I've talked to a lot of folks who refuse to use grocery store cards based on the fact that stores use them to track certain pieces of personal information. IBM is looking to add one more vital pieces of info to your plastict: the customer's bagging preference.

The company was just granted a patent for storing customers' paper or plastic bagging preference on the cards. After scanned, an image of the preferred bag will show up on the checker's display.

Just so they have all of their bases covered, the patent apparently also covers sticking a picture of the bag type on the card.

According to the company, the patent relieves the customer of the "unnecessary inconvenience for both the customer and the cashier' that results when 'Paper or Plastic?" It certainly helps remove some of that dreaded human interaction that people hate so much.