German "Future Store" lets you grocery shop with your cellphone

It's been a long, long time since we've heard from Germany's "Future Store" -- the ultra-futuristic German grocery store that might have sprung directly from the Sprawl trilogy -- but they've got a new feature we thought you might be interested in. Shoppers in the store can now use camera-equipped cellphones (i.e., cellphones) to snap pictures of item barcodes, and then download the information at the checkout when they're finished shopping. The system totals all of your purchases into one big, nasty barcode which you then scan and pony up cash (or cards, or fingerprints, or magical rainbow juice) for. It's unclear how to store handles shoppers who don't scan everything they've got in their cart, but if it's anything like our favorite books, it's not pretty.

[Via PHONE Magazine]

[Freitag Posted Jul 3rd 2008 2:25PM]

1st!

Any reference to a Gibson book makes the article better...

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 4th 2008 10:43AM]

Freitag, I came here to say the same thing...

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 7th 2008 1:21PM]

Perfect for IKEA!

Scan stuff on the second floor, and rather than going through the end phase of actually picking up the stuff, why not have it auto-delivered to you at the cash register?