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Google just launched Hotpot, a new service baked into Google Places that lets you rate restaurants, see which ones your friends are liking, and get recommendations of new places to check out. Let’s take a look.
The basic premises of going to a restaurant haven’t changed tremendously throughout history. You sit down. You order. It shows up. Maybe it’s good. But new, high-tech establishments around the world are putting an innovative spin on eating out.
Steve Jobs eats! Oh no wait, he doesn’t – at least, not at Flour + Water, which is the pizza joint du jour in San Francisco that couldn’t find him a table, causing him to walk out.
London has the Flash-based, Bluetooth-ordering Inamo restaurant. Germany, the waiter-less kitchen. Japan has ramen vending machines, and soon, New York’s midtown will play host to a restaurant with a 22sq m screen, displaying tweets and Foursquare check-ins.
The story may be funny, but this is no joke. Microsoft Taiwan, catapulting off the recent success of the Windows 7 burger, has opened a Windows 7-themed restaurant called Hot Fried 77.
