NPR for Northern Colorado

Will The Machine Ask If We Want Fries With That?

In Paris, the Arc de Triomphe looms over one McDonald's.

Saying that it thinks the move might make its fast-food restaurants just a little bit ... well, faster ... McDonald's is going to put touch-screen terminals in some of its 7,000 restaurants in Europe, The Financial Times reports.

And, it is increasing the use of debit cards in the region — meaning customers might not have to dig through the seats of their Fiats for change.

All told, the FTsays, the president of McDonald's Europe thinks the changes would make "average transactions three to four seconds shorter for each customer."

Hold on. Three to four seconds?

That doesn't seem like much.

So, we wonder:

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.