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As a kid, I always wanted to be on the TV show "Supermarket Sweep."
In the middle of a Lowe's store in 2017, my dream almost came true. The home improvement retailer is rolling out an augmented-reality app that tells you the fastest way to find items on your list.
It's powered by Google's Tango, an indoor-mapping technology using special cameras to sense depth in 3D space. Measure objects, map a room and see virtual objects in the real world with augmented reality.
With a phone in one hand and a shopping cart in the other, I'm rushing around the aisles pulling items off the shelf. On screen I see a yellow line overlaid on the camera image, navigating me to the next item on my list. There's an aisle and shelf number in case I get really confused, as well as an estimate step counter that tells me how far I have to go.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 19 2017, @08:49PM
It reads barcodes/QR codes and attempts to present information
Yeah the amazon app, at least on android, has the same feature, in the search bar there's a camera and you snap a pix of the bar code on your favorite simply snacking teriyaki beef jerky sitting on my desk thats $1.49 per stick at the regional employee owned food coop (no state sales tax on food either...) and amazon will ship me a box of 12 at $1.78/item plus $8.03 shipping for a grand total of WTF amazon lately your prices totally suck when a grocery store can crush you like that.
I guess the point is I'm home with the kids I need to pack them up and pack my stuff up and drive 10 minutes to the store with the kids and shop for 10 minutes and wait in line with the kids for 5 minutes and drive home and get back to work and by the time I'm done I've blown like an hour on a piece of beef jerky, but if I don't need it until tomorrow I could have it on my doorstep next day delivery for an extra buck or whatever it works out to, and I don't have much time off and what little I get is quite financially valuable to me, so ... maybe I should 1-click order another shipping crate of beef jerky. Not to mention the trip is probably $2 at least worth of gas and wear and tear on my car, and I'd be wasting my kids time not just mine.... suddenly 28 cents extra plus $8 of shipping is starting to look reasonable...
In my woodworking hobby I have made several late afternoon trips to home depot because I need one more piece of wood to finish a project that day. Or all I need is 3 more wood screws. So I know how that goes.
Something I don't like about brick and mortar retail is I can buy apparently poorly sand cast pot metal factory reject screws from home depot or the good ones made of actual steel from my local independent lumber yard supplier but the lumber hovel is only open something ridiculous like 9-5 M-F so I'm stuck with home depot or amazon often enough. Amazon's never closed and I do a lot of midnight engineering, so what can I order at 2am is a serious question some times.