At first, it sounds like a scene from the future: a grocery cart tells you where to find a specific item in the store, alerts you when you place an item in your cart that’s not on your shopping list, and rings up your items before you ever get to a cashier.
But this scene could be happening any day now.
According to an article on Mashable.com, a shopping cart prototype powered by Microsoft Kinect, a voice and motion sensing device, and armed with a tablet and scanners is being developed.
This technology gives the ordinary chore of grocery shopping a futuristic makeover. The prototype uses a UPC scanner and RFID technology to scan items and check them off a shopping list that the shopper uploaded on the tablet.
The cart computes the total cost and allows the customer to immediately pay for the purchase, eliminating the need to wait in a line. The prototype cart is also motorized; so instead of a customer pushing the cart, it can follow a shopper around the store.
This out-of-the-box thinking is a perfect example of what the future of retail will look like. Retailers that implement this technology are catering to the customer’s needs by using gaming technology that the customer is already familiar with.
Source: Mashable, March 2012
