Someone, potentially a start-up, should develop an appnfor that! Just imagine how much customer data you could collect! Ideally with some in-store location tracking to improve customer surveill... ahh, I mean customer experience! And so good forbthe environment, because no coins!

Don't tempt them... ;-) Also, how do coins impact the environment? They're metal, not plastic!

Coins and the environment? Who cares! The environment sells, and the hygene, coins are dirty!

What do you think, a seed round valuation of 50 million for that idea should be ok? More? The addresable market is beyond HUGE!

You mean something that would unlock carts based on fingerprints? :)

> fingerprints

Pah. That's so 1800's. Modern times would be face* and retinal* scan, plus matching DNA* sample for good measure.

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* With the expected Terms of Service stating they're allowed to do whatever the hell they want with the data.

Why not? I woupd focus on lonking it to everything you can get from your average users phone and other online accounts. Improved targeted advertising or something. Fingerprints are fine, too! whatever helps sell it!

Plus, since every cart is matched to a person, no more vandalism or theft!

So NFC reader! Even better. Unlock a cart with your smart watch!

Nah, too complex. Just use BLE with an app and this will unlock the cart. Very low friction and it does the cart <-> customer matching.

And make usage of carts mandatory ( door will not open.... )

Go on, go on! I feel we are on to something!

Could be! :)

But only one reserve I have: the carts have to be powered for connectiviy and the electric unlock mechanism. So they could be more expensive. But then let's add an ad screen ( E-Ink! ) on the front inside and have this solve the increase.

Let's put it in a pitch deck! The idea isn't any worse than those non-transparent video screen fridge doors for super markets!

Hold on,ehat if the carts' screen could look inside the frudges and display the content? Augmented reality like? We just to figure out a way to make it all AI powered or something!

Showing you what you got makes no money. Bombing you with dedicated ads for the 20-30 minutes while you're shopping... hell that sounds awfully brilliant!!

you guys rock :). Go make a startup or something...and I'll come with some money!

This whole thread turned into incredible brain storming, didn't it?

I am not asking a lot, but if someone rolls with it, please, please don't deploy it anywhere near me! :-)

Aside, this is why HN still is a a great place online!

Will the escreen show ads on what I should buy based on profiling? Otherwise I don't see the point, to be honest. :)