Pizza Hut Introduces Hands-Free Ordering for Drivers

Pizza Hut wants to turn your car into a high-tech food ordering device. According to Nation's Restaurant News, the chain teamed up with credit card company Visa and tech consulting film Accenture to developed a "connected car." The technology — which debuted at the Mobile World Congress last week — allows customers to order dinner while they are driving.

The future is here.

Business Insider writes that the system comes equipped with Interactive Voice Control which lets customers place orders hands-free. No one wants to run off the road while trying to pick out a pepperoni pie. It also features Visa Checkout —the company's mobile payment service — which allows customers to pay with a "just a few clicks, integrated into the dash of a connected car." The system also includes beacon tracking capabilities which alert employees when a customer arrives at a Pizza Hut location.

Pizza Hut's chief digital officer Baron Concors tells NRN that the company is "committed to offering speed and convenience to our customers when ordering online, and this new connected car technology is the latest way for us to do that." The chain plans to conduct a three month test of the "connected car" system in Northern California in this spring. There is no word on when it will be rolled out nationally.

Besides the "connected car," Pizza Hut has been exploring and experimenting with other technologies. In December the chain revealed that its UK locations are testing eye-tracking software" on their tablet menus, which claim to "accurately predict what the diner wants to order." Allegedly the technology can guess which pizza toppings a customer's subconscious desires the most. Placing an order over the phone never sounded so 2010.