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.