A New Zealand start-up is hovering at the cutting edge of technology. They are focusing on a system that knows what you put in your shopping basket, eliminating the need for checkouts and queues. It will be Aucklanders that will get a first taste of a shopping revolution that is gathering pace around the globe.
Cashier-less shopping will spell the end of human checkout staff, frustrating queues, and self-service terminals that appear to require a postgraduate qualification to operate. The technology is springing up in various guises, but all are based on cameras and image-recognition artificial intelligence (AI) that automatically ring up the customer’s bill as they pluck items from the shelves.
A New Zealand company is about to debut a technology it believes can win the grab-and-go shopping race. AI and computer vision startup Imagr is weeks away from the trial of Smartcart, a system that allows shoppers to check out items by simply putting them in a basket.
According to an article on thespinoff.co.nz, five Smartcart baskets will be on trial at the Four Square store in Ellerslie, 8 km from downtown Auckland.
