Chasing spam with a beer

Did you know that if a waiter or waitress asks if you'd like another beverage before you finish the one you're drinking, you'd be 40% more likely to say yes than if that refill suggestion came after you had finished your drink?

That's the principle behind one of the projects Bill Yerazunis, MIT Spam Conference chair, is working on in his day job as senior research scientist for Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories' (MERL) North American R&D lab in Cambridge, Mass. Through the iGlassware project, MERL hopes to show how it can help restaurants and bars increase their beverage sales, he says.

The iGlassware system comprises beverage glasses with wireless, liquid-level sensors that work with hardwired restaurant tables. When a customer's drink is almost gone, the sensor sends an alert to the server station so the waiter or waitress knows it's time to head on over to the table.

"If you take a look at a restaurant's drink [profits], we could increase it by 40%," Yerazunis says. MERL is looking actively for customers, but so far it's found no takers.

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