me&u

Founded in Australia, me&u quickly gained recognition for its innovative approach to hospitality service. The system allows customers to scan a QR code at their table, browse a personalized menu, and place orders directly via their smartphone. In 2023, me&u merged with Mr Yum, creating a leading technology provider for the hospitality sector, managing transactions worth over $2 billion annually.

(meandu.com)

Perspective from the Company

In an interview with Hospitality Technology, me&u founder Stevan Premutico emphasized:

“Our goal is to revolutionize dining experiences by integrating technology that not only streamlines the ordering process but also creates deeper connections between restaurants and guests.”

Premutico also highlighted that me&u technology is meant to support staff, not replace them:

“We believe technology should enhance human interactions, not eliminate them. Our system allows staff to focus on building relationships with guests while we take care of the logistics of ordering.”

Critical Analysis

Despite the innovation, several challenges arise with systems like me&u:

1. Reduction of Human Interaction: Automating the ordering process may limit direct contact with staff, which is a key aspect of the dining experience for many customers.

2. Data Privacy Concerns: Personalization relies on collecting and analyzing customer data, raising questions about security and ethical use of such information.

3. Dependence on Technology: Technical issues can disrupt service, causing frustration for both customers and staff.

4. Accessibility for All Customers: Not all guests may feel comfortable with new technologies, which could negatively impact their experience.

Recommendations for Managers

When implementing technologies like me&u, managers should strive to balance innovation with traditional service. It’s essential to ensure that technology supports staff and enhances the customer experience without eliminating the human aspect of dining. A hybrid model that integrates technology alongside human interaction could be the key to success.

MZB

Engine used: ChatGPT 4

reference links:

1. Better together: Mr Yum and me&u complete merger to create a food-tech super team

2. How an AI-powered QR code will choose your restaurant meal

3. The Impact of Technology on the Hospitality Industry: An Analysis

4. Data Privacy Concerns in AI-Driven Customer Service Systems

5. Balancing Technology and Human Interaction in Service Delivery

Tagged ,
7 January 2024
1 Comment
Bez kategorii

Now you can smoke your ribs indoors / GE Profile will show off the world’s first indoor smoker at CES 2024 next week, but you can buy it today.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

If you’re a fan of smoked meats, but you don’t have a backyard or a smoker, you’re in luck. GE Appliances has just announced the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker, a countertop smoker that lets you cook with wood pellets inside your home without setting off all your smoke alarms.

The GE Profile Smart Smoker is an indoor countertop cooker that claims to create the same flavours as an outdoor smoker.

The $999 appliance is the world’s first indoor smoker. It uses a patented technology to eliminate smoke and odors, so you can smoke your ribs, brisket, or chicken without worrying about the smell. The smoker also has a built-in temperature probe so you can keep an eye on your food while it cooks.

The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker comes with a bag of wood pellets to get you started. It also has a built-in Wi-Fi connection, so you can control it from your phone or tablet. This means you can set the smoker to start cooking before you get home from work, or you can monitor the cooking progress while you’re away.

The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker will be on show at CES 2024 next week. It will be available for purchase in early 2024.

GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker: Now You Can Smoke Your Ribs Indoors

If you’re a fan of smoked meats, but you don’t have a backyard or a smoker, you’re in luck. GE Appliances has just announced the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker, a countertop smoker that lets you cook with wood pellets inside your home without setting off all your smoke alarms.

Active Smoke Filtration uses a catalyst system to turn smoke into flavourful warm air.

The $999 appliance is the world’s first indoor smoker. It uses a patented technology to eliminate smoke and odors, so you can smoke your ribs, brisket, or chicken without worrying about the smell. The smoker also has a built-in temperature probe so you can keep an eye on your food while it cooks.

The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker comes with a bag of wood pellets to get you started. It also has a built-in Wi-Fi connection, so you can control it from your phone or tablet. This means you can set the smoker to start cooking before you get home from work, or you can monitor the cooking progress while you’re away.

The smart smoker features a digital dial and temperature probe.

The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker will be on show at CES 2024 next week. It will be available for purchase in early 2024.

Here are some of the features of the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker:

  • Patented technology to eliminate smoke and odors
  • Built-in Wi-Fi connection
  • Temperature probe
  • App for controlling the smoker from your phone or tablet
  • Capacity for up to 4 pounds of food
  • 128-ounce water tank
  • 12-hour timer
The SmartHQ app allows for remote monitoring and control of the smoker over Wi-Fi.

Here are some of the pros and cons of the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker:

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Versatile
  • Smoke and odor elimination technology
  • Built-in Wi-Fi connection
  • App for controlling the smoker from your phone or tablet

Cons:

  • Pricey
  • Not as large as some traditional smokers
  • Not suitable for cooking large batches of food

Overall, the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker is a great option for anyone who wants to enjoy smoked meats without having to deal with the hassle of a traditional smoker. It’s easy to use, versatile, and has a lot of features that make it a convenient and user-friendly appliance.

Reference:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/3/24023919/ge-profile-smart-indoor-smoker-price-release-date-ces24

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/i-just-tried-the-worlds-first-indoor-smoker-ahead-of-ces-2024-heres-how-it-works

https://www.housebeautiful.com/shopping/home-gadgets/a46269180/ge-profile-smart-indoor-smoker-review/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2024/01/04/ge-profile-smart-indoor-smoker/72108085007/

Tagged , , , ,
6 November 2023
Leave a comment
Bez kategorii

From Farm to Table: How AI is Revolutionizing Food Waste Management

Reading Time: 2 minutes
Source: www.fox16.com

The Enormity of Food Waste: A Global Challenge

Food waste is a massive issue worldwide, impacting both rich and poor countries. Around 35% of the food produced ends up unsold or uneaten, causing significant economic, environmental, and social problems. In the United States, supermarkets are responsible for more than 10% of this surplus food, roughly 10.5 million tons annually. The causes are diverse, from date labels, handling mistakes, and spoilage to overordering due to consumers wanting perfect-looking produce. This leads to not only wasted food but also higher costs and more greenhouse gas emissions when discarded food goes to landfills.

AI-Powered Agriculture: Reducing Farm Food Loss

Farms are using AI to tackle food waste at its source. AI tools, like drones, sensors, and smart farm equipment, provide real-time info on soil health, crop status, and weather. Farmers use this data to make smart decisions on where to grow crops, when to plant, harvest, and rotate crops. AI also helps predict when crops are ready for harvest, reducing the risk of picking them too early. Plus, AI can identify helpful microbes to boost crop growth without synthetic fertilizers. These AI innovations in agriculture could change traditional practices and cut down on food loss before it reaches the market.

AI in Food Management: A Multifaceted Approach

In food management, AI offers a flexible way to fight food waste. Companies like Food Cowboy and Winnow show how AI can make a difference. Food Cowboy’s app connects farmers, food banks, and stores to redistribute surplus food, saving it from being wasted. Winnow’s smart meter in commercial kitchens uses AI to track food waste and suggests changes in portion sizes and menu items. But AI in food management also comes with challenges. It might unintentionally reinforce biases in resource distribution and lead to job losses in the food industry. So, it’s vital to consider ethical data use and involve various stakeholders in creating fair and responsible AI solutions.

Retail Revolution: AI and Predictive Analytics in Food Waste Management

In the retail world, AI and predictive analytics are changing the game in food waste management. By digging deep into sales data and considering various factors like weather, local events, and social trends, AI gives a full picture of consumer demand. It can even predict demand with precision. AI also adjusts prices in real-time, ensuring products close to their expiry date get sold instead of being thrown away. Yet, this shift isn’t without its challenges. It requires retailers to embrace data-driven decisions and move away from old pricing strategies. Plus, AI-driven pricing must find the right balance between profit and reducing food waste. By addressing these challenges and leveraging data’s power, AI is making waves in tackling food waste in the retail sector, aligning with global sustainability and ethical concerns about wasted food.

Sources:

  1. https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2023/01/food-waste-management-ai-driven-food-waste-technologies/
  2. https://www.techopedia.com/how-ai-can-help-minimize-food-waste-in-commercial-kitchens
  3. https://paccoastcollab.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PCFWC-Case-Study_AI_Final.pdf
  4. https://linkretail.com/ai-and-predictive-analytics-pioneering-food-waste-management-solutions-in-retail/
  5. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/sustainability-blog/how-ai-can-unlock-a-127b-opportunity-by-reducing-food-waste
  6. Chat GPT – https://chat.openai.com/share/41cdb22d-f925-4469-9407-110ae2acf7f4
Tagged , ,
13 January 2019
Leave a comment
Bez kategorii

AI creates images of food that doesn’t even exist

Reading Time: 2 minutes

A team of researchers from Tel Aviv consisted of three people taught neural network a very interesting nontrivial skill: generate images of ready-made food from the recipe text. Literally it means that this AI can take any text which contain different ingredients and figure out what the finished food product will look like.

However, the results are not very reliable yet – in the sense that the images of really cooked dishes are sometimes quite different from what the network imagined based on reading the recipe.

Researcher Ori Bar El told:

«It all started when I asked my grandmother for a recipe of her legendary fish cutlets with tomato sauce. Due to her advanced age she didn’t remember the exact recipe. So, I was wondering if I can build a system that given a food image, can output the recipe. After thinking about this task for a while I concluded that it is too hard for a system to get an exact recipe with real quantities and with “hidden” ingredients such as salt, pepper, butter, flour etc.

Then, I wondered if I can do the opposite. Namely, generating food images based on the recipes.  We believe that this task is very challenging to be accomplished by humans, all the more so for computers. Since most of the current AI systems try replace human experts in tasks that are easy for humans, we thought that it would be interesting to solve a kind of task that is even beyond humans’ ability. As you can see, it can be done in a certain extent of success.»

Although these images are far from real, tests on people showed that they like the generated pictures and they find them even appetizing. The authors of the article, which was posted on TNW web site, find this result depressing. As you know, there is a lot of food pictures in Instagram, and now there is a danger that these pictures may turn out to be fake. For many people, it is even more distressing than fake news or portraits of non-existent people. It seems that nothing sacred is left in this world where even a photo of snacks can turn out to be a realistic-looking fantasy of a neural network.

Sources:

https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/01/11/nefarious-ai-creates-images-of-delicious-food-that-doesnt-exist/

https://www.techjuice.pk/this-new-ai-creates-realistic-photos-of-food-that-doesnt-even-exist/

https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/comment/ai-created-photos-a-threat-or-opportunity-1.806805

https://futurism.com/these-people-never-existed-they-were-made-by-an-ai

Tagged , ,
9 January 2019
2 Comments
Bez kategorii

A NEW GREEN REVOLUTION TO BEGIN?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Tobacco plants that grow as much as 40% larger than usual have been designed by genetic engineers in Illinois. This is the first step in producing larger plants like potatoes which could be distributed to the poor countries throughout the world.

The genetically modified plants are wider and taller from the regular ones. As a team at the University of Illinois and the United States Department of Agriculture said, they gave tobacco something called “photorespiratory bypass”. It is a kind of a cassette of genetic changes that let the plants turn sunlight into energy more efficiently.

What is interesting, in 2016 University of Illinois bioengineers managed to make tobacco plants grow 20% bigger by helping them respond more quickly to changes in light and shade. This time actually they made plants that use less energy during photorespiration, which is a process that plants need to clear out a toxin called glycolate created during photosynthesis. To achieve this, the team had to add about 16,000 letters of novel DNA instructions to tobacco plants.

You are probably wondering why all of these experiments were carried out with the use of tobacco. Not only do tobacco plants grow quickly, but also are easy to genetically modify. The team is known to be already working on similar gene changes to potatoes, soybeans , and cowpeas.

However, as Heike Sederoff, a plant scientist at North Carolina State University claims, there is a long way for researchers to prove that these modifications actually work. He believes that we should not expect such plants in the markets earlier than 20 years from now.

 

Nevertheless, there are plenty of philanthropes and foundation which are hoping that genetic engineering could lead to a huge step forward in farm productivity. Scientists at Illinois were donated by more than $80 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The goal of the whole project, which is called RIPE (Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency) is to increase the yields of staple food crops and improve global food security. As we can find out from their website, the Green Revolution’s advances have already reached their biological limits. They find it crucial to keep pace with this century’s growing population (which is forecasted to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050) and provide food to the biggest possible number of people by making new innovations to agriculture industry.

There are also other organizations trying to find new solutions, like C4 consortium led by Paul Quick at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, which is developing a process called C4 photosynthesis. It boosts plants’ growth by capturing carbon dioxide and concentrating it in specialized cells in the leaves, which allows the photosynthetic process to operate much more efficiently. Researchers claim that engineering C4 photosynthesis into rice and wheat could increase yields per hectare by roughly 50 percent. Alternatively, they believe that it would be possible to use far less water and fertilizer to produce the same amount of food.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Would you buy such genetically modified plants without any concerns? Let me know down below!

 

Sources:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/535011/supercharged-photosynthesis/

https://ripe.illinois.edu/objectives/our-story

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612710/gene-engineers-make-super-sized-plants-that-are-40-larger/

Tagged , , , ,