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High Tech Shopping Carts Offer Discounts, Ads
An anonymous reader writes "'Imagine walking down a supermarket aisle and hearing a chime as you pass the peanut butter letting you know it's on sale. Or picture reading the local five-day weather forecast, checking the Dow Jones industrial average and finding a new chicken and rice recipe, all from your shopping basket. Souped up with a computer attachment, your shopping cart could become a know-it-all that gives you special discounts based on what you buy or provides news and information as you sail through grocery aisles.' Full story here, and the Cart manufacturer's site here. I might just have to warshop in Moraga today..."
How about a built in scanner so you can see how much something costs or keep track of how much you are spending?
One of the supermarkets in the UK does something like this. Sainsbury's, I think. Even better, they trust you. You carry a barcode scanner with you (there's a holder for it on the trolley), and scan all the stuff you put in your trolley. It keeps a running total on it's screen, and at the check out you just hand over the reader. You need to be a member of their loyalty card scheme, and you do get random manual checks every so often, but it seems like a great queue saver.
Here in Phoenix AZ at least this is in full effect at the local Costcos and Price Clubs (mass warehouse food, and various products companies).
I can go inside. Insert my membership card into a display case and remove a portable electronic scanner to scan my own items. It gives me the last item's price and a total including tax. I can add and remove items easily. Once I'm done I return the scanner to the case and it prints a ticket with the total and a barcode. I go through an express checkout where my cart is weighed and ticket scanned. If the cart's weight is off they take the time to check the items. Otherwise I pay and go.
Not to mention the local markets also have lanes where I can walk up to a scan station and scan everything myself. This allows one employee to monitor 4 scanning stations(that sit in the same space as 2) and allows me to not have my bread sitting under my milk.
The only harm one could possibly see is that it reduces jobs.
While I was studying in Germany ('99-'00) the local supermarket had shopping carts like this, with and LCD display at the front of the cart with an IR sensor on top... when you passed under hanging IR transmitters it would beep and tell you specials for what aisle you were in. Seemed a perfectly reasonable and simple solution..
LCDs weren't too fond of cold and wet weather, but since the carts were kept under cover in the parking lot, and since you had to put in a DM1,0 deposit in it (like the quarter keeper at american Aldi groceries) there was also little cart loss/misplacement.
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
In 1992/1993 I used to regularly shop at a grocery store that had an LCD screen near the handle of the shopping cart. As you'd walk around different parts of the store, the screen would flash information about what was near your location. Plus, it was interactive, you could use it to locate what isle things were on, and see some recipes and other information too.
It was all fed by what I believe were infrared "nodes" mounted on the roof of the store every few feet. In playing with the cart, as you walked into the area covered by a specific node, the screen would flash something that was usually within about 2 to 4 feet of where you were standing, and looking up you'd see the node almost directly above you.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
I remember a Vons Pavillions in Orange county having a b&w LCD screen on it that told you where you were, what was on sale, and where to find what you were looking for back in like, 1995.
I only ever saw it at the one store, but I always thought it was really neat. Sort of spooky.
As far as privacy goes, it's not like there's anything personally identifying your path through the store with *you*, and even if there was, they already know everything you buy with your "club card" anyway. Just give them fake contact info when you sign up and it's all good.