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Wireless Shopping Carts Run Windows CE

Posted by Zonk on from the carts-go-mad,-wreck-local-shopping-center dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Fujitsu has introduced a self-service retail scanner that could make long checkout lines a relic of the past. The U-Scan Shopper is a ruggedized XScale-based wireless computer with an integral bar code scanner, running Windows CE 4.2, and mounted on a shopping cart. The company even suggests that customers might upload a shopping list to the store's website before leaving home, and then download the list to the shopping cart upon arriving at the store."

5 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. The only downside is... by ravenspear · · Score: 4, Funny

    When a buffer overflow occurs a trap door on the underside of the cart is triggered and all your groceries spill out onto the floor.

    1. Re:The only downside is... by Quantum+Fizz · · Score: 4, Funny
      Or it would give a new take on those Total cereal commercials.

      You'll have to eat 12093749283745 bowls of Raisin Bran to get all the nutrition of one bowl of Total.

    2. Re:The only downside is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unrelated to the idea of a crashing shopping cart, but I'm reminded of a little stunt many university friends and I pulled at one of our local supermarkets, Coles.

      about a year ago I went through the checkouts and when a pack of jellybeans was scanned, the register bluescreened. I sniggered a little, but hey - I'm accepting - sometimes these things crash. It took the register guy a few minutes to get the attention of a supervisor ("It's gone blue again!") to reset the register, call up the previous parts of my shopping, and get things going again.

      Supervisor re-scanned the jellybeans, and it bluescreened again. Ha!. Next time around he just entered a generic confectionary code and I went on my way. That was kinda cool, and getting back to dorms we had a laugh about it, and decided to all head down at some random busy time and try the same again.

      It was cool! eight of us all went through different registers at about the same time, all bluescreening one after another with packets of Candy Lane Jellybeans.

      DDoSing a supermarket, it was cool!

  2. Express Lane - 15 Items Only by hndrcks · · Score: 4, Funny

    Absolutely no Beowulf Clusters.

    --
    Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
  3. So now cities can Gripe about... by CygnusXII · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now Cities that have fines for shopping cart being off the premises, can fine a business for Toxic Materials being improperly stored, retained or looked after. On the other hand, the homeless can really look forward to retasking the devices and get internet access.

    --
    My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!