interesting

Since the dawn of history, mankind has been plagued by anunnecessary burden whilst grocery shopping at their neighborhoodsupermarket: telling the cashier whether they prefer a paper orplastic bag.
Precious moments are squandered. Moments better spent reading thecollected works of Spinoza, curing cancer, building shelters forthe homeless, or leveling Night Elf druids in World of Warcraft.
IBM may have discovered a solution to this most grievous ofconditions with a US patent approved only yesterday. Let bells ringand the annals of history show that August 5, 2008 was a great dayindeed.
Patent 7,407,089 (
available here
) is a method and system for identifying a customer and displayingwhether they like paper or plastic bags without the need foruncomfortable questioning.
From the patent's description:
"However, at conventional retail locations, the customer is likelyto be asked for their packaging preference each time the customerpasses through a cashier station, resulting in unnecessaryinconvenience for both the customer and the cashier.
What is needed is a more flexible system and method for determiningpackaging preference that overcomes some of these limitations. "
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