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Smart Self-Service Scales

Posted by kdawson on from the ready-for-my-closeup-mr.-demille dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "German researchers have developed intelligent self-service scales for supermarkets, able to recognize fruit or vegetables placed on them (photo). The scales automatically recognize the item being weighed and ask the customer to choose between only those icons that are relevant, such as various kinds of tomatoes. The scales are equipped with a camera and an image evaluation algorithm that compares the image of the item on the scale with images stored in its database. Store managers can add items to the database. The scales are now being tested in about 300 supermarkets across Europe."

6 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A great idea but bound to be executed badly by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    I tried the self scan in a Delhaize in Belgium ... when you go to pay the girl takes everything out of the bag and scans it again. I don't quite see how doing something twice works out faster.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Re:A great idea but bound to be executed badly by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    I saw one at woolworths here in Melbourne which crashed to a windows desktop. The staff got a bit upset when I started to play with it. It would have been interesting if there were any test or debugging tools floating around. Perhaps I could have "fixed" it for them.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  3. My girlfriend... by PotatoFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

    My girlfriend unwittingly leaned across one of these scales to reach a bag of apples, whereupon the screen started showing pictures of different kinds of melons. Fairly accurate, I'd say.

    --
    "Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." -- James Madison
  4. Melons? by RudeIota · · Score: 4, Funny

    My girlfriend unwittingly leaned across one of these scales to reach a bag of apples, whereupon the screen started showing pictures of different kinds of melons

    ... You never removed the bar code from your inflatable life partner? :\

    --
    Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
  5. Doomed to Fail by Bazman · · Score: 4, Funny

    My usual lunchtime shop has trouble reading BARCODES on half the stuff I buy. Swipe, nothing, swipe, nothing, swipe, nothing... Type in tiny number, beep. Yeah, that's time saving. And now I'm being told computers can tell the difference between tangerines and satsumas? Heck, I can't even do that!

    I call shenanigans. Either:

      * each vegetable has a secret RFID chip in it
    or
      * the picture is sent to some outsourced call centre where someone sits at a screen watching vegetables all day and clicking on what they are.

    1. Re:Doomed to Fail by slashname3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Amazingly I always get the cheaper one that is displayed. Don't you?