Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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shopping @ ease

shopping with electronic cart
 
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its a pushing trolley which you insert your ATM card and enter your PIN etc. So you just push it around in the shop and place your goodies in it, and it automatically does all the mathematics etc. using special bar-codes on the products you insert into the trolley. So there will be no more standing in queues.
mungaz, Dec 06 2002

Symbol's portable shopping system http://www.symbol.c...onsumer_pss_ls.html
The cart won't follow you around, and you have to manually scan the barcodes. [half, Oct 17 2004]

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       Have the bar code and card readers on the trolley? What a good idea. There are some issues about security and coms (which I'm sure you will address shortly) but, in principle, excellent thinking. Croissant.
DrBob, Dec 06 2002
  

       Symbol Technologies has for several years had a system that allows the shopper to pre-scan their items and automate the check-out process. Not sure how the purchase of produce by weight would be handled.
half, Dec 06 2002
  

       Weighed products could be dealt with by putting a barcode printer on the scales by the produce. Stick the printed label on the item and as it drops into your trolley, the item is scanned.
my face your, Dec 06 2002
  

       Largely Baked, as noted, but you still get to stand in line to pay.   

       A lot of trolley shops (supermarkets and discount stores) now allow you to check yourself out at the end, so it's probably only a matter of time before one of them puts the two technologies together.
Nick@Nite, Dec 06 2002
  

       A very similar system using a handheld barcode scanner has been on trial at a number of Safeway outlets in the UK for the last couple of years.
8th of 7, Dec 06 2002
  

       //but you still get to stand in line to pay//
Not if I remember correctly. As I recall from the Symbol pilot I saw, you swipe your credit card to release the scanner from it's charging bay at the beginning of the process. Then when you put it back in the at the end of the process it uploads your purchases and charges your account. Maybe this is just the way I thought it should be done.
  

       There was also some sort of qualification process in order to be a user of this technology. The users were also subject to random "audits" wherein the user would have to go through the normal checkout lane and have their scanning compared to the regular process.
half, Dec 06 2002
  
      
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