Shopping Carts Go Wi-Fi

Posted by michael on Saturday October 18, 2003 @05:22AM from the cleanup-in-aisle-4 dept.

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?"

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Tried in the 80s by demaria · 2003-10-18 05:47 · Score: 4, Informative

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.