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..."

Comments

Oops, pardon me, my bad, excuse me, coming through

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

At the Kroger grocery store nearest to my home, when they opened, they had LCD panels attached to the grocery carts with a roughly 11" diagonal screen.

There were some sort of sensors on the top of the panel (IR maybe?) that would receive information from transmitters suspended from the ceiling in each aisle.

The carts would let you know which items were on sale in that aisle, could provide a map of the store or direct you to specific items that you were searching for.

The big problem was that everyone who brought their kids shopping let their kids push the carts so they could play with the displays, and the kids wouldn't watch where they were going (some of the adults didn't, either!) and so they would constantly be running into each other, knocking into displays in the aisles, etc.

After about 3 months, they gave up and removed all the displays from the carts and I've been able to shop safely without worrying about someone ramming a cart into my achilles tendons every few minutes...

I personally don't miss them and I'm glad to see them gone.

Re:Practical use!!!

[program21]

I used to work at a supermarket where it was all too easy to get away with something like that.
There were coupons codes (4 digit, the bar code was 00000 0xxxx) for things like a BOGO shrimp ($12.99), free 1st birthday cake ($18), and so on. Plus there were lots of little ones, nothing as significant as that though, but they were sequential. One could make a night out of trying groups of codes, and in fact a few of us did.
The funny part was that the system never checked to see if you actually had bought (rather, were buying) the item that the coupon was good for, and would take off the amount anyway.

After I left, the store replaced it's backend system as part of a routine upgrade, and there were stricter controls over that, and also ways to be alerted when something odd was going on, so while it worked then, it's much harder to get away with now, at least for employees. I'm sure that any of us, as customers, could work something like that at another store where the cashiers have no idea.

For those who don't know, BOGO = Buy One Get One, as in by one, get one free.

Robot Cashiers...

[ronfar]

Yesterday, I had an unsettling experience. I was in Kash and Karry shopping, buying eggnog etc. (Only a few noggy weeks before the government takes it away again.) Finally, I got to the Kash register, only to note that even though the sign said it was open, there was nobody there. I figured out that it was a robot cashier. I took my eggnog, and ran it past the scanner. A cheery female voice anounced the price, and told me to put the item on the belt, which had started moving. I did the same thing with the rest of my purchases. The I pushed the red box on the touchscreen, selected cash and put my $20.00 in the slot. The machine, then cheerily dispensed my change "Don't forget to look below the scanner for bills." I bagged up my groceries and went on my merry way without having to speak to another living soul.

Now, I'm not sure why this was unsettling. Maybe because I used to do cashier work, or maybe because the store was so deserted at the time I went. I'm sure I'll get used to it in time. I guess I've experienced my very first taste of "Future Shock." (Which in itself was unsettling for someone who would normally identify themselves as belonging to the Paranoia Pro-Tech secret society.)