Cashierless Checkout is Finally Coming

Back in grad school I had a research project where I prototyped an easier way to shop inside a grocery store. 

While there have been plenty of improvements in e-commerce and online shopping over the years, going into a physical market to shop for items that go into our refrigerators is still arduous. 

For my research, I spent an uncomfortable amount of time in local grocery stores to document some of the pain points. My findings reinforced a simple truth – shopping in large supermarkets was unnecessarily inefficient.

For example, once customers add all necessary items to a shopping cart, they must endure long lines to checkout. This checkout process then requires emptying out all of the items in the shopping cart onto a conveyor belt, where a store clerk scans each item individually by hand. Typically an additional store clerk is required to refill the shopping cart once again. 

This process is not only slow, but physically grueling.

Clearly, there was a huge opportunity to make this process faster and less analog. It became apparent to me that a self-scanning system could reduce the repetitive lifting that customers would typically have to perform, not to mention the filling, emptying, and re-filling of a shopping cart.

Years before the first Amazon Go stores opened, my design for cashierless checkout was inspired by a single piece of technology that is abundant in many retail stores, but is almost never present in supermarkets: RFID tags.

The prototype I made would require supermarkets to outfit shopping carts with RFID readers, as well as digital displays to provide users with feedback on what they were adding to their physical carts. It was aimed at helping customers get in and out of the store in less time, while also limiting friction in the process and reducing customer frustration.

It’s incredibly rewarding to see that Amazon continued to build on this same concept to make the physical shopping experience smoother. 

More recently, Amazon has even announced that it’s expanding this experience, along with its own smart shopping carts, to Whole Foods locations next year. 

What was exciting about my concept, as well as Amazon’s iterations, is that cashierless shopping isn’t as revolutionary as it may seem. 

RFID and even QR codes are not new technologies. RFID tags are less than 1 mm thick and can be attached to all items. While bar codes require manual operation, RFID tags can wirelessly transmit data, so that collecting product information can happen within seconds.

Over the past year, fast fashion retailer Uniqlo has also released self-checkout machines using this same concept, which quickly reduced queue times in-store.

It just goes to show how a fresh perspective, and a new application for something already available, can dramatically reshape the most basic experiences.  

Microsoft Unveils Holographic Computer that Puts Google Glass to Shame

Google recently announced that it would stop selling one of its most infamous products--Glass. The often ridiculed smart glasses provided users with innovative technology, such as the ability to snap pictures by blinking or send emails using voice commands. For now, Google Glass may be regarded as a failure. However, Glass is arguably ahead of its time and may go down in history as a forebearer to some amazing personal technology.

One such successor to Google Glass might come from another large tech giant far from Silicon Valley. Microsoft just announced an even more powerful piece of headgear that promises to seamlessly blend digital and physical worlds together.Microsoft has been secretly working on its own augmented reality technology for years. While projects like RoomAlive have shown that the company is interested in experimenting with augmented reality, its newly announced HoloLens hints that the company is positioning itself to dominate the next great computing experience.

By incorporating holograms, Microsoft believes it can truly blend your digital life with your physical life in ways that haven’t yet been achieved. Demos just released by the software giant show a visor that allows users to touch, see, and manipulate images and data in the air without the need for keyboards, mice, or other hardware.

What’s interesting is that Microsoft seems to have learned from Google Glass’ mistakes. One of the biggest criticisms of Glass is that the technology made bystanders feel uncomfortable. People were always suspicious of what Glass users could be recording in public spaces. This problem was so bad that Google even had to outline proper social etiquette for Glass "Explorers," indicating just how troubling this technology was to society at large.For its HoloLens demos, Microsoft took a different approach, showing how the technology can be used in the home or the office. Users aren’t seen outside or in public. In fact, the headset itself is unapologetically large; it’s not trying to be a computer masquerading as a cool fashion accessory.

Unlike Google Glass, Microsoft’s HoloLens appears to be more conceptual at this point. It’s not clear on when it will be available or how much it will cost. But when it does get into the hands of consumers, Microsoft might be able to succeed where Google has failed.Take a look and the these incredible demos and get ready for "holograms" to be the next big buzzword in tech.

What Would Google Look Like with a Material Design Makeover?

Google’s gorgeous new Material Design has received a warm reception. The design language marks a new direction for the search giant’s products, giving the new Android 5.0 Lollipop OS in particular a more intuitive and beautiful interface.Material Design is largely composed of flat shapes and colors, but utilizes layers and animations that lend depth. According to Google’s design team, Material is “grounded in tactile reality, inspired by the study of paper and ink.” By basing it on the physical world, surfaces appear to be more tactile. User interface elements offer the illusion of height and dimensionality. For now, Material Design has been reserved for Android and Google’s own mobile apps. But Google is also encouraging app developers to embrace Material Design for their own creations. The initiative not only resulted in the most visually appealing version of Android to date, but it has also provided a more cohesive look to Google’s mobile apps. Already, we’ve seen Material Design adopted by a wide range of Google’s core apps, including Gmail, Maps, Calendar, and YouTube, to name a few.However, Material Design has yet to take over all Google properties, namely desktop properties like Google’s core end-user product, the search engine at Google.com. It’s this glaring absence that led graphic designer Aurélien Salomon to ponder what the Google search engine would look like if it too received the Material Design makeover, and his vision is stunningly beautiful. Utilizing the Material Design principles outlined by Google and its designers, Salomon created a conceptual version of the popular search portal that includes bright colors and subtle shadows for a more simplified, albeit more modern look.Similar to Google’s latest batch of apps and mobile products, there’s less negative space. Gone is the cold sparseness we’ve come to expect when performing a search. In its place are bright, inviting colors, subtle animations, and the same amount of links and results on each page. In light of Material Design rolling out to Android Lollipop, Android Wear, Google Glass, and a host of apps, Google’s search engine is unquestionably beginning to look dated. If Google.com underwent a Material Design redesign like the one Salomon envisioned, it would undoubtedly change the way we see Google.In addition to making the popular portal more modern and visually interesting, a Material Design update would finally provide a common design language. It would unify Google products and standardize its design in a way that hasn’t been achieved to this point. But with millions replying on the search engine daily, it’s understandable that any updates to its core product will be gradual and carefully executed. Nevertheless, we hope that Google is taking note of Salomon’s creation because it certainly would make for a more compelling experience.

Microsoft's RoomAlive Turns Any Room into Star Trek-Like Holodeck

[themedy_media type="youtube" url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILb5ExBzHqw"]As a kid, I remember watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and being amazed by all the technology that characters like Capt. Jean-Luc Picard got to use. One of the most memorable technologies was the holodeck, a simulated reality facility where users can interact with simulated objects and people without requiring any special equipment or headgear.Today, the concept of the holodeck is one step closer to reality, thanks to researchers at Microsoft. The software giant has been quietly developing an amazing technology that brings augmented reality to any room. The company's IllumiRoom research project was first unveiled last year at the Consumer Electronics Show. More recently, Microsoft showed the latest evolution of that research in a proof-of-concept demo called RoomAlive..In a proof-of-concept demo called RoomAlive, several Kinect sensors, projectors, and depth-cameras, are harnessed to extend games to the walls around any room, creating an interactive augmented reality experience.Users can interact with digital objects displayed around the room, with the ability to shoot, hit, or move them. The technology also tracks the position of the players as well as detecting the floor, walls, and other surfaces of the room. The ability to detect players and various surfaces/objectives, allows the technology to accurately and dynamically display digital content."In the future we will explore approaches and experiences that involve multiple users and multi-user viewpoint rendering," said the RoomAlive creators. "We will also explore new ways to increase immersion with spatialized sound. RoomAlive provides a glimpse of how a scalable multi-projector system can transform any room into an immersive augmented gaming experience. Many new and exciting possibilities remain to be explored."Microsoft is clearly hoping to extend its Xbox gaming environment in the future, but for now the RoomAlive technology isn’t ready for consumers. At the moment, RoomAlive’s combination of video projectors, cameras, and Kinect sensors are too costly. However, if the technology can be had at a lower price point, and when those components become more compact, mainstream gaming consoles may finally incorporate the physical environment into games, and bring the concept of the holodeck out of science fiction and into reality.