

Hackers' Contest #1: Hack the way people are shopping. - Uglyfruit

Hi, I would like to submit a series of short contests so that we can all practice our hacking skills. I do not want to focus on computer hacking at all.<p>The first one is this: Hack the way people are shopping at supermarkets.<p>The subject to be hacked is deliberately specific so that we all might make proposals along the same line.<p>Hope many of you will submit their ideas. You do not need to give the actual solution but , merely suggest some other ways the task could be achieved in a different way. For example: the goods that you need will be delivered to your own fridge every 2 days.<p>Let's see if this thread would be followed. It is quite amusing, isn't it ?
======
dawilster
I don't know if this is related but does anybody else think we should be given
discounts for using self checkouts? I mean it completely bypasses the checkout
chick but were still being charged for that service.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
There' still a 'checkout chick' at WalMart by the self-service lanes. And a
line waiting for her services.

Self-service has to improve an order of magnitude before I subject myself to
the hassle and indignity. Want to buy a pocket-knife from the camping section?
Alarm goes off, wait for the attendant to come type a code. Have an oversized
item? Wait for the attendant to scan it manually. And where the heck is the
code on these key-limes? Poke around at an opaque interface hoping to find the
item in their manual menu, finally lie and call them lemons.

I never use the self-checkout even if the regular lines are considerable.
Usually its broken or closed anyway, or nobody on duty.

The cure? Maybe rfid tags (have to come down from $0.75 to be practical) and
an airlock where they scan your card and purchases and you're done. That would
save lots of thrashing over the old grocery cart too - you have to handle
every can of beans about 7 times with the current system.

