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Microsoft Will Stream Ads To Grocery Carts
dptalia writes "Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it."
yeah, but will it run linux?
I went to a Shell gas station a few months ago and they had 19" flat screen TVs above every pump, playing the news and running commercials at an ear piercing level. It was unbelievable. I left, and figured that was an idea that couldn't possibly last long. But lo and behold, just a few days ago I drove by and the damn place was PACKED with customers listening to that shit, half of them staring blankly at the telescreens because they can't stand for three damn minutes to be alone with their thoughts while their tank fills.
I thought the same thing about savings cards. YOU SAVED $18.43 MISTER LIVESTOCK! Surely people can not be this dumb, and this idea will fail... but no.
The vast majority of the population just eats this shit up. They actually read their junk mail. If it weren't for them you wouldn't get junk mail, because it wouldn't be worth mailing in the first place.
It is so sad. I do my part by avoiding these establishments, but I'm afraid it's not doing a damn bit of good.
So... now I have to ignore popups in the supermarket instead of just online? Progress++
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
If these fucking things make the slightest bit of noise, I swear I'm going to light it on fire, and start growing my own food.
So now when I put stump remover and sugar together on my list I gaurantee I'm gonna be put on some sort of terrorist list (cuz you can make a bomb out of that). Not to mention any other privacy concerns. I don't even want someone to so much as see my list before I get there. They'd have to password it. Then people forget their passwords. Or someone rigs it to record your password. Then you can't log in to your cart cuz the system is down and you have no idea what you were supposed to buy. I can only imagine how many rings of hell it would be to have Walmart employees support that high tech of a system.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
...just pick the shopping card displaying the Blue Screen of Death.
Actually, given how shopping carts are treated (banged around the parking lot, slammed around by the cart-pushers, left in the rain, cleaned with a high-pressure hose), I suspect quite a few of these will be broken shortly after introduction.
Now you can have a shopping cart thats wired for the internet.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I for one welcome the opportunity to rip one off of a shopping cart in the parking lot and seeing what's inside!
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's 2008 and people are still going to the store? Do people have so much disposable time and so little else they could do with many extra hours a month that they still go shopping in an actual store? Do they look forward so much to driving around, dealing with parking, shopping carts, lines, people, their bratty kids, aisles, noise and lugging things around?
It's 2008 and the big innovation is a shopping car that spams you while it directs you around a bunch of aisles essentially the same way we did in 1945, but with more targeted marking and shelving placement than ever? Really? That's the best we can do?
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I have not shopped in a grocery store in almost my entire adult life. The last time I went into a grocery store was 1999. I get my groceries delivered to me with the click of a button. I decide what time I want my groceries, they come to my door and carry them into my kitchen. I spend almost zero time involved in groceries. While this is probably only available in big cities like the bay area, Portland, Denver and others, this is something that should be both available *and* used everywhere by almost every one. You don't still go out and butcher or milk your own cow. You don't go out and pick your own oranges. So why wheel a cart around like some sort of trained monkey in a store full of fluorescent lights and elevator music and snotty whining kids grabbing things off the shelves and throwing tantrums in the middle of the aisle?
Hell, I haven't bought shoes in person or tools or entertainment in person in years, either. Except for rare instances involving things like my car that can't be otherwise addressed, I have reduced actual physical shopping to something I no longer "have" to do. For years, the only shopping I've had to do is that which I *choose* to do. Things that make it a luxury. Places and things that I can enjoy going to and shopping for (such as home entertainment stuff). I farm the crap shopping off to the wonderful services that Albertsons, Safeway, Kingsoopers and others now offer (and before that, Webvan, etc).
So that there's a new little attachment to a shopping car that more efficiently delivers shit to your eyeballs while supposedly easing up your shopping situation -- IN 2008 -- is the least impressive thing I've heard this year.
Hmm... Just what I always wanted.
So the shopping cart will beg me to buy something as I go near it.
My daughter already does this for me. I am good.
...Will they be more streamlined for my shopping-cart races?
It looks like you want to buy a loaf of bread. Would you like some help?
Want to get the best out of your bread? Visit the Windows Wheat Live web site today!
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
They have full video billboards. The same effect works miracles on drivers.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Why won't they learn? It's not that difficult a concept.
Enter list online and have the cart calculate the shortest distance to each item in the store based on its current location
"right I want a... WTF!!! my shopping cart has shutdown to prevent damage to my food?"
Maybe they would stop rearranging the store quite so often, if they had to reprogram the carts.
Then again, who says they'd even care...
Advertising has ALWAYS been with us. When commerce became viable the person selling something has always had to attract people to buy their wares. Not just the actual product but to buy it from them.
And it works, you fall for it too. How else do you know it was a SHELL gas station? If you were imune to it and not a sheep you would just tank at any gas station. (but without any advertising whatsoever, how would you know it is a gas station?) You obviously saw Shells adversting, yes even the sign that says Shell is part of advertising.
So feel all high and mighty, the advertisers know your kind and they target you most succesfully.
As for saving cards, good don't use them. Supermarkets are sure to care that they do not have to give you that discount. Teach them a lesson, pay more!
However I wouldn't be too worried, I seen these things before. They come and go and I am still shopping in pretty much the same ways as I did 30 years ago. Nothing changes, LCD displays on shopping carts? Those highly expensive shopping carts that already dissappear left and right? Wait until they are faced with replacing a few dozen lost carts, then it is back to the cardboard display.
About the only chance I seen stick is that vegetables and such are now weiged at the checkout, that shopping carts have a deposit system (50 cents for a cart that costs far far more) and that we switched from checks to pin (electronic payment). Advertisement is still on pieces of paper, exactly the same as when I was a little kid, and when my parents were kids and their parents were kids.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and "maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.
This is because they operate on the curious principle of "defocused temporal perception". In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were previously forced to do whist waiting for elevators.
About this time someone rediscovered an old patent for an ancient device called a "staircase" that let people simply walk from one floor to another, thus dispensing with the whole tedious need for elevators at all...
Quick, someone patent the paper and pencil shopping list!
Oh goody. Now I finally have a real good use for all those hard drive magnets I've been collecting.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Finally! I was getting sick of only experiencing advertisements on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites, video games, Tivo menus, Xbox 360 menus, Comcast guide screens, airplane TVs, billboards, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, movies, movie theater lobbies, stock cars, buses, bus stops, park benches, taxicabs, license plate holders, restrooms, posters on airport and train station walls, checkout lanes, grocery carts*, and shaved into the back of the occasional head.
Thank GOD somebody has found a way to exploit this obvious adver-hole in our lives. But this is only the beginning, dammit. I want my dishwasher to leave streaks on my dishes in the shape of a Whirlpool logo. Red traffic lights should be replaced with reminders that Goodyear tires would help you stop more quickly, and green with reminders to buy Amoco Ultimate gasoline. Each light bulb should cast the logo and name of a popular pharmaceutical against the floor, ceiling, or wall (talk to your doctor about it!). When I'm calling somebody on the phone, I shouldn't have to listen to some boring "ring" sound -- not when I could hear about the virtues of Domino's pizza! We must not rest until every single person is being sold something every second of every minute of every hour of every day from every square meter of the globe. Together, we can do it.
This message brought to you by The Association of National Advertisers. Raping your eyes and ears, over and over, and you can't stop it.(tm)
* Static photos already there -- obviously insufficient
Seems like it is hard enough to find a regular old analog-wheels-to-hold-my-stuff cart that has all the welds intact. Imagine trying to find some wi-fi thingy that is working, charged up, etc.
Bah. When I was a kid we had to kill our own food. And we liked it!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Wow, you never leave your house to buy anything. Not exactly impressive, fatty, but I'm guessing you don't have much else to brag about.
With the way people ache to be subjected to ways to lose their money these days take it from me all you need is a Beowulf cluster and you are perfectly fit.
Love,
Estranged Prince of Nigeria
I thought Self-Checkout lanes were ridiculous... now this. The grocery store I mostly shop at has I think six Self-Checkout lanes. Very few folks use them. The "traffic monitors" are always trying to urge folks to go there, as there is no line. I might try one if I got a discount for it (passing the savings along to customers for not having staff, etc...), but what is the point as there is no discount or incentive? I'm a bit old fashioned I guess I want to be taken care of as a customer and fully use the services the store is providing for my convenience, not theirs!
the makers of the non-abrasive cleaning product called "The Blue Screen of Death" saw an unexplained spike in sales.
Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear.
..will appear on the screen for all to see, yay! I can't wait until people take peeks at my grocery list on my hi-tech shopping cart.
-Strawberries.. Check
-Whipped cream.. Check
-Cucumbers.. Check
-Whiskey.. Check
-Vaseline.. Check
-Bullwhip.. Check
-Laxative suppositories.. Check
-Making people who read my grocery list look embarrassed.. Check
You just got troll'd!
... and I see grocery cart crashes increasing by two orders of magnitude.
seriously. There well done. Its not all ads, there are news and wheather shorts as well. I listen to sirus radio all day and surf the web w/adblocker, so they are jsut aobut the only ads I see. And also the only local tv I see either. I have all of the day to spend with my thoughts I don't mind being entertained briefly.
...almost complete
Now if you want to see advertising at its most crass, and annoylingly blatant I suggust you look at miejers ( never know how to spell that, what the heck is a J doing in the middle of the word. Seriously.) Tv's showing ads for their products at checkup. You have to wait in line because they don't hire enough people and just stand there while they tell you how to combine three different crappy processed to hell kraft foods into some stomach turningly insane caserol that your get your kids into Harvard, and zombify your husband.
Rant
SHell is good, mjeijers bad!!
Rant complete
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It sounds to me like ShopRite is the one doing the streaming, not microsoft.
So long I have waited to check 'grocery list' off my 'things I need a pencil for' list.
I guess I just found a new use for my shopping bag ... upside down, right over the bloody LCD screen.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
These shopping carts are just asking to be stolen. It's widespread enough as it is that simple shopping carts go missing. Carts with gadgets? Hell yeah. Just wait until somebody finds a way to make them into a digital picture frame, then they'll all be missing.
Part of the joy of grocery shopping is the mindless meandering around the store. I don't want my grocery cart to make me more efficient.
And while Microsoft is tying its solution to someone else's shopping cart, Apple is planning on letting you carry your shopping list with you on your own device, and just pointing it at stuff to buy it. No annoying advertising there, and it is not tied to one store or one chain of stores: Disloyal customers, such as those running GNU Linux, will be shown the door, or barred from entering the store in the first place. Imagine not being able to shop for food because you don't use Microsoft Windows. No thanks. I don't want any viruses in my food or my shopping list.
I for one welcome our new ice cream promoting overlords!
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Hey, it looks like you're making a salad! Would you like some help?
I'll just need to scan for a cart that's showing a blue screen, like the advertising display in the elevator I just got out of.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
4-digit UID trolls are surprisingly common. Apparently, old men get bored easily.
Please mod parent post down. There's no question it's a troll, and flamebait besides. Thank you.
There products never break when you want them to. With my luck the shopping cart will be the one product they make that never breaks, probably due to three stooges syndrome .
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Have you not had adverts blaring at you while taking care of business in a public washroom? Or is that form of torture reserved for the female of the species, since we're confined to stalls while we're in there? Of course, the possibilities for wide-screen above a row of urinals do come to mind, so they'll get you eventually if they haven't already. First time I saw this was in the ladies' at a beachfront bar--actually a pretty respectable establishment--where they blared commercials for waterfront properties. That was a couple of years ago. Most recent sighting was a couple of months ago at a favorite Chinese restaurant in a city 200 miles inland. It gives new meaning to the term "captive audience."
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
When we in Qwest's area call a telephone number that is busy, we don't get a busy signal, we get an advertisement for us to dial a code and the system will call us back when the other line is free. This complex and highly difficult process only costs 95 cents! I wonder when we will pick up the phone and hear a cheery voice selling something instead of a dial tone. Maybe each button on the phone could speak a product name rather than sound one of the tones: My number would be Pepsi Ford Ford - Prilosec Zantec Lunesta Zantec.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's a great idea, but stores arrange their shelves and produce specifically to get people to impulse shop. That's why the candy is near the cash machines - so your kids will freak out while you're standing there waiting, in the hopes that you'll cave in and buy them the candy so they'll shut up. The less time you spend in the store, the less changes for you to impulse buy something.
Stores would never do anything that would decrease your time being exposed to their products.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
... so I can reduce Microsoft's customer's desires to purchase these by seeing how many of them I can destroy in a given trip. So, what failure rate do you think these will need to have before the grocery stores stop buying them?
Has any punishment they've received been equal to or greater than the benefits they receive as a monopoly?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Finally, a way to get my shopping list from my home, to the grocery store! And so simple ...They only need a server farm, programmers, designers, authentication systems, back-end-code, tamper-proof hardware, service plans, contracts, and lawyers to pull it off! PURE GENIUS, MICROSOFT! No wonder Bill Gates is the world's richest man except for the Mexican guy.
OH OH OH WAIT A MINUTE... I just had a KILLER idea.
What if... there was a humorous "talking mascot" that guided me through the store? It could be based on something familiar to shoppers. Like, oh I dunno, the paper clip I use to hold my coupons together? YES! A talking paper clip would be AWESOME. I wonder what they would name him. "Clipper" maybe. Or "Clipton". Hmm.
...milk, bread and goatse, OK?
rj
I've never seen a cost effective online grocery store. That's the reason I still go shopping. It's kind of funny to me how many of my friends will build their own PCs to save 50-100 bucks, then waste 30-50 bucks a week overpaying for food, never thinking twice about it. Whatever though, it's all about priorities.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
... and start showing unsuspecting shoppers "advertisements" for goatse, tubgirl, 2girls1cup, etc etc etc.
Aren't all those "humans" dreaming this up in one way or another control freaks?
What do they have in their mind about the "humans" on the receiving end?
Are we machines - button pushed here, response there? Probably that's what it is - objects to be "guided" and "lead".
If I want to see something, I also want to be the one having some kind of choice what and how to select it.
The only explanation I have is that all this information "rain" pouring down has some kind of subliminal effect and pays in $$'s - or fantasies of great amounts thereof.
SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING IS ILLEGAL. THIS SYSTEM IS SO CORRUPT THAT NOBODY EVEN CARES!
Yeah - and Microsoft in particular, having to dream up more and more eye-candied gadgets to make a buck more.
From Bucky:
"It's as though we're flying on a happy trip
somewhere in first class on a 747, having champagne and a nice dinner
and watching a movie -- and having no idea that we're flying straight
toward the side of a mountain."
So, ah, lemme guess...These Microsoft carts will have a broken wobbly wheel as a "feature"!
bite me
2. I've got a few uses for smallish lcd screens, looks like i'll be taking a few home with me!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Anybody who wants to complain: http://shoprite.com/ContactUs.aspx I informed ShopRite that I will not be making any further puchases if these carts get put into the store. I will not utilize propritary software that is being thrust into my face. It is bad enough that the store utilizes propritary software at check out and online as it is.
version 2.0 will have clippy
I'm always amazed at the number of pop-ups FF blocks when I use IE. I can't understand why people still use IE, considering the enormous amount of excess information they have to cope with.
-- Cheers!
Don't say that. It'll just excite him.
we drive ourselves mad by annoying the hell out of people with stuff like this (ads).
Microsoft gives us an annoying shopping cart.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
what else would they be named?
Sit through one or two advertisements so I can access my grocery list? If this project doesn't get derailed, it could be very helpful or Apple will re-invent it and make a gazillion because they make it look like a sleek silver dildo. I can't wait... the Apple iCart that only works if you register and update through iTunes.
Just check if somebody are near the vitamins and insert an ad for those infamous blue pills we all see on the net. At the newsstand insert an ad for obscure magazines that you only can buy online. At olive oil insert a commercial for Mobil 1 as the best alternative for your car. Near the toothbrushes an ad for an infamous dentist. "You want the Blue Screen of Death - buy the latest from Microsoft!"
Or maybe in these times insert a picture of a president candidate together with a maybe not so friendly text.
Use your imagination about what possibly can go wrong!
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
> As a subscriber you are probably not aware that /. has started inserting banner ads after some posts.
I'm not him, but as an AdblockPlus user, I'm barely aware that the internet still has ads...
"Safeway or Albertsons"
I've never heard of that third one you mentioned, but those two right there are two of the least cost effective large supermarket chains around. Just by doing your shopping at a food4less/foodco you could probably cut 25 percent or more on your food bill every week. We cut 40 percent over Albertsons by switching to food4less for my family of 4(70 dollars less a week since we switched).
So you add that 10 bucks you pay for delivery, to the 25 percent plus you're probably overpaying for your groceries, and that's what you're cost of not shopping for yourself actually is. Maybe you feel that's worth it, and maybe it is for your situation, but for me it's worth the 7 minute drive and 20-30 minutes of shopping every week to save 70 bucks a week. And that's not even counting the 10 dollar delivery charge.
I suppose if a cheaper grocery store offered delivery for a 10 dollar fee I would take advantage of that. But I have not seen any cost effective online grocers at all. Every one that I've seen the prices are laughable.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
- a Beowulf cluster...
1. When the start flag waves, click Start->Program->Race. Click Accept a few times to get rid of the the Vista warnings. The program should now run. Your opponents are nearing the first bend.
2. The program is running but the cart is not moving. Perhaps your brand of cart has not written Vista drivers yet. Do some googling and install drivers. Your opponents have only lapped you once.
3. You now have shiny new drivers. As soon as you run them the driver crashes. This is not a Vista problem. This is a lame-ass driver problem.
4. "Downgrade" to XP Cart Edition. Hey, you're moving. Sweet! Now just need to make up those 20 laps you're behind.
6. Write note to self: Next time pick a cart that smells of fish and has peguin footprints all over it!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...but hopefully only by the RickRollers of the world and not those who would abuse your personal information.
Well, our grocery bill is rather small per month and I value my time at aroudn $60/hr, so unless I could make a return of at least $60/hr I invest in doing something, it wouldn't be worth it for me. Unless we're including personal enjoyment or enrichment in the valuation. So for me, there is almost no circumstance in which I could see my investment of time being reasonably returned.
I don't know what the stores you mentioned are (though I've been to a walmart once and found that it was just a disgusting giant version of a convenience store - I think everything in the grocery section was either pre-processed or made of mostly sugar). I'm not sure what to compare Kingsoopers to. I've never heard of it before I moved out here from Portland. Back in Portland, you pretty much have Safeway, Albertsons or Fred Meyer to shop at. And, if you want to travel quite a bit further, you could always go to something like a Whole Foods or a Trader Joes. Of course, nothing cheap about those two places. Better quality, but... not cheaper.
Since the store I have delivery my groceries is the same store I would go shopping at in person and the food comes from the same local place, from the store, it's pretty much the exact same experience I'd have anyway... but with less time and effort invested. And while people are just fine... I find people in grocery stores to be inherently unappealing. And any kids they bring along to be positively fantastic examples for promotion of obsessive use of contraceptives.
What? You mean the Internet STILL has ads!? I nearly forgot after running adblock plus for so long.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
So, I'm going to select my items on their web site.
And then drive to the store.
And then gather the items from the shelves myself. All the while, getting spammed by ads from the cart display?
Why not just shop an online grocer and be done with it?
... are the nearest best thing to stream ads to, beside trash bins.
Btw, nice to see Microsoft finally has found its proper level of competence.
Walter.
you forgot to add your Doomsday Survival Kit... the end times is nigh, better stock up! And if you buy now, we offer two for one so you can take an unbeliever along...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Everybody seems to be flaming this plan. Look on the positive side. You can download your shopping list. So you get a few ads for this convenience. In my opinion, this is a reasonable exchange. On the other hand, if you don't need this feature, you better be able to turn the damn thing off, because if it's blaring ads at me when I'm not using the service, I will take a stroll down the tool aisle and have some fun. Hey, I'm a geek. I take shit apart.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I can see clippy now...
It looks like you're buying product A! Would you be interested in product B, with new super-shit smell, for 25 cents less? How about product C, which you have a violent allergy to, buy one get one free?
You appear to be buying a lot of ramen. Would you like some multi-vitamins? How about cheap life insurance?
You appear to be buying condoms. -=BSOD=- "PROGRAMMER HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF HOW THESE ARE USED"
It was not 19" screens though, much smaller, but LOUD ads playing 24/7. For about two weeks. Then the screens mysteriously disappeared. I think they got a lot of customer complaints, at least that's what I hope happened. I filled up a couple times when they were there and everyone had the same reaction I did -- complete annoyance.
Maybe sometime later, people would have to pay to block ads on their carts.
...isn't the real story here that you will be able to construct your shopping list at home and, through the power of the pipes, have it appear on your shopping trolley? The fact it's going to have ads is pretty much a given as it is a free service. What's all the fuss about? If you don't like it then don't use it FFS.
Please tell me they have serial ports.
If you think supermarkets had problems with carts disappearing before..just wait and see what happens when you attach all kinds of fancy electronics.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
... the shopping carts at my local have a small clipboard on them. You take along your own paper list and pencil, clip to the trolley and tick things off as you buy them...
Oh and there's a static advert on the front of the trolley, on the shelves, and a list of this week's special offers at the door as you go in...
probably a lot cheaper to implement and maintain...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
I recently developed a little JAVA ME application for that purpose (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mobileshopper). ;-).
All ad-free
DI Robert Lichtenberger effad@gmx.at
No need to go to the grocery store, just have Microsoft do the shopping for me.
I guess it's just me, but I think it's funny that people will put their innermost thoughts on their MySpace page for all to see, but they don't want their grocery store to see their grocery list.
How 'bout a system to order groceries online and an automated in-store system of mobile robotic arms to find my groceries, pick my groceries off the shelves, box/bag it, label it with my name and have it waiting for me at the door?
I'll not shop or eat again until I can buy food in such a manner...
ShopRite in my state needs to focus more on keeping the insects off the food and expired food off the shelves and less on whizzy carts.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I wish someone shopping in one of the places where they will have these takes the opportunity to plan their route through the aisles to spell nice messages using the RFID tracking for whoever is sifting through the data. Sure, it's a bit of a hassle but imagine the look on the face of the person seeing you draw goatse with your cart...
. . . to help me find the goddamned croutons?
What?
All this effort to earn some cash from other ideas and markets it all very well. But Vista isn't selling well, Zune isn't selling well, Office is dropping VBA (already gone from recent Mac version) which will probably stifle sales of the next version of Office on Windows.
Look after your core customers before you think about moving on to greater things.
It's really quite amazing how many completely crap ideas and dumb-assed - 5 years in dev with no significant improvement to the nearest competitor - products MS is putting out these days. Each one is marketed with great fanfare yet it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that it is not going to fly. Zune, Vista, Tablet PC, Crap Search touted as a competitor to Google. How many more of these can they survive?
This is what we've all been waiting for, folks. Stealing shopping carts just got profitable!
Avoid the hassle! Use Schwans or one of the other home-delivery services. I use 'em, they're great! And as a side note, how long till one of these is stolen and hacked for the parts? And, no, the collapsing wheel device won't stop people, as it can just get loaded into someone's van/truck/trailer. I seriously doubt these things will last very long, IF they get introduced AT ALL! I can honestly say that I WILL steal one (or twenty) if I see them around. A free LCD, and proprietary computer that could no doubt be hacked? AS well as RFID reader, batteries and (most likely) inductive charging system? THANKS WALMART!!
If I put some means of a dynamic shopping list in my house (standard items list and a barcode scanner, or whatever), then I should be able to have my shopping list anytime I go to the store. I could send a sms message to my house if I stopped at the store, and have the list updated before I start shopping. Maybe you think I could do that now and simply have the list sent to my cell phone, and you are right, but with the carts I will know what I need from each aisle. This gets rid of the frustrating inner/outer loop thing of iterating through my list for each aisle.
Really cool, expensive displays over the
urinals, with ads looping continuously.
Unfortunately, washrooms aren't well
policed: one local display was used as
a new storage location for the fire axe.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Wouldn't it be more fair to say that ShopRite are rolling this out? TFA makes it sound like MS have snuck in in the middle of the night and installed this system without their knowledge.
Godwins Law, proven once again....
How long do you think it will be before these things get hacked into playing gore and porn on Aunt Nellie's shopping cart? And if that happens, how long do you think the stores will keep the system?
Is how come Google didn't think of this first.
ooooooooooooo smash crackle pop. no that was not an ad that was the sound of the stream going bop. I assume they will be using embedded systems ? (has nightmare of a trolley with a 5kg + vista ultimate box sitting in it taking up half the space.) mmmm I think water is always the trick. I mean hell. Accidents happen in supermarkets. Drops can onto screen. fun. I think the slashdotters can game this--> 2 points for every system broke. If they are using wifi and you mdk them off the grid 30 points. 100 points if you can turn them off with a power button and then remove the power button.
I actually got three to fours times a week. It is on my way home. I find it relaxing from the "stress" of work and the drive. I also see many different items I may have not considered adding to my diet. I impulse buy some vegetables and fruits simply because they look good that day.
I also happen to like the ladies at the registers and such and know many of the workers by name in the store. Its a social experience that many people don't take time for any more. The death of the neighborhood store is because people will sit home, locked away from the world, and point and click to get what they want. I don't want to hear how you have loads of friends so this excuses you from the comparison. The key is that your local businesses and such are what drive the community. If you don't frequent them or the surrounding shops how do you know what goes on and why?
If you don't have the time to shop then you have poor time management. Really, I don't see how people run out of time every day. The only one's I know who do that are just unorganized to an extreme.
I buy a lot of stuff online, but food will be the last thing I ever go that route with because I like to see what I am buying before I consume it, especially fresh produce and meats. As for the other stuff, seeing the rows of products lets me know when something new I might want comes along. Let alone the people watching time, or spending even more time with your mate. (yes, shopping with them is a pleasurable experience)
Don't get me wrong, I buy lots of stuff online as well, I just don't let it keep me from the bookstore, grocery, or even mall, because experiencing the people around us grounds us to who were are.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Who says they don't get their money's worth?
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Stories like these make me pine for a time when we'll be able to produce everything we need ourselves, a la Diamond Age. But the more advertisers insist on interrupting and irritating me, the more I want to have nothing more to do with them. Viral is fine, because if a friend thinks I might need something they know about, then I probably might. But anything else should be banned.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Start collecting any receipts you can find as well. They almost always have the full customer loyalty card number on them. Feel free to register as many as you can as soon as the system comes online. Have fun creating interesting shopping lists for people. Be creative!
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
..."Microsoft responsible for the destruction of multiple LCD screens with a hammer."
It's bad enough I've got to watch them TV, I will not be marketed to while I'm in the store.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
no text
People are too stupid to make choices that are in their own self interest. Not you of course, but most people. Benevolent dictatorships, baby, they're the only way.
The vast majority of the population just eats this shit up.
I call them sheeple. They need to watch TV so they can find out who they want to vote for, what beer they want to drink, where they want to go eat...
Too much work to contemplate the meaning of life.
When the shopping cart starts to play an ad, does it artificially reduce the rolling speed of the shopping cart by 50%?
The scene
A charming housewife has swiped her 'card' and is wandering around the store (in an orderly manner) being prompted as she passes each item that has been marked.
But now.. horror of horrors, she approaches household products. There on the shelf next to her reliable "brand X" washing conditioner is a new product "Brand Y... whites are whiter than the whitest white!", unable to resist years of brandX loyalty she decides to try it!
Suddenly the brakes on the shopping cart engage, the trolley will not move! A claxon starts up on the cart-display as the expected Brand X is not placed in the cart. An advert for Brand X starts, extoling (and its customised with her name) the housewife to return to Brand X. Then a new advert butts into the display, yes its Brand Y praising the housewive for making a "break with the old and coming onboard a new conditioning revolution!".
Unable to move and shocked
--- This meme is memory intensive
Or is that form of torture reserved for the female of the species, since we're...
You're a chick? Posting on Slashdot?
Are you hot?
time to print out my "you can save even more by using ubuntu.com" stickers for these carts
Once again, Microsoft has taken one of the most simple concepts (writing down what you need on a piece of paper and bringing said list with you to the store) and made it ten times more complicated and expensive.
Ok, so before we had that awful experience of having a piece of paper in the kitchen, and whenever we realized we were out of butter, or milk, or widgets, we write down on the paper. Then the list is taken with you to the store to pick out your items.
Now let's see how much Microsoft has improved this process: We still have that piece of paper in the kitchen. We still jot down items as we realize we need them. But now, before we leave for the store, we log on to ShopRite.com, transpose the entire list onto the web site, save and log-off, then leave for the store. Upon reaching the store, we log on to the cart. But if it's anything like my wedding registry experience at Macy's (I'll get into that little gem next), My cart will have to boot up first (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it will take a quick 5 min). Once I've accessed my list, I begin my shopping. The list hasn't improved, it's the same list. However, now I have annoying ads. I'm going to ignore the ads, because I already have a brand preference, and if I don't, I have a price preference, which I can clearly see that brand x is cheaper (or on sale).
We haven't improved my shopping experience at all. We've actually made it worse. There are more steps, more complication, more problems to occur (technology always does break), and a lot more annoying.
This reminds me a lot of my wedding registry ordeal "as made better by Microsoft!" So it's wedding registry time, and I'm all excited because I get to shoot things with a scanner gun like a little kid. Unfortunately, Macy's doesn't use scanner guns, they have PDA's with bar code scanners. So my first thought is "well that seems overkill," but I'm also thinking that with a PDA, there may be improvements. Things I expected to see: confirmation on the screen as to the item you scanned, ability to edit the number of items you want, maybe inventory search tool to help find things your looking for, maybe even suggestions (I see you have scanned the Waterford Red Wine Glasses, you might also like the "Waterford White Wine Glasses". Disappointment hit me as the women tries to activate the first PDA. It's being slow and unresponsive, so she goes in the back to get a new one. It's also slow and unresponsive, but apparently that's what it's supposed to do, as it's loading up Windows CE. This takes a good 10 minutes of waiting and fiddling. The Macy's lady enters all of the information and we are then off to shopping. Unfortunately, this PDA doesn't have a "trigger" (my child-like hopes are tarnished). Instead, the scanner is activated by pressing two buttons on either side of the device at the same time. It sounds simple, but you have to press it in just the right way (my fiance had some difficulty with this). So that's kinda annoying, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. We scan our first item. As I had hoped, the device showed confirmation of what we had scanned, and gave an option to increase the quantity. However, Microsoft's idea of confirmation, was showing the SKU number only. HOW IS THIS EVEN REMOTELY USEFUL!?! THE NUMBER IS FUCKING 12 CHARACTERS LONG! I don't know if I ordered the set of kitchen knives with 15 pieces or 10 pieces and I don't even know if I got the right brand. Who knows, through some strange error, it could think I want a pink flowery duvet cover, but I won't know. The thing that bugged me the most though, was that every 2 minutes or so, the thing would go into standby to save on batteries. So I go to scan something, and nothing would happen. I'd try again, cause those buttons are tricky, and nothing happens. I look at the screen and it's black. I press the power button and it pops back to life. I try the scanner again "Slow down there cowboy! Windows CE needs another 30 seconds to wake up!" GO
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
and skip the "LCD displays FTW" mentality. Just beam the suckers
Microsoft just announced One Cart Per Homeless (OCPH) program to compete with OLPC. Each homeless people can get a computerized shopping cart with 4" screen for free outside many retail stores.
A good 15 years ago my local supermarket did a pilot of this very technology (minus the internet tie-in of course). The carts all had touch-sensitive monochrome LCD screens that interacted with sensors in the ceiling to give you relevant advertisements and information based on where the cart was in the store. It also had a store directory so you could find out where the pickles were without bothering one of the highly-paid union clerks.
It was a dismal (and I imagine highly expensive) failure. The carts were removed in a matter of months and the bulbous sensors protruding from the ceiling all over the store were there for years to follow.
I have no reason to believe that such a technology is any more likely to succeed today than it did back then. Kudos to Microsoft though, boldly going where someone else did 15 years ago.
Just from reading the article, there seems to be a few rough spots. It keeps a running tally of stuff you put in your cart, and these items can more easily be payed for, but there's still the necessity of bagging those items. Additionally, they will target ads similarly to the way Google data mines emails. Doesn't seem too invasive... until you're walking down the aisle with the condoms.
staring blankly at the telescreens because they can't stand for three damn minutes to be alone with their thoughts while their tank fills.
OK mr smarty pants. So superior that you can't understand basic human psychology. If you're standing there just filling a tank and some noise and animation suddenly happens, it's human instinct for it to grab our attention. Our dimwit ancestors for whom motion and sound DIDN'T capture their attention, all got eaten out of the gene pool. Get it? We're genetically trained to notice motion and sound as it helps self preservation.
You're saying people should stand there and purposely "fight it". ("I will not look, I will not look....")
If it bothers people that much, they'll go to the next closest station that doesn't have them. Or they'll shop based on gas prices, not whether there's an LCD screen above the pumps. Maybe the problem isn't that people are inclined to stare at the screen rather than the cigarette butt and dirt covered cement floor, but that people like YOU are so damn intolerant.
That's why staples like milk and eggs are always at the very back of the store. The more time they make you spend walking the aisles the more impulse buys you will make.
Helping people shop more efficiently isn't a problem the store actually wants to solve. If they did, you would see detailed directories posted prominently at the front of the store. Every store has such a directory but it's usually well hidden (a set of laminated cards chained to the shelf at the rear of aisle 8 in my local supermarket).
... all the hobos living under the freeway on-ramp will be pleased.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?"
"Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and on shopping carts, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree."
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Put in what you want to buy on the web site, then the cart display shows WHERE the item actually is located in the store. One thing that sucks about the big box stores is finding everything. This would rock, if it was truly a map and not some etherial voice "Take 5 steps ahead, turn right, take 10 steps..."
Even better use the "Right Turns Only" mapping software that UPS (or FedEx?) uses to plot the best path to follow to obtain all your items.
When I first read this, I thought I saw:
"Microsoft will Steam Ads to Shopping Carts"
WoooWooo!
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
This idea is so not new. We're talking like 1990's and it never really took off.
First of all, if it annoys you, drape a jacket over it. End of problem.
But putting on my business cap now: If they want this to work, they need to provide a TOOL, a service as part of the hardware that delivers ads. If you make it something people would want to USE as part of their shopping... something that HELPS with their shopping, then they'll also tolerate advertising.
So just rough unpolished ideas:
Things like a built in scanner that adds up the groceries as you go. Let the shopper scroll through the list, see the total, and then offer them deals or price comparison.
Let them sort through pricing.
Let them key in products and have the tool provide the aisle # and general location to find it.
Let them look up caloric information.
Suggest product and food combinations that work well together. ie: "Suggest a side dish that goes well with salmon"
Then, why is the milk and ice up front in Wal-mart? Of ALL stores you think Wal-mart would have that shit in the back.
Here's a hint. The milk and stuff are in the back because using the front of a store as a loading dock would block customers from getting in.
Sheesh is there nothing you people don't think is a conspiracy?