Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media.

1. Food Truck Technology. Mashable has a post up about apps that food trucks and popups are using. The programs, most of which work on smart phones of tablets, include the popular Square, the low-cost system that attaches to an iPad and scans Visa cards, and the brand-new Tapviva, which lets customers order ahead of time. Mentioned in the piece are locals Rice Paper Scissors and the La Cocina kiosk at the Ferry Building. (In a semirelated story, the Wall Street Journal reports on the benefits of Twitter for restaurateurs.)

2. Healthy lattes. The coffee-focused Sprudge blog reports that on Tuesday, groups of Seattleites protested Starbucks

for stripping its partners of paid sick leave (you're not an “employee” at Starbucks,

you're a “partner,” and God help you should you get your language wrong). The only employees who still have theirs? The

corporate muckity-mucks, of course — and San Francisco workers. Thank

you, Healthy San Francisco.

In other coffee health news, coffee and tea drinkers apparently have lower levels of drug-resistant staph (MRSA) hiding in their nostrils. So next time you order your single-estate Rwandan, lean over the cup and take a huge sniff.