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Fastest stopwatch in the world - Friday, 27 February 2004 Imagine a stopwatch that can measure a millionth of a millionth of a millionth, of a second (Image: Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) A new ultrafast stopwatch can now measure the speed of atomic processes down to the smallest fraction of a second yet. Austro-Hungarian physicist Professor Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics near Munich, Germany and colleagues report their research in this week's issue of the journal Nature. Krausz describes the device as "the fastest stopwatch in the world", capable of measuring the...

HURRY UP AND EAT! As the $143 billion restaurant industry comes off its slowest year in a decade, it has a new item on the menu: shooing you out the door. To the dismay of diners who like to sit back and savor the cappuccino, high-end restaurants are turning to high-tech gadgets, efficiency experts and software to help cram as many customers into — and as much money out of — every single seating. The tactics go way beyond the usual glaring maitre d’. From reservation systems that automate a manager’s best guess of how long people will linger to...