In the second instalment of Patently Absurd, we discover that the geniuses at IBM have figured out how to remember what type of bag shoppers want. Copied from email:

> > Wow, IBM has just been granted an exclusive patent for a card which
> > tells super market cashiers whether you'd prefer plastic or paper bags.
> >
> > "What is claimed is:
> >
> > 1. A method of determining a customer's packaging preference in a
> > conventional point-of-sale retail location, wherein the point-of-sale
> > retail location includes a person who performs the packaging of items
> > purchased in the point-of-sale retail location for the customer,
> > comprising the steps of: identifying the customer using a customer
> > identifier; and retrieving available container packaging preference
> > information for the purchased items using the customer identifier for
> > the identified customer. "
> >
> > http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,407,089.PN.&OS=PN/7,407,089&RS=PN/7,407,089
> >
> > What next? perhaps "A method to initiate person-to-person communication
> > via interfacing arm appendages"