Junk Food Nation, it’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. As we head into the weekend, I want to discuss this topic with you that I saw in the recent Washington Post: Apparently, “Pizza Hut, Visa and Accenture are teaming up to test a system that lets you order and pay for your pie from your car…” WHAT THE.

The three companies are working together to test this “car commerce experience” in Northern California this spring. The concept car “is expected to feature Visa Checkout, Visa’s online payment service, cellular connectivity, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), as well as Beacon technology deployed at Pizza Hut restaurants to alert staff when the customer has arrived and is ready to pick up the order.”

Here’s a concept mockup of the system:

HHMMMM DO I WANNA LISTEN TO KINGS OF LEON OR ORDER A MEAT LOVERS PIE?? DECISIONS, DECISIONS.

More talking points: the company is thinking of “busy, on-the-go consumers” and “Visa Checkout, the online payment service that lets consumers make purchases with just a few clicks, [is] integrated into the dash of a connected car, will allow consumers to easily order food from the car. Interactive Voice Control (IVR) will be used to enable consumers to easily and securely make in-car purchases. IVR enables the driver to order and authenticate the purchase while keeping both hands on the steering wheel and maintaining focus on the road.” The goal is to make food purchases “more convenient for consumers, setting the bar even higher in terms of friction-less payment transactions.”

FRICTION-LESS PAYMENT TRANSACTIONS. Don’t you love the corporate speak? They mean you won’t have to interact with that pimple face kid at the register trying to look up your order on a piece of paper covered in wax crayon scrawls, ever again.

So, how do you feel about this? I’m not sure…in places like San Fran and LA, where commutes are often 2-3 hours to go 45 miles, I can see why this would be convenient…but how much different is it than calling with your cellphone when you’re moving at 2 miles an hour? Then again, I’m all for the future…I’ve opted to use Peyton Manning’s I mean Papa John’s online pizza ordering system over calling them many many times.

But do I need it in my car? While it can be voice controlled, I’m skiddish about giving drivers another distraction. While I’m pretty whatever about people being able to do whatever the heck they want when it comes to food (Go ahead, eat three pints of ice cream, see if I care!) I am pretty DAMN OPINIONATED when it comes to distracted driving. PUT DOWN YOUR CELLPHONE, ASS. YOU ALMOST T-BONED ME. “I’m sorry officer, I wasn’t paying attention BECAUSE I NEEDZ MY CHEEZYBREADSSSS.”

So, what do you think of this, JFNation? Innovative development, or needless driving distraction? And, if you’re for it, what other places BESIDES Pizza Hut would you want linked to this system? Let me know in the comments below.

Today’s junk food: New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy!!

We talked about these New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! back on the Nosh Show a month or so back, and I *think* I was a Nosh? I’m usually a soft Chips Ahoy! fan, and these are crunchy, but these intrigued me more than the Choco Chunky. So, into my cart they went!

It’s actually kind of surprising to me that, with coconut milk and water and flavor everywhere, Chips Ahoy is only getting on board now. New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! is the first, huh? Weird. Obviously intriguing are the large white chunks, which I presume to be some kind of coconut flavored confection.

Thanks for the suggestion, New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! Although that really is just a picture of a random bowl of ice cream with a big ass cookie sticking out of it. Not too much of a stretch.

New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! have 80 cal per cookie…

…and contain dried coconut and apparently NO coconut oil. Interesting.

When I opened up this package of New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! I could immediately smell…..BUTTER. These smelled nice and buttery, like the tins of butter cookies your grandma has during the holidays. Buttery buttery goodness – I could go on sniffing these for hours.

Each cookie was sort of thick, thicker than I imagined. I guess I’m more used to the thinner chewy Chips Ahoy!

In addition to the buttery smell, New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy! also had a distinct coconut smell. It was unmistakeable – like I was smelling a package of Girl Scout Samoa Cookies. Sweet and coconut-y. It also reminded me of the refined coconut smell I got when I sniffed the Talenti Caribbean Coconut gelato – just a clean coconut smell. It makes me even more surprised there was no coconut oil in these cookies.

I munched on a few of these New Coconut Chunky Chips Ahoy!, and I must say, these are VERY VERY TASTY. There’s nothing mindblowingly new with these – just a well executed, clean flavor.

The cookies themselves are nice and sweet and buttery, and the crunchy dough plays perfectly into this flavor…it definitely reminded me of those sweet butter cookies. The chocolate chips added their obvious cocoa sweetness, but I was most surprised by the white chunks. Nibbling them alone, they were NOT the source of coconut flavor; they weren’t, as I thought, some sort of sugary coconut confection. They were just plain ol milky creamy sweet confection chips.

No, the coconut flavor came from the tiny tiny bits of coconut embedded into every bite. Unlike Samoas, where you can essentially see the bits of coconut waxed over by the caramel, these coconut was part of the dough itself, making it impossible to avoid the distinct yet restrained coconut flavor. These were nicely balanced – the coconut didn’t hit you over the head, but was noticeable enough to taste it with the chocolate. Honestly, I thought the balance of cookie, coconut, and chocolate was perfect – no one ingredient overwhelmed the other.

In that way, these were WAY DIFFERENT than Samoas – there wasn’t any caramel flavor, first of all, and no feeling of waxy chocolate everywhere. These were just a solid, well balanced coconut cookie. I think these would satisfy people looking for a little, not a lot, of coconut.

REALLY good, Chips Ahoy! I approve.

Have a good weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

PURCHASED AT: Giant

COST: $2.99 on sale

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy