The 157-year-old Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, DC. will be the first among thousands to use receipt-printed newspapers as a means of delivering the latest news to its customers. The restaurant, a favorite of former Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Harding and Theodore Roosevelt, is the subject to an experimental printing news and advertising system called “The Latest News” initiated by PrintSignal Corporation. Basically customers will be handed a separate news receipt with the latest headlines on it from the Associated Press. “The Latest News,” as it is called, will bring the top of the current news, particularly events that broke during the customer’s meal.
The news updates will be channeled through the restaurant’s MICROS Systems software. MICROS’s servers will be updated every two minutes to bring the latest news from the Associated Press. If successful, PrintSignal will expand the service to more than 330,000 restaurants using MICROS’s Systems software across 50 countries. “This idea will marry the speed of the Internet with the power of paper. The news can be targeted to every host city in English or the country’s native language,” says Frank Mankiewicz, former NPR president and co-founder of Print Signal.
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