Voice over raw fish

In another grandiose and satisfyingly expensive solution to an everyday problem, Japanese sushi chain Toriton has installed an IBM voice-recognition system for ordering in its shops. The aim is not,
as one might suspect, to enable diners to whisper the names of a few choice morsels into a countertop mike and shortly thereafter see platters of sushi gliding toward them down the conveyor. It's to help out Toriton's harried band of chefs, who are fielding orders and marrying bits of fish to pillows of rice at such a rate of knots that they're screwing up 30 orders a day. Given that having your hands full of toro and sticky rice isn't all that conducive to picking up a ballpen or tapping at a keypad, the company opted to install mikes through which the chefs intone the seat numbers and order details of whatever customers are yelling at them, which then flash up on a screen and spool out of a printer. The result is a mere 10 slips on the path to raw fishy ecstasy every day, instead of 30.

[Via Slashdot Japan]