What's Wrong With America's 'Elites'?
1 hour ago
Commentary on the intersection of technology, society, politics, higher ed, and value creation
Each new "Shopping Buddy" cart mounts a wireless, touch-screen IBM computer, equipped with a laser scanner to allow shoppers to scan items as they place them in the cart. Among other features, the computer will alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions. Stop & Shop says the intelligent carts will be in 23 of its stores by April.
Supported by IBM's Store Integration Framework software, the Cart Companion software from Cuesol, an IBM Business Partner, enables a grocery shopper to have a personalized shopping assistant on his or her cart, and gives the shopper such features as:
-- The shopper's buying history and favorites, as well as the shopping list that could have been created at home and emailed to the store;
-- Notification of favorite items or other promotional items that are on sale, as the shopper approaches those items in the aisle;
-- Personalized offers, including coupons, in the aisle as the shopper approaches an item;
-- The ability to place a deli order from the cart, then picking up the order when the deli counter notifies the shopper on the cart's computer that it is ready;
-- The ability to locate particular items in the store
-- The shopper's loyalty program points and reward level;
-- Price checks through use of the personal shopping assistant's scanner;
-- The ability to keep a running total of items in the cart by scanning each item. The Shopping Buddy also shows total savings and allows for rapid self-checkout at the end of the shopping trip.
-- The ability to show promotional material and advertisements on the cart.
-- Stop & Shop also uses IBM Self Checkout systems to enable the self-checkout feature of the new Shopping Buddy once shoppers have completed their cart-based self-scan.
The latest gambit from the folks at Google: proving that their software can find documents on your Windows computer faster than Windows itself can. The new Google Desktop, a free downloadable program, applies Google’s indexing technology to your hard drive, drastically speeding up keyword searches of files such as Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents, Outlook e-mail messages, AOL Instant Messenger conversations, and Web pages you’ve viewed.
Howies clothing company is the brainchild of an ex-advertising creative and his wife. A business where the main motive is the communication of values, rather than making money. Howies make clothing for the extreme sports crowd and have adopted an approach similar to Patagonia: they use organic cotton wherever possible, they give 1% back to environmental and social causes and they have a highly readable catalog.
Democrat & Chronicle:: "Eastman Kodak Co. will return to U.S. District Court next week to seek $1 billion in damages from Sun Microsystems Inc. now that a federal jury has ruled in its favor in a dispute over the Java computer language."
Why do I call these young computer enthusiasts and organizational activists 'digital natives'? Think about the extraordinary cumulative digital experiences of each of these future leaders: an average of close to 10,000 hours playing video games; more than 200,000 e-mails and instant messages sent and received; nearly 10,000 hours of talking, playing games, and using data on cell phones; more than 20,000 hours spent watching television; almost 500,000 commercials seen--all before they finished college. At most, they've logged only 5,000 hours of book reading.