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Pizza Hut gives you delivery estimates before you order online
You know the score: you order from an unfamiliar pizza place and have little idea as to when your food will arrive until you've already made a purchase. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew when that pie would show up before you spent your cash? Pizza Hut thinks it can help. It's offering an estimated "Visible Promise Time" that tells you when your online order is likely to reach your door (or, for carry-out, when it's ready) before you commit. The time varies based on the volume of orders, how many drivers are on hand and the typical drive time for your part of town. If you're not sure that ordering at 6PM on a Friday is a wise idea, you'll find out very quickly.
Now you can order a Domino's pizza simply by opening an app
Domino's already has a slew of ways for you to tell the company you'd like a pizza. There's the Easy Order button, the emoji tweet, the Echo method -- heck you can even do it directly through an Apple Watch or your Xbox One. But all those require you to put in a modicum of actual effort *shudder*. That's why Domino's rolled out its "no touch" ordering app on Wednesday.
Domino's has built an autonomous pizza delivery robot
For a pizza chain, Domino's actually has a pretty rich history of innovation. It's embraced social media, created a one-click Easy Order button and even built a delivery car that has its own pizza oven. Now it's looking at robots. More specifically: delivery robots. What you see here is DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit), an autonomous delivery vehicle built in collaboration with Australian technology startup Marathon Targets that Domino's says is the first of its kind. It's filled with thousands of dollars worth of military robotics tech, but its covert mission has been to deliver fresh pizza to the residents of Queensland.
Domino's built a pizza delivery car with its own oven
You have to sympathize with pizza delivery drivers. They're rarely driving more than an everyday car (often their own), which won't do much to help them get a pizza to your door on time. Clearly, Domino's Pizza feels their pain. The food giant has unveiled the DXP (Delivery ExPert), a heavily modified Chevy Spark that's focused on pie transport. The star attraction is an outward-facing oven in the back -- drivers can grab your piping-hot pizza without skipping a beat. There's also storage space for a whopping 80 pizzas (office party, anyone?), an out-for-delivery light and a puddle light to prevent any rude surprises when stepping outside.
Track your Domino's order via a Pebble smartwatch
A Pebble smartwatch is handy for a number of things, and now you can use it to keep tabs on your pizza order. Thanks to Domino's app for said gadget, you can monitor the status of your Wisconsin 6 Cheese pie, Crispy Bacon & Tomato Specialty Chicken and Stuffed Cheesy Bread with a glance at your wrist. The app shows updates when food is being made, baking, undergoing a "quality check" and either ready for pickup or on its way to your door. Don't have a Pebble? There are options for ordering via iPad, TV and more, because of course.
This three-year-old pizza won't kill you
It's the zombie apocalypse, and the only items on the menu are a year-old pizza and cockroach sashimi -- which would you choose? Well, if that pepperoni-smattered pie came from the US Army's Natick Labs, you've hit the jackpot. A team of food scientists at the facility are apparently hard at work developing pizza that can stay good for up to three years, specifically for deployed soldiers' pre-packaged meals. In fact, they just finished making a prototype this February. It took the team two years to perfect the current recipe, because you can't just dip slices in vats of preservatives and hope for the best. They used humectants (ingredients like sugars, salts and syrups) to keep the crust from being soggy and changed the acidity of the sauce, dough and cheese to prevent bacterial growth. While the prototype's nowhere near ready for distribution, the munchie experts' taste testers claim it's as good as something you'd "get from a pizza parlor." They didn't mention if it's more of a Papa John's or a Little Caesar's, but hey, at least it's not made out of pulverized insects. [Image credit: AP Photo/Steven Senne]
Pizza Hut app comes to Xbox 360, unstoppable force meets immovable gamer
Let's be frank: many dedicated console gamers among us have at least briefly dreamed of ordering food without having to lift our hands from the controller. That's about to be more than a fleeting fantasy for Xbox 360 owners, as Microsoft is launching a Pizza Hut app today for those permanently lodged in the living room. The release puts all of the delivery menu a quick hop away on the Dashboard, including custom orders. Buyers can tempt their friends through Facebook, and there's even Kinect support for greasy-handed customers who'd rather not touch the gamepad (or a napkin, apparently) when requesting a second serving. Microsoft stresses that the Pizza Hut partnership isn't the start of a broad trend toward ordering real products through an Xbox, which is just as well -- our arteries can only take so much inactivity at once.
Domino's Pizza Hero iPad app coaxes you to design a pie, order one shortly thereafter
If the idea of pinching, zooming and tapping on your iPad is far less appealing than kneading, sprinkling and cutting, then the Domino's Pizza Hero iPad app may just be right up your alley. Putting aspiring pizza makers to the test, the game challenges players to assemble a pie as quickly as possible for points. Once you've passed levels one through five, affectionately nicknamed "Pizza School," other players will get a chance to rate your performance -- ultimately making or breaking your pizza career. If concocting virtual pies was enough to make you hungry, fear not famished souls as the app let's you order the real deal direct from your iPad -- now that's amore. Check out the gallery and video after the break.%Gallery-140086% Dante Cesa contributed to this report.
