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Diners could soon be able to order pizza simply by thinking about it with new high tech menus.
The tablet menus, which are being introduced in refurbished Pizza Hut restaurants across the UK, use an app which tracks the eyes of the reader, to predict the food they most want to eat.
Designed by Tobii Technology, the app features images of 20 ingredients, like peppers, chorizo, cheese, etc, most commonly used in pizzas. In just 2.5 seconds, the app works out which ingredients your eyes have been looking at the longest and then uses an algorithm to identify your perfect pizza.
Gerry Larkins, Manager of Pizza Hut Jersey Waterfront, said: “We haven’t got this sort of technology yet as at the moment the tablets are only in Generation Three outlets. It’s in the pipeline, although it will be a bit of time before we get them.
“It’s all about moving with the times and I think they could be very popular.”
Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, USA by Dan and Frank Carney. The brothers borrowed $600 from their mother to open a pizza outlet, which they named Pizza Hut because the building looked like a hut.
The pizza chain came to London in 1973 and it now has over 700 restaurants and delivery outlets across the UK.
According to Pizza Hut, tests on the Subconscious Menu have been incredibly positive with 98% of people, liking the pizza the app has recommended for them. And for those who don’t like it, they can simply start the process again by glancing at the re-start button.
Dr Simon Moore, a chartered consumer psychologist said: "We have quite an extensive subconscious relationship with our food and it’s certainly the case psychologically that 'we eat with our eyes'. Quick brain responses are probably hardwired to our evolutionary survival reflex. We are automatically drawn to foods that give us more nutrition– it is a safety mechanism we’ve inherited from primitive man that still plays a role in our subconscious decision making, even when we might be choosing pizza."
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