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Retail Stores Plan Elaborate Ways To Track You
Velcroman1 writes "Retailers are experimenting with a variety of new ways to track you, so that when you pick up a shirt, you might get a message about the matching shorts. Or pick up golf shoes at a sports store and you see a discount for a new set of clubs. New technologies like magnetic field detection, Bluetooth Low Energy, sonic pulses, and even transmissions from the in-store lights can tell when you enter a store, where you go, and how you shop. Just last year, tracking was only accurate within 100 feet. Starting this year, they can track within a few feet. ByteLight makes the lighting tech, which transmits a unique signal that the camera in your phone can read. The store can then track your location within about 3 feet — and it's already in use at the Museum of Science in Boston."
Yay, more hype and wank trying to whip up the /. crowd into a frenzy.
According to TFA (yeah, I read it, suck me) all the things listed here are features of a store-wide network that interfaces with an app on your smartphone. Yes, that's right, you have to manually add an app to your phone for these establishments in order for any of this 'tracking' to work. An app whose primary function is delivering ads and coupons to you.
Seriously, aren't things already bad enough with the whole NSA thing? Is fear mongering and just plain making shit up really necessary?
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