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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.
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
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?"
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!
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.
I did the same thing that the GP did, and the only reason I know it was a Shell station is because I explicitly checked once the ads started so I'd know which gas stations to avoid in the future. I wouldn't have known it was Shell if they hadn't made me care.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
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
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Microsoft gives us an annoying shopping cart.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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?
I *always* sign up for those cards with false names and never fill in any of the other non-required data. I get the savings, they get the spending and buying habits of Mr. Han D'Jobbin, Dijrt Brown, Jack Mehup, etc. Everyone wins!