fast food

When it comes to advertising on mobile devices, bigger screens don't necessary equate to more clicks.

Although the Amazon Kindle Fire's popularity may be dipping, a mobile advertising company says that users of the 7-inch tablet click on more ads than do those who use the 9.7-inch Apple iPad.

Jumptap, a company that focuses on targeted mobile advertising, released a report today containing data related to mobile devices, fast food ads, and the Kentucky Derby.

While the Kindle Fire may have the highest percentage of actual clicks on advertisements for the first quarter of this year -- … Read more

On February 10, "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace" will come back to theaters, this time in 3D. That means we can expect to see Star Wars tie-ins squeezed out worldwide.

With that in mind, if you're in Europe and you're near a Quick restaurant, you might want to swing by and try one of the trio of Star Wars-themed burgers. There's the Jedi Burger, which looks relatively benevolent; the Dark Burger, the bun of which has poppy seeds, a sure sign of evil if I ever saw one; and the Dark Vador Burger. Dark Vador is what Darth Vader is called in French (man, they have a word for everything, don't they?), but that's probably not what draws your attention so much as the OMG WHAT IS--

--the black bun.… Read more

"Welcome to McDonald's. My name is HAL 9000. May I take your order?"

McDonalds recently went on a hiring binge in the U.S., adding 62,000 employees to its roster. The hiring picture doesn't look quite so rosy for Europe, where the fast food chain is drafting 7,000 touch-screen kiosks to handle cashiering duties.

The move is designed to boost efficiency and make ordering more convenient for customers. In an interview with the Financial Times, McDonald's Europe President Steve Easterbrook notes that the new system will also open up a goldmine of data. McDonald's could potentially track every Big Mac, McNugget, and large shake you order. A calorie account tally at the end of the year could be a real shocker.

The touch screens will only accept debit or credit cards, adding to the slow death knell of cash and coins. This all goes along with an overall revamp of McDonald's restaurants worldwide aimed at projecting a modern image as opposed to the old-fashioned golden arches with a slightly creepy (to my taste anyway) clown guy hanging around the french fries.

This puts McDonald's one step closer to opening up its first Alphaville location. At least our new computer overlords will be nice enough to serve us a Filet-o-Fish. Maybe they'll even throw in an iPad with the Happy Meal one of these days.… Read more

McDonald's has disclosed that one of its customer databases was hacked but insists that no financial information was stolen in the breach.

The fast food chain reported yesterday that the hacker was able to grab e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, and other customer information of people who signed up online for special promotions. In a statement e-mailed to CNET, the company said that no credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, or other sensitive financial data were compromised.

McDonald's said it was informed of the breach by one of its business partners, Arc Worldwide, which had collected … Read more

Sky Burger is a casual burger-building arcade game with endearing visuals, surprisingly fun controls, but fairly repetitive gameplay.

Your job is to build burgers to order, one at at time, by positioning a bottom bun (and a teetering, ever-growing tower of ingredients) under a steady, random cascade of pickles, patties, tomatoes, onions, and the like. Burger ingredients fall from the top of the screen, and you can get your proto-burger under them by using either touch or tilt controls: touching and dragging the bun, or tilting left and right. Both have their advantages (tilt keeps your fingers from ever obscuring … Read more

A group of scientists with funding from the Department of Energy has presented a new type of roof coating that would allow all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of black and white roofs combined.

It's long been agreed that a white roof, because it naturally reflects sunlight, reduces the amount of heat a building absorbs in extremely hot and sunny situations, thus, contributing to keeping the building cool (think Greece). Some have even gone as far as to propose white "green" roofs as a geoengineering idea for reducing global warming because they may both reduce air conditioning use and reflect more sunlight … Read more

No matter where you go when you hit the road, chances are your road trip is going to include road food. Since road food by definition means eating food out of the ordinary, it can be a bit difficult to guess how much to order. Your control panel may have a gas gauge, but you don't. The result can be a collection of dashboard sandwiches, some more tasty than others. Experience has taught me that an In-N-Out burger, while delicious in fresh form, doesn't hold up quite as well 80 miles down the road. (However, many breakfast sandwiches … Read more

Short of visiting every drive-in and independent fast-food joint within a 50-mile radius of your house, I am not quite sure how you could amass a collection of those iconic food-serving baskets. Sure you could order from a restaurant supply store, but do you really need a case of baskets? Probably not. It might be in your best interest to forgo the swiping of restaurant-related accessories, and just pick up your own small batch of Burger Baskets & Liners via Sur La Table.

Now that we are officially in the grilling season, we are all going to spend more time … Read more

In its trial by social media, Domino's Pizza seems to already have been found guilty.

Two employees of the Domino's in Conover, N.C., made a video which featured one of them putting cheese up his nostrils (and then putting it on a sandwich) and passing a salami around his wind-passing backside (and then putting it on a sandwich).

The employees, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer, have been fired and charged with delivering prohibited goods.

Yet this is not the first time employees of fast-food outlets have used YouTube as an emotional outlet from their rewarding work.

Last … Read more