Starbucks is a lot like McDonald’s in that you trade quality for a consistent experience. That is, you’re not going to get great coffee at Starbucks, but you’re probably not going to get terrible coffee there either. Mediocrity for the masses.

One thing that isn’t mediocre about Starbucks is their queues — especially during the morning rush. I suspect that most Starbucks regulars go through the same ritual every morning. Get up, drive to Starbucks, see the queue streaming out the door, wait in the seemingly endless queue, get to the counter and explain in excruciating detail your custom drink order — the same damn order you give every single day. Of course, you have to repeat your order, because when you say “Venti, tipple, extra-foam latte,” the reply back is, “Would you like anything else with that short, no-whip mocha?” And to add insult to injury, you’re forced to shuffle to the back of the store where there is never enough room (in a scene straight out of a Tokyo subway) only to wait in yet another seemingly endless queue to pick up your drink.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to do was send your local Starbucks a SMS message, so that when you arrived your drink would be ready at the “regular’s counter?” No waiting to pay for your coffee either, since it’d be automagically deducted from your Starbucks Card account.

The SMS used to place your order could be generated via a form on Starbucks website. The form would generate an SMS that would encode your Starbucks Card number, your local store location and your drink order. Once the form was completed, a SMS message would be sent to your mobile that you’d save and forward back to Starbucks anytime you wanted your coffee.

Obviously, there are lots of ways you could improve this process flow, but regardless, the end result would be a lot less waiting around by Starbucks customers. Heck Starbucks could even do some cool promotions with the carriers who’d love for their customers to be sending more SMS messages.

Tom’s Hardware recently reviewed placing Skype calls through a WiFi-connected PocketPC PDA using a Bluetooth headset… I guess you’d call that mouthful of techno jargon cutting edge.

Skype offers a special client specifically designed for Microsoft’s PocketPC operating system. Most high-end PocketPC devices now integrate both WiFi and Bluetooth support, so theoretically one should be able to complete a Skype call via a PDA completely wireless (i.e., using WiFi to connect the PocketPC to the internet and a Bluetooth headset to connect the caller to the PDA). Indeed, Tom’s Hardware finds that this is the case.

Our Skype for Pocket PC operational trial revealed that a high-performing Pocket PC equipped with wireless functions can indeed be used as a device for Internet telephony. The voice quality obtainable is perfectly satisfactory for personal use, and the method offers the big advantage of the extremely low calling cost: frequent or long-distance callers will quickly notice the positive impact on their phone bills.

In a business environment, this solution is not yet mature, due to the limitations we described regarding voice quality for intercontinental calls, and the sometimes variable quality when calling fixed line and wireless numbers

The review also offers a lot of detail on how to set up your PDA to connect via WiFi and pairing the PDA with a Bluetooth headset.

Definitely a sign of telecommunications to come.

Update: 2005_03_22
Check out The techADDICTION Show #3 for an audio demo (part of their podcast) of Skype on a Pocket PC with a Bluetooth headset.