Waiting For Smart Carts
Amazon is focussing on entirely automated stores where customers can walk in, pick up items and walk out to pay later through their Amazon Pay accounts, but other retailers are yet to catch up. Of course, there are self-service checkout machines in many places, but you may still end up in a queue if it is a busy store with too few payment points. Another alternative is to make shopping carts smart enough to scan and check out items. But that Holy Grail of retail has not been achieved yet although the quest for such a product has been on for well over 15 years.
It started in 2002 when the US-based supermarket chain Safeway demonstrated a computerised sales vehicle that tracked where a shopper was within the store and what he/she was doing. Suggestions and discounts also popped up on a book-sized computer in the cart. But soon there were worries that the system could lead to a preferential treatment where some shoppers would get more discounts than others. Also, privacy was a concern as marketers could access a lot of information.
A year later, IBM showcased a smart cart at its Industrial Solutions Lab in New York. The idea was to make shopping more efficient and profitable. The cart included Veggie Vision, a scale to weigh items, and Everything Display, an interactive screen that displayed the shopper's list. It came at a time when touchscreens were rare and credit card swiping seemed a hi-tech exercise. But even then, the cart managed to speak to the customer. "You just want to get a piece of fish and the makings of a salad, but your shopping cart keeps talking to you," wrote an Associated Press journalist. The idea was, and still is, to come up with recommendations so that customers buy more.
Fast forward to recent times and we find robot-assisted shopping carts guiding people to relevant products. WalMart patented one last year that looked like there was a Roomba beneath the shopping cart which was driving it around. Texas-based Chaotic Moon also came up with a smart cart that followed a shopper around and called out recommendations and discounts. But it travelled at an alarming pace and one had to get out of its way. The EU's Grocer project used touchscreens and guided shoppers to what they wanted via the shortest route.
Finally, there is Caper's V1 that comes with a cartload of sensors. Shoppers can toss in everything they want, and the barcodes of the items will be scanned and tallied. It also doubles up as the cashier as you can pay on the cart with a credit card or Apple/Android Pay, and the receipt will be e-mailed to you. But there is more. As per a TechCrunch report, sections of its two pilot stores have done away with the scans. Instead, cart cameras are using image recognition and a weight sensor to identify what you have shopped. It can promote deals on nearby/related items and plans to come up with recommendations based on what is in the cart, thus driving shoppers to buy more. If all these take off in a big way, cashiers and shop assistants could be on their way out but augmented shopping will undoubtedly be the way ahead for customers and retailers.
Meteoric Mizzle
With technology rapidly taking over our lives, you would expect to find a 'tech copy' or 'tech-improved' version of almost everything, right from chatbots to recreated artworks. But do we really need an artificial meteor shower, a breathtakingly beautiful celestial happening? Whether you like it or not, Japanese company Astro Live Experiences (ALE) has sent up a rocket to execute that feat for sheer entertainment.
To many, Sky Canvas, as the rain of meteors is called, is a bizarre idea. ALE, however, describes it as the world's first artificial shooting star project that aims to bring people together from all over the world to witness an unprecedented sight. "We aim to produce artificial shooting stars by projecting particles, made out of special materials, from orbiting micro-satellites," the company's website says. "When the particles re-enter the earth's atmosphere, they burn through a process known as plasma emission, creating the appearance of shooting stars on the ground. The particles burn with sufficient brightness to be visible by people in an area up to 200 km in diameter."
The on-demand meteoric shower is not all fun, though. There is a scientific interest as well. By studying the path of artificial shooting stars where the angle of incidence, velocity and materials are known, the company hopes to provide a better understanding of the mechanics of naturally occurring shooting stars and meteorites.
