Nicole recently posted about fingerprint scanners used by school cafeterias to ensure that kids are eating healthy meals. Well, some graduate students have now used similar technology to make getting junk food easier. An engineering professor at the University of California San Diego started the "biometric soda machine" project and students in his department have since outfitted a regular snack machine with thumbprint and facial recognition, as well as a bar code scanner, CR80 News reported. The goal of the project, known as SodaVision, is an easy, debit-based system where people can walk up to the machine, be recognized, choose their snack and walk away. A visit to the SodaVision site also has examples of the machine's interface, which looks like a screen from Star Trek.

[Via Pure Pedantry]

There are many instances of non-food items being found in food, far more than the ones we have mentioned here, but did you know that there are dedicated task forces employed by restaurant chains to investigate claims?

When something unfortunate happens in the kitchen, restaurants don't want it to affect the customers' overall experience. If it does, they want to offer a settlement ASAP to show their good will and to keep the story out of the new, if at all possible. Usually employees can verify an incident, as can delivery records, etc. This option is often coupled with a non-disclosure agreement, which means that far fewer incidents make the papers than really happen.

Some of the stories make it into the papers regardless of what the restaurant tries to do and, not infrequently, they inspire copycats. The copycats attempt to plant things in their food and defraud the restaurants, so for every incident that is reported, the company's investigators are called in. Eyewitness testimony and scientific evidence can prove an incident to be fake, as it was in the case with the mouse "found" in soup at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. In these cases, no settlement is offered (though the offenders in this particular example bizarrely tried to get the restaurant to pay them to not admit they tried to defraud them) and the scammers end up serving time.

The incidents are unfortunate, but a finger in your food isn't a crime unless you planted it there. Otherwise, it's just bad PR.

A diner in Bloomington, Indiana found a finger alongside his hamburger when he dined at a local TGI Friday's. A member of the kitchen staff had cut off a portion of his finger and, in the confusion that arose when people rushed to help the man, the finger ended up on a plate. It was only a small piece of finger, but the diner noticed it immediately. The police were called, but told the customer that it was not a criminal matter.

A company spokesperson acknowledged that this was a serious incident, both for the employee and the diner, and said TGI Friday's was "very, very sorry."

 

Anna Ayala, the woman who changed the face of Wendy's by planting a severed fingertip in her chili last March, was recently sentenced to nine years in prison. Her husband, Jaime Plascencia was sentenced to 12 years.

For those not familiar with the details, Ayala caused a worldwide brouhaha when she produced a severed digit from a bowl of rich and meaty Wendy's chili. It was later determined that the finger came not from a Wendy's employee, but from a co-worker of Ayala's husband. If I recall correctly, the co-worker owed Plascencia some money and Plascencia, opportunist that he was, offered to settle the debt by accepting the man's finger, which was recently severed in a job-related incident.

Wendy's estimates that the stink has caused losses of $21 million worldwide and roughly $500,000 at the San Jose location where the incident occurred. At her sentencing, Ayala apologized and said that Wendy's is one of her family's favorite restaurants.