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Wireless Networking Privacy Hardware

Shopping Carts Go Wi-Fi 246

Posted by michael from the cleanup-in-aisle-4 dept.
agentk writes "The Boston Globe reports today that area supermarket Stop & Shop is adding computers with Bluetooth barcode scanners, 802.11 networking and infrared positional sensors to shopping carts in one of its stores. 'The Shopping Buddy automatically displays which aisle you're in, what's on sale there, and what you bought the last time you strolled through.' Most Stop & Shop stores already have automated self-checkout lanes. Is this the future of shopping? What will the impact be on privacy, the cash economy, and the experience of shopping in general?"
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Shopping Carts Go Wi-Fi More

Shopping Carts Go Wi-Fi

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  • The real "danger" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:25PM (#7248801)
    Is when they start dynamically altering prices second to second based on your past purchases, and those of other consumers recently. I wouldn't be surprised if laws are passed saying stores aren't allowed to customize prices.

    • OK, they don't directly change the prices now. But there are so many ways that stores change the price you pay - frequent shopper cards, manufacturer's coupons, sales, those "Catalina" printables at the register that print out coupons based on what you buy - that consumers pay many different amounts for the same items.

      Personally, that's fine with me, as I've gotten pretty good at working coupons and sales

    • They already do something similar now. A friend of mine who's hispanic was at Rainbow Foods in Minneapolis and noticed in the Hispanic foods isle that a container of Nestle Quik chocolate powder (labeled in spanish) cost a whole dollar more than the english version (which was exactly the same except with an english label) which was located a few isles down. Obviously they never intended someone to notice, or be able to do anything about it (as the people who would most likely buy the spanish version proba
    • You mean they might want to treat it like a real "Market".... real time updated prices based on the ebb and flow of supply and demand?

      You know this already happens right? It's just that it's not cost effective to update the prices more than once a day. Every day I go into the store the prices have changed... whether they are on sale or the demand is high or whatever... every day the prices change.

  • BYOC (Score:3, Funny)

    by Phosphor3k ( 542747 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:25PM (#7248806)
    *equips tin-foil hat*

    Bring Your Own Cart.

  • stop the unions, please (Score:5, Insightful)

    by havaloc ( 50551 ) * on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:26PM (#7248809) Homepage
    Did you see what the unions had to say about this technology? I'm sick and tired of the whining that 'It'll take away jobs.' I know I'd go to a store that has such a useful technology. I hate waiting in a checkout line so a union checker can check me out. I want to scan my items as I shop so I can leave quickly. Sure, self-checkout is ok, but this is even better.
    • I'm curious what jobs this shopping buddy is going to take away. Have you ever tried asking one of the Stop and Shop employees where something is? If you're lucky, you'll get one who actually speaks English, but even then they're typically not too helpful.

      I can see the point about losing cashiers to self-serve checkouts, but I know a number of people who don't use those things just because of the annoyance factor (why does the volume have to be cranked? Does anyone else get accused of shoplifting half the
      • There are completely automated grocery stores in Switzerland. I've never tried one though. I would guess there are such stores in some other countries too.

        Another interesting question is what can be considered "near future". If it's 2-3 years, then you are right. If it's 5-10 years, then you are wrong. :) As simple as that. Brain might be crazy talking about robots taking away all jobs, but he have a point. A lot of things can be automated and they will be, trade unions or not.
        • Well, there we go, guess I was wrong. I still question whether such a thing would really take off in the US, though. I mean, we can't even decide on one language to speak anymore (won't get into that right now :-P), in this age of make-this-user-friendly-or-we'll-sue-you I don't think we're going to see fully-automated supermarkets until this aspect of our society passes.

          I'm still waiting on my personal jetpack...
    • "Weiner said the use of Shopping Buddies and self-checkout counters won't cost any jobs. For one thing, she said, Stop & Shop will always have some people ringing up purchases. "We're not looking to replace cashiers because it would eliminate part of the personality of our stores," said Weiner. For another, there's plenty of other work to be done in running a supermarket -- stocking shelves, cutting salami, sweeping up. Weiner said the displaced cashiers will be moved to these other tasks."
      I agree on t
      • I doubt that would ever happen. Replacing people with automata will put those people out of a job, not just in supermarkets but also at fast food places and at other equally simple service jobs. They certainly won't be moved to other tasks because those tasks either are already being fulfilled or also being phased out. The bottom line counts when you have to compete on price and keep shareholders happy.

    • I want to scan my items as I shop so I can leave quickly.

      You must have much better luck than I have. Items that don't scan take 3x as long when you have to wait for the self-service aid to clear the screen and do a hand entry of the price.. the joy of waiting on the two old twats who just can't seem to figure out how to scan their items.. and don't get me started on the frequently malconfigured "weight checking" bagging section, that stupid "incorrect item in basket area" line reminds me of clippy.

      If yo

      • I usually avoid the self checkouts. I feel kind of stupid, since I'm young and work in IT, I'm supposed to love cool technology. But I also use coupons, and it never fails that at least one of my coupons won't scan, prompting me to have to summon someone over to fix it. Usually winds up killing any extra time I would have saved over waiting in line. I would rather just deal with a person in the first place.


    • What I fail to understand--the self-checkout lines save, what, $8/hour in labor? Maybe add 50% for benefits etc--so they save $12/hour.

      Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me that a given store doesn't lose more than $12 in that same hour from customers "forgetting" to scan an item? I would think the shrink in these stores would go way up, and erode any of the savings acquired from reducing staff. But maybe that's just me and my black heart.
      • Disclaimer - I am in retail, but not grocery.

        Part of most self-check systems is a large scale for the bag well (the place where the grocery bags are) and a connection to a database that correlates UPC/SKU to item weight. The self-check register keeps tabs on what the combined weight of the currently rung items should be, and makes sure that it matches within an error threshold what the scale is reporting.

        Oh yeah, a lot of stores also have one cashier monitoring 4-8 self check lanes.

        You should give more c
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I'm sick and tired of the whining that 'It'll take away jobs.'

      Please post again when it's your job that has been automated away -- as eventually the vast majority will be -- and you find it difficult to find a new one because production has become so damn efficient that only a tiny percentage of the population actually needs to work anymore, and yet the word "welfare" is still considered a dirty word.

      It's a fact that one day most people will be technologically unemployed by robotics, AI, molecular manuf

      • I'm with you, man. I work in a Boston area supermarket right now (I'm an out of work IT guy, outsourced to India etc.) I've seen my real job get shipped overseas, positions I've applied for get filled by H1B's, now I'm going to see my "put food on the table for now" job get taken away by a machine? These stupid fucks that tell people to quit whining when jobs get sent overseas, or quit whining when jobs get replaced by machines, have never even come close to either happening to them. Maybe when they st
      • If a job can be automated away, then it should be. It's a waste of a human being to use them in a mundane role that could be filled with a machine.

        Take my profession for example, acting. What do I contribute to society? Not much. If a computer could do as good a job of acting as I could (and it will, soon) then that's a job that a human should not be doing.

        If the lack of jobs assembling cars on the line in Detroit causes even a handful of people to become professors and work at Wayne State U, then that's
        • If a job can be automated away, then it should be. It's a waste of a human being to use them in a mundane role that could be filled with a machine.

          And I'm sure they can always find jobs at the Soylent Green factory.

      • lease post again when it's your job that has been automated away

        It's unskilled labor, and no one said any of those people had to take jobs that anyone (and obviously even a computer) can do. Get a different unskilled labor job. Next you'll tell me how vending machines are evil because they destroyed the corner drugstore.

        Go to school, get a loan or grant or scholarship and go to college, and stop crying to me because you're not intelligent enough or too lazy to have a job that requires skill.

      • "It's a fact that one day most people will be technologically unemployed by robotics, AI, molecular manufacturing, etc."

        No, it will simply be cheaper for technologically advanced societies to more efficiently farm work out to the vast majority of people living in poverty that don't have a choice. We have machines today, called humans, and they work for damn cheap (elsewhere). The utopic aspect of technology is way overblow (why build a robot when all you need is a gun).
    • Yeah, screw it. I won't be happy until we're all unemployed. I just can't stomach the idea of paying people to live 50% below the poverty line. Let's just get it over with and fire them all so they can just die already and we can get on with spending 45 minutes at the self-scan machine to pay for a box of chiclets. Now, that's what I call progress.
    • I hate waiting in a checkout line so a union checker can check me out. I want to scan my items as I shop so I can leave quickly. Sure, self-checkout is ok, but this is even better.

      In addition, legions of first-time, hormone-raging teenage boys will be able to buy condoms without the requisite embarassing encounter at the checkout booth.

      (Not to mention doting husbands buying items for 'feminine protection' for their wives.)

  • We've heard this before (Score:4, Funny)

    by diatonic ( 318560 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:28PM (#7248816) Homepage
    Shoppers could steal the Shopping Buddies, but there wouldn't be much point. The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else.

    We've heard that before... given a few weeks I'm sure some pimply 16 year old in the netherlands could have a linux kernel on it, using Mozilla to surf the web wirelessly.
    • All you need to do is sniff the network, wee what is going where. Lets see.... A zaurus with a wireless card with ethereal and nmap. It can't be too hard since there has to be some feedback for trouble shooting the device. It wouldn't be too hard to hack it if you knew what you were doing.
    • Shoppers could steal the Shopping Buddies, but there wouldn't be much point.

      There isn't much point in stealing a common, ordinary cart either...but the stream that flows through my neighborhood greenspace is full of them.

      rj

      • There isn't much point in stealing a common, ordinary cart either.

        What about using a shopping Cart as a Percussion Instrument? I've only actually used a shopping cart once, and I didn't actually find it in a store. I was participating with a band at the time and there happened to be a shopping cart a couple blocks away from the venue. I had intedned to destroy the shopping cart by the end of the show but those darn things are pretty strong. I was able to do hardly any dammage with a crowbar, and could o
  • What will the impact be on privacy, the cash economy, and the experience of shopping in general?

    If you bring a big canvas bag to throw your stuff in, probably nothing for you.

  • I guess... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slasher999 ( 513533 )
    ...Bluetooth isn't dead [slashdot.org] after all.

  • Human Contact (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phritz ( 623753 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:31PM (#7248828)
    It occurred to me, as I was reading this article, that in the Shopping Experience of the Future(TM), we're moving increasingly towards a society where we don't have to interact with any other people. In this new model, you can go to the store and don't need to talk to a cashier or the nice man at the butcher counter.

    Does anyone else agree? Thanks to amazon.com and stop & shop, I can now make all of my purchases without talking to another human being ... That seems significant, somehow, although I'm not exactly sure what it means ...

    • For geeks like us, this is just great, fun stuff, but for some this is more of a problem. Escpecially the elderly like to have some kind of interaction. They feel more at ease talking to a human being rather than just a machine. This may be a technology for the future, but at present we must still have "the old" way available for those not comfortable using computers.
      • This may be a technology for the future, but at present we must still have "the old" way available for those not comfortable using computers.

        If they're willing to go somewhere else and pay the premium for human interaction, I'm sure that some places will remain around that do it the "old way". If not, thats too damn bad.

    • It's a good point. Take the deli counter for example. I would imagine that part of the job satisfaction is being able to interact with people and help fulfill their consumer needs. Same for checkers as opposed to floor-sweepers. Human interaction is natural for us and I think that dehumanizing jobs will have unfortunate side effects.

      That being said, I love new technology and think that this kind of wireless shopping can be convenient and more fun.

      *sigh*...so many factors to consider

    • Where will all those put out of work by such systems work? How will they earn a living?

      I am currious what everyone on /. thinks about this.
      • The same questions were raised when the first machines for processing cotton and producing textiles were introduced. Guess what? Those people somehow survived and didn't all end up in the streets.

        The same type of question is brought up everytime there is a new technology that will replace workers; rarely does it have the effect that everyone claims it will.
    • we're moving increasingly towards a society where we don't have to interact with any other people.

      God forbid we might have more time to spend with our families and friends.

      Erik
    • You're correct for the most part. There are very few retail experiences that require human interaction. Probably the best example of a retail store that still requires a good deal of human interaction is a hardware store. Whether it's a replacement part for a toilet, choosing the proper nut or bolt, or matching some paint colors, the shopper depends on one-to-one interaction with an intelligent human being.

      Unfortunately, consumers in many areas chose big box [big-box.com] stores over local hardware stores and now th
    • It means I wont have to deal with other people's inteptitude. The reason so many lines are so long as these damn stores is because the person is a unionized worker, who doesnt give a shit since s/he is still making their 18.50 an hour whether you're happy or not.

      In this case, look at the choices...

      1: Deal with long line, slow cashier that either ignores you, or yaps endlessly about her long boring day.

      or 2: Just put the items in your cart and go.

      It really isnt any choice at all. If you want to interact

    • Re:Human Contact (Score:3, Insightful)

      by majcher ( 26219 )
      we're moving increasingly towards a society where we don't have to interact with any other people.

      Thank god. I fucking hate those guys.
    • IS it inronic that you post that to /.?
      I mean, you could be at a clucg with living beings talking to them, but instaed you choose a means that has no direct human interaction.

      To answer your question, it means shopping would be quicker, so you could work more.

      I mean, in a fair world, if I wwrite a program that does my 40 hours of work in 20, shouldn't I get 20 more hours for myself and family?
    • we're moving increasingly towards a society where we don't have to interact with any other people. In this new model, you can go to the store and don't need to talk to a cashier or the nice man at the butcher counter.

      Who talks to the checkout clerk anyway?

    • It occurred to me, as I was reading this article, that in the Shopping Experience of the Future(TM), we're moving increasingly towards a society where we don't have to interact with any other people.

      No, we're moving towards a society where we don't have to have mundane interactions with people. I'm all for that.

    • Ya know... way back in the olden days when people hunted their own meat and gathered their own fruit and reaped their own grain, etc... going 'shopping for groceries' was a solitary or at most family sized task.

      Instead of using shopping as an excuse to meet people why don't you instead go some place where people specifically gather to meet each other? I'm thinking of restaurants, coffee shops, bars, clubs, parks, sporting events, etc. anything more focused on entertainment and enjoyment than on survival an

  • wallmart super centers NEEDS this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JVert ( 578547 ) <corganbilly@hotmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:33PM (#7248834) Journal
    I went down to one in vegas, and even though they had a blue shirt patrolling every other isle it gets boring asking them were every little thing is. The store is way to big to just LOOK for what you want. I was figuring interactive "you are here" maps in terminals on the pillars where the phones are. Nothing difficult about that at all. In fact the more I think of it they should really test the waters with kiosk type maps before pumping money into "smartcarts", if those things arn't perfect in implementation people will get no use from them at all.
    • What I think would solve all of this would be a paper map on the cart with a listing under it of where everything is located. Some stores put this on the back of where the little kid seat is in the cart. Other stores use this for ad space. I think this makes it so simple to tell what is where, Looking for SPAM? Canned meats... aisle 5, quick look at the map and you're there. No typing, no computer needed.

      People love to over-complicate the solution to simple problems.

      • If you've ever shoppped at IKEA [ikea.com] then you've had to pretty much walk through their entire store because they have a path you follow and you get to see everything they have. There are shortcuts but most people just follow the path that's been laid out for them. Once a shop lures you in there's no benefit at all making it easy for you to find what you came to buy. Milk & bread all the way at the back of the store, kiddie stuff at the kiddie eye & grasp level. They got us figured out.

  • An interesting tradeoff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by indros13 ( 531405 ) * on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:35PM (#7248845) Homepage Journal
    By allowing people to scan their own stuff, I would guess that they are risking more theft. The article says that, "Stop & Shop is counting on random spot checks and video surveillance cameras to deter shoplifting." However, there's no equal efficiency replacement for the checker seeing that your cart is empty.

    Another thing, I don't know if I would want to be reminded what I bought the last time I passed this section of the aisle. Rarely am I shopping for the same thing two weeks in a row or even two months in a row. Do I really want it to beep every time I pass an item I have purchased once?

    Finally, please note that they have issued a challenge to you Linux folk: "The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else." Wanna bet?

    • Is this before or after you pay for the items? Isn't it true that, one you pay for the items, they are unable to search them?

      Just like at China-Mart, If you walk thru the sensormatic and it goes off, you do not have to stop. If you do stop, and they ask to check your bags all you have to do is say no and they will let you go.
    • Finally, please note that they have issued a challenge to you Linux folk: "The custom-built devices can't run ordinary computer software; they're good for shopping and nothing else." Wanna bet?

      I bet NetBSD could already run on it. ;)

  • Call me a Luddite, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:40PM (#7248866) Journal
    I do not like more automated shopping experiences.

    I do not like the self-checkout aisles, which cannot deal with even trivial deviations from what they expect (You want to buy a single, unmarked apple? Sound the klaxon! We have a troublemaker in self-checkout lane 2!). I do not like always paying with a credit card, or needing to carry a stack of $20's to go shopping (for a $0.50 candy bar? Pah!).

    So, call me a Luddite, but I will not use these new carts. If I need to bring my own handbasket to avoid using them, I will. I will do my best to shut off every device I pass that blinks or beeps at me and then spits out a coupon (roughly a 90% success rate so far, they always make it too easy to remove the batteries). I will gather my groceries, and proceed to a human cashier to pay for my purchases. In the event that the store has no human cashiers on a register, I will simply leave my basked of frozen food on an unattended register, and leave.
    • Well your stores have different equipment than mine then. Ours take change, bills, or plastic. Individual produce items are easy to check out. None of your objections, in fact, seem to apply.

      That said, I won't use them until they give me a 2% discount for doing the work for them.
    • Several local grocery stores have self-checkout lanes. I tried them a few times and was disappointed. Now I look for the lane that still has a human cashier. The cashier, who does this job for 8 hours a day, is much faster at scanning, ringing up produce, bagging and completing the order. Plus, it's a human being, not some Rube Goldberg contraption from Hell.
    • Most of the chain stores around here (Kroger, Wal-Mart, Meijer) have about 8 self check out lanes, and then their usual compliment of 30 or so 'people' lanes.

      As a customer, I'm all for choices. Especially when you run across the situation where you know if you go into a 'people' lane it's going be a hassle. Here in Ohio, it seems that only people over 21 can scan booze. So on a typical Friday night here, you have 10 checkout lanes staffed by minors all yelling 'NEED A SCAN PLEASE', with one assistant mana

    • You're an asshole.

      It is one thing to make a decsion not to use coupons provided for you, for something you are goint to purchase, it is another to make it so the next person can't.

      I like them. Go in to get something, and then get a discount. bonus.

      Of course, if you are so weak willed as to let a piece of paper to offend you, or perhaps they 'make' you by something you don't want?
      to sum up:
      you're an asshole.
      • it is another to make it so the next person can't.

        I resent advertising in all forms. Small blinking boxes that spit coupons at me do nothing more than advertise a product to me, and to everyone else passing by.

        At that point, they already have me in the store. I already know what I intend to buy. I do not buy what I do not intend to.

        So you would accuse me of having so weak a will that I must disable such ad-dispensers to prevent my giving in to their temptation? No. Quite the opposite. I have no p
    • I do not like the self-checkout aisles, which cannot deal with even trivial deviations from what they expect

      Sounds like you dislike poor implementations of self-checkout, as do I.

      I tried the one at Home Depot, thinking it would be easier since there were no unmarked apples, etc. All was well until I tried to checkout a 10' copper pipe. I scanned the barcode, but it wouldn't let me proceed to the next item until I had placed the pipe on the 'completed items pad'. I was apparently supposed to balance th

  • It was a nice idea, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:42PM (#7248880) Homepage
    If I look out my window I can see a pyramid of shopping carts 4x5x3 (assembled in a crazy patton to connect the security chains and get the &#163;1 deposit back) collected by my fellow students from under the nose of supermarket security people.

    Now, imagine if said trolles were a cheap source of WiFi parts as well, ideal for putting in your own projects...

    Just need some tin foil to stop them being locatable, and somewhere good to stash the carts after you have removed the WiFi kit - such as the center of your student halls of residence.

  • privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JamesCronus ( 592398 )
    there is nothing different about shopping with this new system then shopping without it. they already can see what you buy (unless you decide not to use the checkout and make a run for it, actually then they'd definatly know what it was you took) , and as for tracking around the store, ever hear of CCTV?

  • Can I... (Score:3, Funny)

    by llamaluvr ( 575102 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:45PM (#7248893) Journal
    Log onto the wireless network and search the web for competitors' prices?

  • Tried in the 80s (Score:5, Informative)

    by demaria ( 122790 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @01:47PM (#7248904) Homepage
    This was tried in the late 80s. A chain on long island (Pathmark) installed a grayscale LCD screen on every cart. It communicated wirelessly as well. You could see a store map, your location on the map, search for an item's location, and see aisle specials of the week.

    Didn't last more than a few months. I'm guessing it didn't benefit frequent shoppers too much. Maybe it'll work better today.
  • NOT! This was tried over ten years ago by an outfit in Chicago called Videocart. It was a spectacular failure. Well, I guess we'll see if anyone learned anything since then.
  • Would the carts also recommend healthy foods over other less desirable categories of foods? Kind of like a built-in dietician?

  • Charleton Heston Says Spin (Score:3, Funny)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @02:09PM (#7248996)
    But Weiner said the use of Shopping Buddies and self-checkout counters won't cost any jobs....... there's plenty of other work to be done in running a supermarket -- stocking shelves, cutting salami, sweeping up. Weiner said the displaced cashiers will be moved to these other tasks.

    One employee task that comes to mind is a big row of bicycles (a'la the movie, Soylent Green) that would run the generators producing electricity for the freezers. Employees would enjoy fitness and a paycheck ;)

  • I don't see a privacy concern... (Score:3)

    by iiioxx ( 610652 ) <iiioxx@gmail.com> on Saturday October 18, 2003 @02:11PM (#7249003)
    As long as the means to track your purchases is based on some non-personal identifier (such as a customer number on a store card). The "preferred shopper" cards that most supermarkets currently issue don't really care *who* you are, as much as *what* you are. Are you a 20-something single black female, or a 50-something married white male? The personal information (name, address, etc) is only useful for mailing out coupons and such, and most supermarkets don't market by direct mail, they use circular publications. I don't have a shopping card myself, but my wife has three or four of the things. In every case, she just filled out a little piece of paper with statistical information, and they gave her a card. They didn't check her ID or anything, so if you don't want them to know who you *really* are, just use a fake name and address.

    So as long as I get an anonymous shopping card, who cares if the store wants to track purchasing trends, if it's going to make the shopping experience better (and I loath supermarkets - mainly because I can never find what I'm looking for without having to traverse half the store)?

    The only issue I would have is if the store wants to keep my credit card info on file for some sort of "EZ Pay" system. No, thanks. I don't care if they know that some anonymous, 30 year-old, married, white male buys frozen lasagna and canned corn and mostly shops after 8pm on week nights, but I'm keeping my account numbers in my wallet. They can have their little wireless computer tell the automated checkout machine how much I owe, and then prompt me to swipe my card and enter my PIN, or feed cash into a bill scanner (for the ultimate in anonymity). As long as the anonymous purchasing information is kept separate from the personalized financial information, I fail to see a privacy issue with this concept.

    • The "preferred shopper" cards that most supermarkets currently issue don't really care *who* you are, as much as *what* you are.

      True. My local grocery chain recently installed new POS equiptment that prints Thank you "insert name of customer." Only then did I realize that the name on it was not mine, but rather the Dutch foreign exchange student who had been one of my roomates 3 years ago. Must have accidently switched cards somehow, and it never really mattered. Though it is impressive that he's sa

    • So as long as I get an anonymous shopping card, who cares if the store wants to track purchasing trends, if it's going to make the shopping experience better (and I loath supermarkets - mainly because I can never find what I'm looking for without having to traverse half the store)?

      Customers who purchased Crispy Chips also purchased: Creamy Brand Dip, Zesty Salsa.

      70% of customers who purchased Crispy Chips say they didn't like them.

      50% of cutomers who didn't like Crispy Chips say they like Crunchy Bran

  • this combined with rfid tags could be used for supermarkets to charge each individual person a different price for items based on a profile of the person indicating how much money they have. pure evil.
    • Just to reiterate from the last RFID binge.... what you're saying would only work on a person one or two times. As soon as they found out that they had been gouged they would a) sue in small claims for descrimination and unfair practices or b) never shop at that store again and take their business elsewhere.

      Not very insightful... just kind of cliche.

  • I couldn't care less about the "The experience of shopping". I welcome any invention that will shorten the time for me to actually get the stuff I'm after.

  • Hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by starseeker ( 141897 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @02:25PM (#7249112) Homepage
    This could be cool. What I want my cart to do is:

    1) let me enter a search for an item and then tell me where it is in the store. Something more flexible than "punch button of product name"

    2) let me upload a shopping list to the cart via USB keychain, and use feature one to give me the most efficient order in which to get the items (or close to it anyway - it might be an NP complete problem to get the most efficient route)

    3) Scan the item as it goes into the cart, check it off the list, and keep a running total. Also, take item off the list if I take it out of the cart. Perfect for budget shopping, and the cart keeps track of what's in it without me having to dig through it.

    All of these should be possible with current tech. Places like Sam's club should check it out.

    Keep the adds to a minimum, preferably none unless the buyer opts to see specials, and no pay on cart option. That would involve wireless transmission of the credit card info, and require encryption. Plus, a person should validate the findings of the cart - this would be a convenience thing for customers as they shop, NOT a replacement for the cashier. Taking away jobs aside (that's seldom a valid reason to avoid a technology) someone would find a way to defeat the system.

    And for goodness sake get Linux or *BSD on the things! I don't want Microsoft handling my grocery info! Imagine a blue screen destroying your shipping list 2/3 of the way through a big shopping day.
    • "Keep the adds to a minimum, preferably none unless the buyer opts to see specials, and no pay on cart option. That would involve wireless transmission of the credit card info, and require encryption. "

      I'll tell you right now why you'll never be able to turn off the ads. The ads are how the supermarkets are going to pay for the new technology. People will pay good money for paid placement, and even if they were paying for the carts some other way, do you think they'd turn down an opportunity to make more


    • 2) let me upload a shopping list to the cart via USB keychain, and use feature one to give me the most efficient order in which to get the items (or close to it anyway - it might be an NP complete problem to get the most efficient route

      Right! And the list was generated by your fridge, which knew what you were out of, and better, the things that you were almost out of. And helped along by the recipe items that you need for a dish, generated by a site such as allrecipes.com [allrecipes.com]. That would indeed be cool.
  • The rugged Shopping Buddy computers are manufactured by Symbol Technologies Inc. of Holtsville, N.Y., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
  • My wife calls me from the store: "Honey, why is the shopping cart telling me 'The last time you were here, you bought condoms!'? I don't remember buying condoms... and besides, I'm on the pill!"

  • My local supermarket beta tested this years ago. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gldm ( 600518 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @05:18PM (#7250059)
    It failed miserably. The system was called smart cart or smart shop or something lame like that. They had little 9" black and white LCD screens on the carts and heavy ass lead acid batteries in the bottom. The screens had infrared sensors and there were transmitters hanging above the isles that'd beam updated data as you walked down then. Lots of blurry little animations and stuff. I never found it useful.

    The reason the program failed is because the local kids smashed them all for the fun of it. It doesn't matter that the hardware won't run anything useful, people like to break stuff. A steel shopping cart in itself isn't that fun, but if it's got electronics on it to smash, it's alot more appealing to the bored and destructive.
  • What about the Kroger Plus Card, and the equivalent that every other store has? It allows your purchases to be tracked on a per-capita basis and material to be directly marketed to you. This is no more an invasion of privacy than the Kroger card.
  • I use Handyshopper for PalmOS: http://www.freewarepalm.com/database/handyshopper - english.shtml I keep track of the last price I paid for each item, and the aisle I found the item in. The only thing that would make life easier for me is if the shop would regularly publish a complete list of what items are in which aisles. Especially when they change their aisle layout every 6 months to "enhance the shopping experience" (ie: make you walk past everything again in order to con you into a few impulse purcha
  • I think it was around 94 or so that Kroger did this. It wasn't .xx, but each cart had a little greyscale screen and TONS of antenna's in the ceiling.

    As you went down aisles, you could see what was on sell around there, or you could use the cart to see where a certain item was. It was a little slow, but it worked...remember using it quite a bit as stuff is never where I'd expect it.

    The problem - after about a month, finding a cart that had a working screen was nigh impossible. Hopefully the new ones wil

  • Funny Colored Money Problems (Score:3, Informative)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @02:17PM (#7349663)
    "I wonder, in the future, will I be able to buy anything with our new funny colored cash dollars?"
  • I'm sure they want this technology in part because of the likelihood of a consumer using it incorrectly and buying 4 cans of beans but taking home only 1.

    A couple of those mistakes a day could make the margin for the store.

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