Category Archives: Scoop.it

Virtual reality has long been the province of the gaming world and fantasies like the movie Minority Report. But with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices projected to be a $4 billion business by 2018, much is being made of the technologies’ potential to transform the retail customer experience. 

Source: www.retaildive.com

But it’s also why home-improvement retailer Lowe’s is continuing to develop its “Holoroom.” The Holoroom, first unveiled in 2014, allows homeowners or their interior designers to try things out in their own spaces, or share ideas, including apps that operate on mobile. 

Retail industry news, voices and jobs. Optimized for your mobile phone.

Source: www.retaildive.com

Good read on Ron Johnson and whether some or all of his ideas were not so good then, but pretty good ideas now.

With consumers increasingly getting impatient of waiting around – high street stores and airports face a more challenging environment to manage queues to not only avoid customers abandoning their baskets, but also to create the ultimate experience for consumers in their stores.

Source: www.walkbase.com

The video above from Boston Dynamics introduces the next generation of Atlas, the amazing bipedal robot. Atlas is designed to operate successfully indo …

Source: www.slate.com

The Home Depot Inc. specializes in letting customers do it themselves, and is now extending that philosophy across all channels.

Source: www.retailingtoday.com

Strange properties could make the devices ideal for chaotic, hostile environments.

Source: www.insidescience.org

Not too long ago, I got a call from a New York Times magazine reporter. It’s not the first time the media has reached out to ask about the vending industry, but more than current trends, this reporter wanted data and the movement of the industry from…

Source: www.vendingmarketwatch.com

Micro markets have replaced vending in many large accounts. The estimates are that there are approximately 9,000 micro markets now.

The last interesting increase in the last 10 years has been the acceptance of cashless payment, or vending machines taking credit/debit cards as well as payment via smartphone. Back in 1995, only 57.6 percent of the vending machines in the U.S. accepted dollar bills (as opposed to coins). By 2000, that number was 80 percent. Cashless was added to the report in 2004, which meant that pretty much 100 percent of vending machines accepted paper money. In 2004, only 2 percent of vending machines accepted credit or debit cards (no mobile at that time). Last year, our research suggests 11 percent of vending machines now accept multiple forms of cashless payment (a number that is still far less than other retail locations).

The products are fanless, solid-state design and highly reliable devices to use “headless” or with keyboard, mouse and monitor. Flexible and powerful, with extensive input/output (I/O) options, they run on Intel processors.

Source: kioskindustry.org

Kiosk PC News – Dell Announces Industrial PC in Germany. And it has serial ports (yes, as in plural…)

Before purchasing an “Internet of things” (IoT) device — a thermostat, camera or appliance made to be remotely accessed and/or controlled over the Internet — consider whether you can realistically care for and feed the security needs of yet another IoT thing.

Source: krebsonsecurity.com

There is a good chance your newly adopted IoT puppy will be:

-chewing holes in your network defenses;
-gnawing open new critical security weaknesses;
-bred by a vendor that seldom and belatedly patches;
-tough to wrangle down and patch

In April 2014, researchers at Cisco alerted HVAC vendor Trane about three separate critical vulnerabilities in their ComfortLink II line of Internet-connected thermostats. These thermostats feature large color LCD screens and a Busybox-based computer that connects directly to your wireless network, allowing the device to display not just the temperature in your home but also personal photo collections, the local weather forecast, and live weather radar maps, among other things.

The global bank is currently undertaking a massive restructure of its operations in order to make up to $5 billion in cost savings. HSBC is beginning to see results.

Source: diginomica.com