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Japan develops smartphone App for real-time restaurant booking

Xinhua, October 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

A Japanese internet company has developed a new feature for smartphone App, by which users can search real-time information of vacant seats in restraurants on a map and make booking immediately.

Yahoo Japan Corporation, a Japanese internet company formed as a joint venture between the U.S. internet company Yahoo and the Japanese internet company SoftBank, developed the Kuseki (empty seats) radar feature for Yahoo Yoyaku Inshokuten (Yahoo reservation at eateries) App, which helps score a last-minute restaurant reservation, reported The Asahi Shimbun on Monday.

With the Kuseki radar feature, the restaurants send real-time information on whether they have empty seating or are at capacity during their operating hours. Those with a free table are shown on the map.

When a user makes a reservation through the App, the App's system makes a call to the restaurant. The restaurant is notified of the user's name and the number of diners by an automated phone call.

When the restaurant staff member who took the call presses OK for the reservation request, the user is notified on his or her smartphone that the reservation has been made. The entire process takes 90 seconds to five minutes, according to Yahoo Japan.

About 3,000 eateries, mainly in Tokyo, have currently been linked into the system since the radar feature was launched on Sept. 29. Yahoo Japan plans to further expand this number in the future. Endit