Our prayers have been answered.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Pizza Hut, in collabration with Visa and Dublin-based tech consulting company Accenture, announced a whole new way to order pepperoni pies: using your car's center dash.
While on the commute home from work or while you're trapped in traffic, you will be able to order sausage and veggies with extra cheese (or whatever you prefer), wings, bread sticks and any other items from Pizza Hut, then use a version of Visa's Checkout system integrated into the car's dashboard to pay the tab.
The connected car will use Visa's online payment service in tandem with an in-car menu from Pizza Hut complete with item selections, and delivery and pickup options. Beacon technology will notify Pizza Hut staff when your car has rolled up so you can pick up the piping hot order. All of these technologies are managed by Accenture.
"By 2020 it is estimated that more than 250 million vehicles worldwide will include some form of embedded connectivity," Bill Gajda, senior vice president of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Visa Inc. said in a press release. "As the number of connected cars on the road increases, so does our ability to bring secure online commerce to consumers everywhere. We initially focused on a specific use case - ordering a meal on your way home - but we envision a world where consumers can seamlessly make many of their everyday purchases from the car."
Sadly, all this tasty technology is relegated to a concept car in Barcelona this week. Don't fret, though: Pizza Hut, Visa and Accenture are planning to roll out test cars equipped with their pizza-ordering power in Northern California over a three-month period starting in the spring.
However, Pizza Hut isn't the only pie slinger in town connected to the Internet of Things. Domino's allows you to order and then track the delivery using a Pebble or similar Android Wear smartwatch. Wearers will have to download a Domino's app and make their order using a Pizza Profile. Once the order is placed, you can then track it in real time from oven to doorstep.
Domino's also made some lofty talk about delivering orders by drone that will likely not happen, and Pizza Hut already offers pie ordering service on the Xbox.
Photo Credit: Spider-Man 2 | YouTube
