http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/ Engadget Comments for Sharp brings e-ink displays to the supermarket http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
]]>Jan 18th 2007 6:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 6:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 6:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 9:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
They received their prices from IR transmitters in the ceiling. What is new I'm guessing is the use of e-ink as the tags I saw were LCD.]]>Jan 18th 2007 6:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
The labels and the infrastructure for Metro was the first installation of the second generation of a system by Pricer, (http://www.pricer.com/). Sharp is off by more than ten years here.]]>Jan 25th 2007 4:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/?]]>Jan 18th 2007 7:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 7:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
Would be interesting if you could find someway of changing the price-tag though. A little RFID magic and then you could go up to the counter and say, "What do you mean its $200? I thought the tag said $2!"]]>Jan 18th 2007 8:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/If there is a DECLINE in the retail price provided by the shelf tag, the price charged at the cash register is changed simultaneously. This allows all the customers in the store to benefit from the lower price.

If there is an INCREASE in the retail price provided by the shelf tag, the price charged at the cash register is changed after a set amount of time. This allows all the customers that were in the store at the time of the original, lower price to receive that original price at the time of checkout at the register. In other words, they are NOT charged a price at checkout that is higher than the one they would have seen on the shelf tag.
]]>Jan 19th 2007 9:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 7:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 7:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 7:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 8:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
Either way, this spells the end of stores honouring mis-priced products. While you storm off to find the price tag, they can update it from their till!]]>Jan 18th 2007 8:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/>Im sure England has had these in some ASDA stores for ages

They have LCD based tags, not E-ink. LCD can be hard to read compared to E-ink which looks a lot better under flourecent-lighting conditions.]]>Jan 18th 2007 8:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 18th 2007 8:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.elabelsys.com/

this:
http://tagnetics.com/products.html

and this:
http://www.ncr.com/en/products/hardware/esl.htm

right? Just look around for "electronic shelf label" and you can find these things.]]>Jan 18th 2007 11:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
LCD Electronic Shelf labels were first installed in Connecticut in the early 1990s. Tagnetics currently has Electronic Shelf Labels installed in California, Louisiana, New York and Texas.]]>Jan 19th 2007 2:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 19th 2007 12:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
Don't attack if that's wrong, though... ]]>Jan 19th 2007 1:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
The coolness of e-ink is that it isn't a light source or use backlighting. It is only readable in well, reading light. The killer app would be e-books. I guess this is just to keep it in the news until the price drop.]]>Jan 19th 2007 4:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
You have to make it absolutely foolproof. If even one of your tags doesn't update correctly, you will piss off a lot of people.

To those saying that it could just be changed from the cash register:

When I worked at Circuit City, all the tags were downloaded from corporate, printed out, and then placed on the floor. The reason we would have incorrect tags was 99% of the time that an employee didn't pull the expired tag. We didn't have any control over price tags except to pull expired ones and print new ones from the computer.

Lastly, this system would work best if you could use it in tandem with what we called "hand-scanners." This is that gray thing with buttons all over the front and the UPC scanner attached to the top. All you do is to scan the UPC of the product you want, scan the E-Ink price tag, and BAM! you've got an updated price tag. This way when products are moved in an updated layout, you can update the tags along with them. This should only be done with no customers in the store, by the way.]]>Jan 19th 2007 6:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/
But it isn't E-ink though :)]]>Jan 19th 2007 7:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 19th 2007 7:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 19th 2007 7:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/sharp-brings-e-ink-displays-to-the-supermarket/Jan 21st 2007 5:46PM