Burger King to offer Internet Access 166
Mockingbird writes
"The Associated Press is reporting today that Burger King plans to offer internet access from up to 20 workstations at a franchise in Hartford, CT. Value meal purchasers get 15 free minutes, but no porn and no e-mail. Have it your way, indeed. "
If I mega size it can I have a half hour?
Times Square (Score:1)
Computers in the stall (Score:1)
If only Linux had a good browser... (Score:1)
Moderators (Score:1)
Hint to Moderators: It's real fscking hard to say anything deep and enlightening about putting computers in a Burger King. The quality of comments reflects the quality of the original article.
This is Hartford getting national attention?! (Score:1)
Egad. I'm glad I don't live in Hartford. A town where redevelopment means getting Burger King back? How embarrassing. Better than Littleton, I suppose. But still
Re:!Fast food (Score:4)
It expires after 15 mins.
You need a $5 minimum purchase for more net time.
Who's gonna eat $20/hour in Whoppers ?
Re:Touching Public Terminals (Score:1)
Operating System of Choice (Score:1)
Re:WorkSpace On Demand is a great choice (Score:1)
Re:!Fast food (Score:3)
I'm just worried about the condition of the keyboard/mouse on the computer after thousands of average people surf on them while eating greasy food. They would accumulate keyboard plaque at an alaming rate.
success story at BK lounge (Score:1)
Actually I have met one of the success stories of this idea. I met a 14 year old kid who was in the Burger King in the World Trade Center. He hangs out there all day and gets reciepts from different people and use the connection to the web.. (the library connections are bull&^%^ around where he lives) using this connection he has entered E-Trade's mock-stock-market and is currently in 108th place out of 6000. The winner gets $50,000 towards college. I must give big props to this kid for tenacity and slyness...
over and out
spooner@netmix.com
Re:Wonders.... (Score:1)
It would be a bit hard to type with your arms hanging out of a car. Or they could give you a wireless keyboard...those things would work for all of a day untill little bits of chili and ranch dressing crept into them.
But seriously, I think this is kinda stupid..I mean i go to BK/McDonalds/Sonic/etc.. to get food and eat, not to go use a computer. Altough, if Sonic did this maybe you could hook it into your car stereo and Quake away! I imagine being fragged with 2 JL 10's thumping away behind you would rock.
Whats Next???? (Score:1)
So whats next now virtual hamburgers?
Am I the only one that likes their fries? (Score:1)
Yeah, they have a lot of fat in them, but that's what makes them taste better. Why do you think the Whoppers kick ass? Two words: mayo and flame-broiled. Admit it...fat is better tasting than no fat. That's why no-fat items are tasteless.
McD's fries? Ugh! I'm better off eating a plain baked potato. Call me spoiled, but I like fries with some type of seasoning (ie. Rally's, Arby's, etc.). It's like ordering a Coke or Pepsi. Why in the hell would you order a Coke/Pepsi? There's Mr. Pibb, Big Red, Mt. Dew, Grape/Orange drinks. But, what do you do? Order a plain...standard...cola.
Oh well. Enough ranting on useless subjects.
--
Brendan Byrd AKA SineSwiper
Computer techie, PERL master, and all-purpose Internet guru
Web Cam:Why do I have a BAD feeling about this? (Score:2)
I can see it now, some nut is going to go apeshit in this joint and start shooting people LIVE ON THE INTERNET.
This'll give the know-nothing talking heads on TV more "proof" that the internet and violent activities go hand in hand.
Burger King, this is a royally bad idea.
LK
ick! (Score:1)
Even if they use a keyboard with no moving keys, the thing will still be pretty nasty I think. They'd better have a bottle of sanitizer/degreaser and a roll of paper towels next to it at all times. Dunno about the mouse. Disposable plastic covers maybe? Maybe they'll use those new Microsoft optical mice. The kind with no ball. That could solve the problem of the buildup of gunk that will accumulate about every 5 minutes until the mouse becomes practically unuseable. Hmm..... maybe they've planned for this stuff. Then again, maybe people will avoid the computers due to the fact that it could be hazardous to your health to use them.
Where in NYC? (Score:1)
Re:Two things... (Score:1)
WorkSpace On Demand is a great choice (Score:3)
For more information on WSOD, check out http://www.software.ibm.com/network/ workspace/ [ibm.com]. A list of features:
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Re:Advertising (Score:2)
Anyone have any idea of how BK plans to implement this? Are they going to have individual Windows boxes setup with 'Net access or are they going to have Macs or are they going to be truly intelligent and run X-servers. As long as Netscape or IE is up and running, I don't see how people will care.
In San Antonio, TX, Kinko's has this sort of 'Net access dealie where you can basically use their computers for anything (graphics editing, pagemaker work, surfing the 'Net, checking e-mail, et al) for a price. I wonder if people will be able to limit themselves to just a meal, though.
Re:Where in NYC? (Score:1)
Paris (Score:1)
Why was I eating at Burger King of all places in Paris? I was tired, and it was cheap & quick. Don't worry, though, we had Real French Food (Algerian, if I recall) that night.
Re:Three words: (Score:1)
Would you like clean mouse balls with that?
Re:Heh, this is funny... (Score:1)
Wendy's for shakes. Burger King for burgers (haven't had Jack in the Box...)
Re:Touching greasy Terminals (Score:1)
Why did it call me AC? (Score:1)
/* Steinar */
B.Y.O. Hardware? (Score:3)
So what's to prevent an enterprising soul from coming in, yanking the blue cable from the PC and plugging it in to their Ethernet-capable laptop, and side-stepping all the ads and other bullsh*t that's sure to be on the BK-PC? (It wouldn't be hard to discover the IP address of the PC and reconfigure the laptop accordingly.)
Schwab
Burger King Fries (Score:1)
Anyone else think the new fries kinda suck?
Yeah, they've put some sort of potato puree over them, cooked them for longer and generally made them taste absolutely vile.
BK Whopper+Cheese is the best burger in existence, but I won't eat in BK any more because of these horrible King Fries
Just my 0.02e worth...
Incidentally, anyone know why superscript isn't in the Allowed HTML on /.?
Advertising (Score:2)
Its a neat idea but it won't be free. The browser home
page will be burgerking.com, there'll be scrolling ad banners, popups, etc.
Re:No e-mail? (Score:1)
Many times, you can use the URL telnet://some.host.foo and the browser will launch the telnet app for you. The second "evil" thing is to attempt to get a file that has an unknown mime-type. The browser will prompt you what to do, and you tell it to open with telnet.exe. These things can be disabled, must most places don't go that far.
Re:no e-mail.. how? (Score:1)
Re:*sigh* I just lost a prospective employer. (Score:1)
Re:This is Hartford getting national attention?! (Score:1)
Re:no e-mail.. how? (Score:1)
Re:ssh? (Score:1)
Java Telnet Clients (Score:1)
And maybe even play ttyquake as well.
Re:Where in NYC? (Score:1)
!Fast food (Score:4)
What if people would love this feature so much that they will keep surfing more then 15 mins? How they are gonna to enforce the limits? Fast food places are making their money on FAST rotation of people -- got your food, eat it and go away. This is not cafe where you can sit, drink coffee and enjoy your Quake session. It is not gonna work for the fast food chains.
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
No email No porn (Score:1)
- I think they're going to have a hell of a time trying to enforce the no porn rule. Filtering software is all far from perfect... Although at least they won't have the same 1st amendment problems as libraries do. "Our software doesn't let you look at the N.O.W. homepage? Well, tough."
It CAN be done (Score:2)
Second, a touch screen seems to be the perfect method for accessing a web-only device. Doesn't seem to be too difficult for an employee to use some glass cleaner (or whatever) every 30-60 minutes to keep those nasty germs away.
I saw a mention of "french fry grease." The greases and oils used in fast food tend to gum up things like keyboards, but point of sale technology has been around since the 1970's... it doesn't appear to be a problem with the majority of the fast food places you see around town.
I don't think I'd use it (I'd hate to be standing in a "line" behind a bunch of kids ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the technology). But... there ARE cyber-cafes right now. Why not cyber fast food?
--
Re:BK on the Internet bandwagon (Score:1)
It is sometimes necessary to speak.
Re:No email No porn (Score:1)
You may be pleasently surprised. Traditionally filtering software filter *out* bad sites. However, it's getting more common unfortunately for filtering software to filter *in* good sites that it allows you to view. I.e. the server will have a list of only 3000 sites that are considered appropriate. That way if you try to see www.santaclause.com which is a nice children's list, if it hasn't been added to the list yet, you're stuck. Same with slashdot.org. This type of filtering *does* catch every bad site. However, surfing the web with only access to amazon.com, travelocity.com, and microsoft.com doesn't tend to be the most fulfilling experience. Let's hope Burger King doesn't use *that* type of filtering. But perhaps they will, because then they can get companies to *pay* them to add their site. Woo-hoo!
Re:Advertising (Score:2)
You are right, it won't be free. It'll cost $20 an hour, but comes with a free meal :-)
Humor aside, you will be right. Advertising is everything. Portal sites are popular these days and Burger King wouldn't miss a chance to get a few extra dollars by advertising to all those people that buy a value-meal. I know that if I got 15 few minutes, I'd use it. OK, not in the way that Burger King expected, but that's beside the point. Most people will use the internet terminals and that means guarenteed viewing for advertisers.Re:no e-mail.. how? (Score:2)
Or if they allow telnet you can just logon to your shell account and use Pine :-)
My understanding is that they will only have a client for http. Therefore, no e-mail, no telnet, no IRC. What they mean be no e-mail, I would assume, is that they will have no POP3 or SMTP client, therefore no e-mail. Probably if you had web-based e-mail, that would not be restricted by the proxy. But then again they may block things like SSL and user authentication.
They already said that they would be censoring access. However, it is not said whether they were filtering bad sites out, or good sites in. If they were filtering good sites in, meaning that the proxy server has a list of the sites you can view, instead of a list of sites that you can't view, it makes it more probable that they wouldn't let you get any sort of e-mail.
Fast Food, Fast Bits (Score:2)
How many times did you use the Net for only 10-15 minutes?
Umm...all the time? I read Slashdot [slashdot.org] in ten-to-fifteen minute bursts all day long. I ordered tickets to Star Wars [moviefone.com] this morning in about five minutes. I bought a book [amazon.com] last week in less than three minutes.
Whether it will work within their business model remains to be seen. Might be fun to see them delve into some other aspects of the technology: how about a distributed processing net with a node in each store location? That cool effects shot in your favorite movie might have rendered using spare cycles on Burger King's network of office computers.
--j, who sees some amusing possibilities
Freemail clients can SMTP to your e-mail. (Score:1)
This is ideal for corporate con"slut"ants who move around a lot -- coming from someone who never thought he'd use a freemail system ("I've got three e-mail accounts already! What would I do with it?") this is a big change in attitude.
I do concur with the earlier poster who said the only useful thing to do in 15 minutes is check your e-mail.
Kids oohing? More like parents. (Score:1)
The parents are the ones making those "ooooh" sounds you're hearing!
Some more information... (Score:1)
--
Re: Some more information... (Score:1)
--
*sigh* I just lost a prospective employer. (Score:1)
Every once in a while, I fantasize about getting out of the computer business, so I can relive my youth as an amateur. Those fantasies included applying for a job at Burger King. You know, go "on strike" in an Atlas Shrugged kind of way. Now I see I'll have to do something else if I really want to get away from it all and not worry about competition clauses.
"What do you mean, my new program is property of Burger King just because I wrote it while I was an employee? D'oh! That does it, I'm quitting and going to Wendy's!"
The Point.... (Score:2)
Obviously, all of you here have access to the internet, one way or another, and i am assuming that most of you can use it pretty much whenever you like, and as much as you like. Afterall, we are nerds aren't we?
So perhaps the target market is people that don't have regular access to the internet? People with Hotmail accounts that they check whenever they get the chance?
I wonder how many whoppers i need to buy to download a copy of Redhat....
Re:BK.. (Score:1)
---
Three words: (Score:1)
NYC (Score:2)
Matt
Re:No e-mail? (Score:3)
If by some mirical we were given access to a telnet program I could log on to my server and check my mail there. This is idotic personally.
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Re:BK.. (Score:1)
if I posted 20 inane mostly off-topic one liners on just about EVERY
am I the only one who is sick seeing the "cannibals" tagline everywhere?
Re:B.Y.O. Hardware? (Score:1)
Sanitary reasons aside... (Score:1)
Is it just me? (Score:1)
Re:it could just be me, but... (Score:1)
Just think, you are a thousand miles from home, and you can pay $10 and get dinner and internet access.
Of course, it all depends on what they mean by "internet". I'll bet $10 that they don't allow telnet, ftp, or anything other than web access.
Re:BK on the Internet bandwagon (Score:1)
Example: there's a camera off of a hotel
looking over the beach in santa cruz. Check
it out: is the weather good for going to the beach?
Similarly, there's a camera which points at
HWY17 -- a two-lane each-direction highway over
a windy mountain pass connecting scruz and silicon valley. "How is the traffic going to be for the commute home?"
Re:No e-mail? (Score:1)
LIES! (Score:3)
HTTP://www.burgercam.com/pcard/3KDKEZ3BX6.htm
no Mickey-d's website either? (Score:1)
Re:Freemail clients can SMTP to your e-mail. (Score:1)
Re:no e-mail.. how? (Score:1)
Actually, if they're blocking port 110 you can't really telnet to it and use the POP commands. And not all of us are lucky enough to have ISPs who provide shell access through a telnet connection.
BK on the Internet bandwagon (Score:3)
Quoting the article:
"Also planned is a Webcam where Internet surfers can call up Hartford's Burger King Web site and see a live transmission of action in the restaurant."
A live transmission of all the "action"? What action?!?
I say we just file this one under clueless suits use nifty buzzwords and waste bandwidth...
Re:BK on the Internet bandwagon (Score:1)
bite whopper, open mouth, capture picture, set as background image for the other patrons to see.
or maybe spend your 15 mins on wendy's site?
or go to rotten.com, and find some nice pictures for everyone else whos eating their lunch to see.. hmm.. possibilites are endless.
possible caption for many disturbing pictures: "what your actually eating"
No Porn?!?! (Score:1)
champs elysees (Score:1)
Re:!Fast food (Score:1)
Re:Why in restaurants? (Score:2)
Re:It CAN be done (Score:2)
Re:!Fast food (Score:1)
Ooh! Ooh!
Seriously, I'd use it although 15 minutes is a bit short. Currently I have to make sure I have enough of my current novel left to get through a meal before I go to Burger King. Otherwise I need to stop at the bookstore first. This way I could read
Of course I would want porn availible too but that's just me being a sick little puppy.
I pulled the handle to flush... (Score:1)
Just imagine what kind of paper the printer would use:
"I'm out of toilet paper!"
"It's ok, just cat something to
/* Hoping the moderators tolerate my silliness */
Re:It CAN be done (Score:1)
i wasted 2 years working in bk (i only wish they had net access then
we had intel p133 driven lil compact pcs with nt4 that auto loaded the PoS (and the software was SOOOOO badly written it was REDICULOUS), and the screen on those things would get everything tossed on em.. more rare were things like fry grease and burger grease, but it happened. quite often those things would get nailed with an entire soda tho... and it was real easy to clean em too..just run a wet napkin over it, and woop (no glass cleaner tho, as someone suggested in an earlier post, thats bad
but eh, its probably a bad idea, but let THEM figure that out
tchort
Re:BK.. (Score:1)
I'd like to killfile him, since I think there's a lot of other good stuff at -1 due to ignorant moderators.
Re:Three words: (Score:1)
__________________________________________
Can We trust the future - Flesh99
it could just be me, but... (Score:1)
Re:Operating System of Choice (Score:1)
Re:Three words: (Score:1)
(insert crude joke about Burger King ingredients here)
--Pont, a very picky vegetarian.
Re:No e-mail? (Score:1)
Send my name, password, and mail server to these guys in the clear over the wire? no thanks.
Touching Public Terminals (Score:1)
What admin is gonna run this thing (Score:1)
run an ISP out of a burger king. Good lord..
I can just see the resume now. Fry Guy/Sys Admin
Heh..
Re:no e-mail.. how? (Score:1)
Hah ha ha ha
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Re:No Porn? Damn them! (Score:1)
Other Companies (Score:1)
~unyun~
Would you like fries with your net access? (Score:1)
*chuckles*
Well, that's one way for businessfolk unlucky enough to have a Web connection at work to get in a quickie-net-fix. And probably its main use.
I know I used to run to the library's public short-term (15 minute max) terminals when I worked at a non-web-enabled bank.
Is their food as fast as their Internet? (Score:1)
Equipment upkeep, constant spills and lame customers who will have something else to complain about besides the food - "my terminal just froze, let me speak to the manager".
There's no way this will ever fly. However, I would go for the idea of having an ethernet jack at every booth in any restaurant for laptops.. now that would rock...
Burger King (Score:1)
Re:Heh, this is funny... (Score:1)
Two things... (Score:1)
Second, this idea is just about as lame as BK's idea a few years ago to have your food served to you (like in a real restaurant).
They are two ideas that are counterproductive to fast food operations.
Re:voice re-cog in the bathroom? (Score:1)
Reminds me of the tech support wanderers at Internet Cafe's like Cybersmith; they love cleaning pewp.
Re:This is Hartford getting national attention?! (Score:1)
What ever happened to netpod? (Score:1)
any article in Linux Journal a few years back
discussing their pay/use internet terminals. I
checked out their system Summerville, MA and it
was pretty decent. Unix/X/Linux is well suited
to this application, because they are so customizable. X with the appropriate window manager can be dumbed down so the user doesn't get into trouble. Plus a custom look and feel can
more easily be accomplished, than with other systems.
I believe given a stable browser Linux would make
an excellent web term.
No e-mail? (Score:2)
-