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Shopping Carts Go Wi-Fi
agentk writes "The Boston Globe reports today that area supermarket Stop & Shop is adding computers with Bluetooth barcode scanners, 802.11 networking and infrared positional sensors to shopping carts in one of its stores. 'The Shopping Buddy automatically displays which aisle you're in, what's on sale there, and what you bought the last time you strolled through.' Most Stop & Shop stores already have automated self-checkout lanes. Is this the future of shopping? What will the impact be on privacy, the cash economy, and the experience of shopping in general?"
That was WebVan, basically. Apparently not enough of you were satisfied then, either.
Is when they start dynamically altering prices second to second based on your past purchases, and those of other consumers recently. I wouldn't be surprised if laws are passed saying stores aren't allowed to customize prices.
*equips tin-foil hat*
Bring Your Own Cart.
Sure, it will impact privacy. But is it really that important that some corporate big-wig knows what type of olive oil you purchase? Some chains employ "member cards" (Kroger Card, etc.)--we are members, and we still don't have a SWAT team knocking on our door because we bought twelve cans of Sprite, and not Pepsi.
Did you see what the unions had to say about this technology? I'm sick and tired of the whining that 'It'll take away jobs.' I know I'd go to a store that has such a useful technology. I hate waiting in a checkout line so a union checker can check me out. I want to scan my items as I shop so I can leave quickly. Sure, self-checkout is ok, but this is even better.
Shoppers could steal the Shopping Buddies, but there wouldn't be much point. The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else.
We've heard that before... given a few weeks I'm sure some pimply 16 year old in the netherlands could have a linux kernel on it, using Mozilla to surf the web wirelessly.
What will the impact be on privacy, the cash economy, and the experience of shopping in general?
If you bring a big canvas bag to throw your stuff in, probably nothing for you.
Works nice, except the bagger who mashes your bread is now driving a 5-ton delivery truck and will now treat the trees near your driveway the same way he used to treat your bread.
...Bluetooth isn't dead after all.
Does anyone else agree? Thanks to amazon.com and stop & shop, I can now make all of my purchases without talking to another human being ... That seems significant, somehow, although I'm not exactly sure what it means ...
If you thought that the radio waves bombarding you were bad NOW, wait until you eat an apple and are bombarded from the INSIDE!
Better get a tinfoil stomach liner.
I went down to one in vegas, and even though they had a blue shirt patrolling every other isle it gets boring asking them were every little thing is. The store is way to big to just LOOK for what you want. I was figuring interactive "you are here" maps in terminals on the pillars where the phones are. Nothing difficult about that at all. In fact the more I think of it they should really test the waters with kiosk type maps before pumping money into "smartcarts", if those things arn't perfect in implementation people will get no use from them at all.
I really don't see a big value (to me) in a lot of high-tech on my cart, though. I think this benefits the store more than it benefits me. I don't want extra "point of purchase" ads as I stroll the grocery store. The coupon dispensers are annoying enough.
Another thing, I don't know if I would want to be reminded what I bought the last time I passed this section of the aisle. Rarely am I shopping for the same thing two weeks in a row or even two months in a row. Do I really want it to beep every time I pass an item I have purchased once?
Finally, please note that they have issued a challenge to you Linux folk: "The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else." Wanna bet?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I predict that after America nationalizes medical care, the epidemic of obesity will cause government regulation of dietary intake. Each citizen will be given a body scan and will be given specially-blended pellets of federal monkey chow, eliminating the need for super markets and shopping carts altogether.
But is it mandatory? You can either use the tech or not. Therefore it isn't an invasion of any privacy.
would that be the creator's increasingly popular planet/population rescue initiative (formerly unknown as the oil for babies program), which coincides perfectly (we do not use that word lightly) with the onset of the gnu millennium? of course it would.
secure? why this stuff is unbreakable, & works on several (more than 3) dimensions.
the daze of the phonIE payper liesense corepirate nazi stock markup fraud execrable is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the speed of right. not much secure IT to be had with those fauxking foulcurrs.
the pateNTdead eyecon0meter kode has been used extensibly, in helping to eXPose many of the ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys fallicIEs surrounding the efforts of the felonious billyonerrors softwar gangsters' to mask their greed/fear/ego based misdeeds, & ongoing frauduleNT behaviours.
still much to be done. see you there.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator regarding decisions of the heart/mind/wallet. that's the spirit, moving you.
for each of the creator's innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the aforementioned perpetraitors of the life0cide against the planet/population, will not be available to make reparations.
get ready to see the light. there's no going back, & no where to hide.
I do not like more automated shopping experiences.
I do not like the self-checkout aisles, which cannot deal with even trivial deviations from what they expect (You want to buy a single, unmarked apple? Sound the klaxon! We have a troublemaker in self-checkout lane 2!). I do not like always paying with a credit card, or needing to carry a stack of $20's to go shopping (for a $0.50 candy bar? Pah!).
So, call me a Luddite, but I will not use these new carts. If I need to bring my own handbasket to avoid using them, I will. I will do my best to shut off every device I pass that blinks or beeps at me and then spits out a coupon (roughly a 90% success rate so far, they always make it too easy to remove the batteries). I will gather my groceries, and proceed to a human cashier to pay for my purchases. In the event that the store has no human cashiers on a register, I will simply leave my basked of frozen food on an unattended register, and leave.
>Is this the future of shopping?
No, it is not the *future* of shopping. That kind of thing has been used (at least here in southern Finland) for many years now.
How will this affect society in a post 9-11 world? What are the implications?
If I look out my window I can see a pyramid of shopping carts 4x5x3 (assembled in a crazy patton to connect the security chains and get the £1 deposit back) collected by my fellow students from under the nose of supermarket security people.
Now, imagine if said trolles were a cheap source of WiFi parts as well, ideal for putting in your own projects...
Just need some tin foil to stop them being locatable, and somewhere good to stash the carts after you have removed the WiFi kit - such as the center of your student halls of residence.
Beep beep.
...this technology isn't what we would call cheap and obviously customers are paying for it through increased prices on their products.
Yes, it sounds geeky and cool, but I don't think its really useful. I prefer to save the money or spend it in buying more stuff.
there is nothing different about shopping with this new system then shopping without it. they already can see what you buy (unless you decide not to use the checkout and make a run for it, actually then they'd definatly know what it was you took) , and as for tracking around the store, ever hear of CCTV?
dybia felly dwi a hampster (i think therefore i am a hampster)
Log onto the wireless network and search the web for competitors' prices?
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
"The more we avoid other people, the less likely it is that we will be moderate in our opinions or tolerant of others' annoyances. Ever notice that the crazy ones are the "loners" who "keep to themselves"? Imagine a world of nothing but loners! Can't be good."
Welcome to Slashdot. I'll be your loner this evening. Would you like an argument with that?
This was tried in the late 80s. A chain on long island (Pathmark) installed a grayscale LCD screen on every cart. It communicated wirelessly as well. You could see a store map, your location on the map, search for an item's location, and see aisle specials of the week.
Didn't last more than a few months. I'm guessing it didn't benefit frequent shoppers too much. Maybe it'll work better today.
About 10 years ago, a brand new Schnucks (local grocery store to St. Louis Area) installed something similar on its carts. However, it was basically just a portable ad monitor. It was a BW LCD touch-screen that popped up new specials when you moved to particular locations. It sensed your position from overhead sensors, I'm not sure if they were IR or what, but long story short, they didn't stick around for very long. Maybe this system will have more success because of the automated checkout feature, but I really doubt it.
My experience with self-checkout has been that I'm not nearly as fast as the checker that's been there for years and knows the price codes for all my fruit by heart. I tried to do it a couple of times and because the system has to be designed so that a 5 year old can use it, it seems to take twice as long as it would had if I was a super-user.
it's usually a #%#@ to find what you want in one of those giant outlet stores. this should make the shopping experience a bit more user friendly.
however, i can see advertising agencies taking advantage of this.. ie. minority report
don't click here
or he will cut off your allowance, quick take my sisters bike and get home before he comes looking
Is this before or after you pay for the items? Isn't it true that, one you pay for the items, they are unable to search them?
Just like at China-Mart, If you walk thru the sensormatic and it goes off, you do not have to stop. If you do stop, and they ask to check your bags all you have to do is say no and they will let you go.
Wi-Fi enabled shopping cards found in local pond. Wildlife and waterfoul go high-tech.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I think you BSD people need to get outside more often. She's certainly not ugly, but she's had about 10,000 too many pictures of her.
Those 2 "babettes" on the other hand....hmm...babettes....funny, they're the only ones who look legal to drive.
Where will all those put out of work by such systems work? How will they earn a living?
/. thinks about this.
I am currious what everyone on
NOT! This was tried over ten years ago by an outfit in Chicago called Videocart. It was a spectacular failure. Well, I guess we'll see if anyone learned anything since then.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
8===D~~~s~lashdot
While we're on the subject of grocery shopping, what effects will this have on the use of RFID tags? These carts already have built-in barcode scanners; would it be easier to have embedded radio devices in the food?
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
If by today, you meant yesterday, then yes they did report on it today.
-Steven Willis
Would the carts also recommend healthy foods over other less desirable categories of foods? Kind of like a built-in dietician?
Shh.
One employee task that comes to mind is a big row of bicycles (a'la the movie, Soylent Green) that would run the generators producing electricity for the freezers. Employees would enjoy fitness and a paycheck ;)
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
As long as the means to track your purchases is based on some non-personal identifier (such as a customer number on a store card). The "preferred shopper" cards that most supermarkets currently issue don't really care *who* you are, as much as *what* you are. Are you a 20-something single black female, or a 50-something married white male? The personal information (name, address, etc) is only useful for mailing out coupons and such, and most supermarkets don't market by direct mail, they use circular publications. I don't have a shopping card myself, but my wife has three or four of the things. In every case, she just filled out a little piece of paper with statistical information, and they gave her a card. They didn't check her ID or anything, so if you don't want them to know who you *really* are, just use a fake name and address.
So as long as I get an anonymous shopping card, who cares if the store wants to track purchasing trends, if it's going to make the shopping experience better (and I loath supermarkets - mainly because I can never find what I'm looking for without having to traverse half the store)?
The only issue I would have is if the store wants to keep my credit card info on file for some sort of "EZ Pay" system. No, thanks. I don't care if they know that some anonymous, 30 year-old, married, white male buys frozen lasagna and canned corn and mostly shops after 8pm on week nights, but I'm keeping my account numbers in my wallet. They can have their little wireless computer tell the automated checkout machine how much I owe, and then prompt me to swipe my card and enter my PIN, or feed cash into a bill scanner (for the ultimate in anonymity). As long as the anonymous purchasing information is kept separate from the personalized financial information, I fail to see a privacy issue with this concept.
this combined with rfid tags could be used for supermarkets to charge each individual person a different price for items based on a profile of the person indicating how much money they have. pure evil.
1) DOS attack one shopping cart using five others thus rendering all six useless...
2) Create a linux build and replace the shopping carts OS with it. Now you can crack company passwords with your beowulf cluster of shopping carts!
3) wardrive the shopping mall
4) load up the linux build you made in #2 to an old laptop and bring it to the store. bury it outside the super-mart with some kind of power source (outdoor plug, solar pannles) and have it do your bidding.
5) broadcast over WIFI a change of prices and sales to the shopping carts
6) use your immagination.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
I couldn't care less about the "The experience of shopping". I welcome any invention that will shorten the time for me to actually get the stuff I'm after.
Several local grocery stores have self-checkout lanes. I tried them a few times and was disappointed. Now I look for the lane that still has a human cashier. The cashier, who does this job for 8 hours a day, is much faster at scanning, ringing up produce, bagging and completing the order. Plus, it's a human being, not some Rube Goldberg contraption from Hell.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Genius? What the hell did he ever do besides write a few books and host a show on PBS?
"Billions and billions..."
Genius? Whatever.
In the early 90's, a "Raley's" store in Fremont California tried these. It even had a trivia quiz (entitled "Match Wits with the World's Smartest Ape") when you were in the checkout line.
The ability to find what aisle an item was on was great. I really liked the system. The only bad part was that the ape often beat me at trivia. (then again, it was the World's Smartest.)
But for some reason they stopped the trial. My guess was that being able to find any item easily was bad for the store, because it lessened the chance you'd make an impulse purchase as you wandered around lost. Either that or the World's Smartest Ape decided to leave the grocery business and go to grad school.
This could be cool. What I want my cart to do is:
1) let me enter a search for an item and then tell me where it is in the store. Something more flexible than "punch button of product name"
2) let me upload a shopping list to the cart via USB keychain, and use feature one to give me the most efficient order in which to get the items (or close to it anyway - it might be an NP complete problem to get the most efficient route)
3) Scan the item as it goes into the cart, check it off the list, and keep a running total. Also, take item off the list if I take it out of the cart. Perfect for budget shopping, and the cart keeps track of what's in it without me having to dig through it.
All of these should be possible with current tech. Places like Sam's club should check it out.
Keep the adds to a minimum, preferably none unless the buyer opts to see specials, and no pay on cart option. That would involve wireless transmission of the credit card info, and require encryption. Plus, a person should validate the findings of the cart - this would be a convenience thing for customers as they shop, NOT a replacement for the cashier. Taking away jobs aside (that's seldom a valid reason to avoid a technology) someone would find a way to defeat the system.
And for goodness sake get Linux or *BSD on the things! I don't want Microsoft handling my grocery info! Imagine a blue screen destroying your shipping list 2/3 of the way through a big shopping day.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I guess complaining about moderation is hardly new.
I thought it was funny AC.
The rugged Shopping Buddy computers are manufactured by Symbol Technologies Inc. of Holtsville, N.Y., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
How much will they have to charge for the cart's deposit before people will not steal them? It'd be nice to take one of those things home with me, keep the bluetooth elements and then ditch the cart in a park (sigh... memories of university... ;) )
People haven't really cared about it since the introduction of plastic cards, which can and is used to track you. I will continue paying cash and refuse going to stores with bluetooth enabled carts. But there will always be Joe Blow who doesn't give a crap... /my 25 cents
OK, they don't directly change the prices now. But there are so many ways that stores change the price you pay - frequent shopper cards, manufacturer's coupons, sales, those "Catalina" printables at the register that print out coupons based on what you buy - that consumers pay many different amounts for the same items.
Personally, that's fine with me, as I've gotten pretty good at working coupons and sales
I have blog like everyone else
How about something like peapod or green grocer without the delivery? All you have to do is pick up the groceries. Everything else taken care of.
I usually avoid the self checkouts. I feel kind of stupid, since I'm young and work in IT, I'm supposed to love cool technology. But I also use coupons, and it never fails that at least one of my coupons won't scan, prompting me to have to summon someone over to fix it. Usually winds up killing any extra time I would have saved over waiting in line. I would rather just deal with a person in the first place.
I have blog like everyone else
The "preferred shopper" cards that most supermarkets currently issue don't really care *who* you are, as much as *what* you are.
True. My local grocery chain recently installed new POS equiptment that prints Thank you "insert name of customer." Only then did I realize that the name on it was not mine, but rather the Dutch foreign exchange student who had been one of my roomates 3 years ago. Must have accidently switched cards somehow, and it never really mattered. Though it is impressive that he's saved nearly $300 in bonuscard savings despite being on the other side of the globe for the last 2 years.
I have blog like everyone else
What will the impact be on privacy,
/South Park, bigger longer and uncut.
the cash economy, and the experience
of shopping in general?"
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
They tried this in a Pavilions near my Grandma's house about 10 years ago. Granted, the technology wasn't fantastic at the time, but it was there. It was "cool" for a while, until you realized that it was just telling you a bunch of crap you didn't want to know. It was a bit buggy too, as anything new tends to be. Granted, it didn't keep track of what you bought, only where you went, but it came off as utterly useless and they removed these "features" from the carts within a couple years.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
So which is it? Wi-Fi or 802.11?
GPS navigation is great on the shopping cart, but all the traffic in some stores might require some stoplights at major intersections.
To be serious, however.... As often as i see stolen shopping cards around cities, it may not be such a great idea to invest so much money into them.
do() || do_not();
My wife calls me from the store: "Honey, why is the shopping cart telling me 'The last time you were here, you bought condoms!'? I don't remember buying condoms... and besides, I'm on the pill!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
... when the cart lets me send Instant Messages to that babe in the freezer aisle!
Just an attempt to bring bums in to the twenty first century?
It failed miserably. The system was called smart cart or smart shop or something lame like that. They had little 9" black and white LCD screens on the carts and heavy ass lead acid batteries in the bottom. The screens had infrared sensors and there were transmitters hanging above the isles that'd beam updated data as you walked down then. Lots of blurry little animations and stuff. I never found it useful.
The reason the program failed is because the local kids smashed them all for the fun of it. It doesn't matter that the hardware won't run anything useful, people like to break stuff. A steel shopping cart in itself isn't that fun, but if it's got electronics on it to smash, it's alot more appealing to the bored and destructive.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
I want a chip in my hand so when i pick up an item off of the shelf, it transmits the price to the chip and debits my checking account on file for me. That way I have no lines when i check out... weeeee!
What about the Kroger Plus Card, and the equivalent that every other store has? It allows your purchases to be tracked on a per-capita basis and material to be directly marketed to you. This is no more an invasion of privacy than the Kroger card.
Kudos to the con artist who convinced somebody that they were a) employable, and b) had a good idea.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I use Handyshopper for PalmOS: http://www.freewarepalm.com/database/handyshopper- english.shtml
I keep track of the last price I paid for each item, and the aisle I found the item in.
The only thing that would make life easier for me is if the shop would regularly publish a complete list of what items are in which aisles. Especially when they change their aisle layout every 6 months to "enhance the shopping experience" (ie: make you walk past everything again in order to con you into a few impulse purchases).
It's frightening to think that the shop would want to keep track of which items I buy - as other people have pointed out, the store could optimise their prices for maximum profit from each customer. Though I wonder how easy it would be for them to distinguish between the buyers who always buy the one brand, regardless of price, and buyers who "comparison shop" and buy the cheapest product that they trust to be of adequate quality.
That is what sturdy well-built equiptment, security camera, and law enforcement is for I suppose.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Someone steals your cart??
Great... first exploit's discovered, Shopping Buddy AP is hijacked, and i'll be kindly informed while shopping that there's a "0wN3d s4L3 0n ai5le r00t"
I do like the idea of "Bring Your Own Cart," so long as I don't get hassled for bandwidth shoplifting after I leave.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Oh lovely. Cannon fodder for a country with imperialistic aspirations. BTW not everyone can get into the military.
Imagine it, teched out bag ladies talkin to their shopping carts. Anyway, the privacy implications are the same as those grocery store saver cards, if you're so concerned, don't sign up for it
Actually RFID tags would nearly eliminate the need for complicated checkout lanes. Remember a few years ago, the IBM ad with the guy who looked like he was shoplifting? The security guard following close behind. Then as he's going out the door, the guard stops him and says "excuse me, you forgot your reciept." The service industry will soon be aquainted with another definition of "shrinkage".
It's no different than using your "Shoppers Club Card" when you interact with a (minimum wage) cashier at each and every supermarket, walmart, kmart; the list goes on.
Borrow someone elses tinfoil hat (card) and this data is inaccurate.
If it truly saves me time and minimizes my interaction with a disgruntled employee, I'm all about it.
Question to the person who modded parent:
How can it be "overrated" if no one has modded it up?
Here's hoping you get meta-moderated into the godless oblivion from which you came...
I work for Ahold, the parent company of Stop & Shop. I was involved in the development of this project. We're definitely counting on it to bring in more business. The Boston Globe article is good, but doesn't talk about some of the more interesting technical aspects of the project. (Of course, we probably won't tell them for fear of the word getting out to the competition.)
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
I sure do hope they encrypt all their information in something a little stronger than wep. Otherwise one laptop shopping trip later, and you could have the info of everyone in the store.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
You're an asshole.
It is one thing to make a decsion not to use coupons provided for you, for something you are goint to purchase, it is another to make it so the next person can't.
I like them. Go in to get something, and then get a discount. bonus.
Of course, if you are so weak willed as to let a piece of paper to offend you, or perhaps they 'make' you by something you don't want?
to sum up:
you're an asshole.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I live in Revere, just outside of Boston. There's 3 Stop & Shops nearby. Although their prices are higher, it's definitely a tech-lover's dream to shop in. Also nice if you're just impatient or don't like people :).
I think it was around 94 or so that Kroger did this. It wasn't .xx, but each cart had a little greyscale screen and TONS of antenna's in the ceiling.
As you went down aisles, you could see what was on sell around there, or you could use the cart to see where a certain item was. It was a little slow, but it worked...remember using it quite a bit as stuff is never where I'd expect it.
The problem - after about a month, finding a cart that had a working screen was nigh impossible. Hopefully the new ones will be a lot more rugged.
The moderator felt it sucked so bad it didn't even deserve the 1 it started with. And I can see this.
Just because there wasn't any other moderation done before the overrated was given doesn't mean that overrated is wrong. Maybe not the best choice--I'd have picked something else--but it applicable.
it is another to make it so the next person can't.
I resent advertising in all forms. Small blinking boxes that spit coupons at me do nothing more than advertise a product to me, and to everyone else passing by.
At that point, they already have me in the store. I already know what I intend to buy. I do not buy what I do not intend to.
So you would accuse me of having so weak a will that I must disable such ad-dispensers to prevent my giving in to their temptation? No. Quite the opposite. I have no problem at all ignoring them, but realize that others do not do so well.
Do you have an elderly grandmother, one who believes that anything they can get on sale, they must buy? Many people do. I do. I disable such machines for them, not for myself, and not specifically to annoy you. I neither know you, nor care enough about you to bother taking action to annoy you.
Go in to get something, and then get a discount. bonus.
TANSTAAFL. You pay, one way or another.
to sum up: you're an asshole.
Better an asshole than a sheep. Baaaaah.
"1) Only creative work would have to be done by humans. Art, science, invention, etc."
Yay! More "creativity" to download.
BTW All Utopias break because they ignore human nature.
How will this affect the 98% of /.ers who shop at Save-U-Foods or still live in their parents basement? Most Slashdotter are out of work according to their stories (all Bushes fault) or are so rich they eat out all the time. Which is it and how will this actually effect them?
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
I have to say that it is _excellent_. It has surprisingly few obvious bugs in the software - I haven't had one crash one me yet.
I won't buy sensitive products with it. S&S don't need to know whether anybody in my household has allergies or dandruff. But everything else is fine.
One good effect is that it makes everyone aware of just how much shopping habit information they collect on your Stop'n'Shop card. Tech-savvy privacy advocates have been aware for a while now, but the average Joe has no idea that the big supermarkets could tell him everything he ever bought from their shop using his card. The Shopping Buddy makes it obvious - as you are going down each isle it prompts you with your favorite items in that isle. It prompts you with special savings that it thinks you might be interested in.
It's actually very useful. You can order your deli items in advance and shopping buddy notifies you when they are ready for collection. You know what your bill is going to be as it keeps a running total (although it doesn't account for tax on the few non-food items you pick up). You can review everything that's in your cart etc. At the produce section, you scan a barcode for the produce, put the bag on the nearest scale, scan a barcode on the scale and the shopping buddy interrogates the scale and calculates the price. It all works suprisingly well.
When you get to the checkout you just scan your S&S card, it gets your shopping list from the buddy, you pay, it prints a receipt. Done - no waiting. Of course the astute will realise that the typical checkout times have simply been amortised over the time spent going around the shop, but that's ok in my book. I hate waiting in check out lines.
A bonus? Since you bag as you go, you get home with bread that is still square and fruit that isn't bruised!
(See subject.)
You can see similiar technology at:
t s_ id=1324
t s_ id=1325
http://www.mag-card.com/product_info.php?produc
http://www.mag-card.com/product_info.php?produc
There isn't much point in stealing a common, ordinary cart either.
What about using a shopping Cart as a Percussion Instrument? I've only actually used a shopping cart once, and I didn't actually find it in a store. I was participating with a band at the time and there happened to be a shopping cart a couple blocks away from the venue. I had intedned to destroy the shopping cart by the end of the show but those darn things are pretty strong. I was able to do hardly any dammage with a crowbar, and could only take out a few of the little thingys with a hammer. Maybe if I had had a sledgehammer I could have done real dammage.
Anyway, when I first started reading this article I was wondering if they were going to use the wifi to prevent shopping cart theft. You know, track them down. And I'm thinking, what's going to happen to the proud tradition of using a shopping cart in experimental music.
Shoppers could steal the Shopping Buddies, but there wouldn't be much point. The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else.
Actually, the shopping buddies themselves might be interesting in music. Banal shopping buddy advice would be very fitting in some music.
SSSShop as usual, and avoid panic buying.
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
I'm sure they want this technology in part because of the likelihood of a consumer using it incorrectly and buying 4 cans of beans but taking home only 1.
A couple of those mistakes a day could make the margin for the store.
...before this becomes the place where telemarketers get you. You're reaching up to get the same damn peanut butter you've been eating since you were four and the screen flips over
"hello, mr. [insert mangles last name here]. Would you like to switch your long distance and get a coupon for two dollars off your Skippy? I already have your information in my computer, just press the blue button to switch caller services and press the light blue button to not switch services."
Then the government will have to register: donotcallmyshoppingcart.gov
s'wut i sed.
I hate waiting in a checkout line so a union checker can check me out. I want to scan my items as I shop so I can leave quickly. Sure, self-checkout is ok, but this is even better.
In addition, legions of first-time, hormone-raging teenage boys will be able to buy condoms without the requisite embarassing encounter at the checkout booth.
(Not to mention doting husbands buying items for 'feminine protection' for their wives.)
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.