Pervasive computing puts food on the table

Why would a restaurant owner replace 50c paper order pads with a wireless network, palmtop PDAs, touch screen terminals, and back-office servers? The author talks to Alex Malison, chief executive officer of Action Systems Incorporated, who has deployed such a system to operating restaurants, and to owners and food servers, who actually use it on the restaurant floor. The management functions for monitoring sales and open checks in real time, which allows quick verification of order fulfillment.