Now that Microsoft has released their development kit that brings Kinect software to Windows, many venues are beginning to look for applications for the video game sensor. Right now, Whole Foods is looking into a prototype that would use a Kinect system on a shopping cart to make the shopping experience a little bit more cyberpunk than before. The cart can follow the shopper, remember items from their list, give them navigation information around the store, and even provide checkout.
According to an article in GeekWire, this project is literally weeks old. The shopping-cart-cum-Kinect-sensor is being developed by a third-party company, Austin-based Chaotic Moon. Their chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, provided a demonstration of its capabilities for the press at the Microsoft Redmond campus on Monday.
The demo shows a cart being used in a kitchen, scanning items, speaking, and being spoken to. The Kinect apparatus is visible atop the back of the cart facing forward—although the demo doesn’t show the cart successfully following the demonstrator, it is an expected aspect of the project. Also demonstrated was the cart’s ability to tell the difference between different preferences for product such as gluten-free spaghetti and standard spaghetti.
From the demo, it seems that a list could be set up at home before visiting the Whole Foods grocery store and, once activated with the customer’s card, the cart would load the list and use that to guide the shopper around the store.
It’s unknown if Whole Foods intends to allow shoppers to have carts follow them outside the store to their cars after bagging.
Microsoft has been good about getting the Kinect SDK into the market for Windows platforms and even started an application accelerator program—according to the software giant, there are over 300 companies working on commercial applications on Windows. No doubt, we’ll be seeing a great deal more come out of this development process in the future.
