Wireless Shopping Carts Run Windows CE

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."

Comments

Winsock Error

[Thoguth]

We used windows CE devices for walkabout price scanning / stocking / shipping apps at a place I once worked (a large retail chain) On any given day, about half of the chain would place help desk calls because of gimpy client/server connectivity at the OS level.

We got the impression it was mostly on the server side, though, so maybe a well-engineered WinCE app interfacing with a "real" unix/mini-mainframe store server would have a chance of not barfing andll over the place and die while a user was scanning their frozen peas.

I really wouldn't think WinCE is the best tool for this, though. For one, its big advantage (I'd think) would be its ability to connect with Windows servers. And as I pointed out above, that is a bad idea. This is an "embedded" style system, it should work like a machine--push a button, it always does what it should, and no matter what happens, you should never see "winsock error" or "out of memory" or even "the system has encountereed an error and the current application will terminate."

Not to mention the added task of having to lock it down by removing IE ("pocket IE"), solitaire, Pocket Office or whatever other unnecessary crap that comes bundled standard with WinCE.

If you needed a shopping cart that could easily sync with outlook, or that needed rapid-development multimedia capability out of the box, with security and reliability being practical non-concerns, I could see WinCE being a good choice. But that doesn't sound like a cash register to you, does it?