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I hope that these things don't periodically switch from showing the actual products & prices to showing a full-screen ad for something. A movie theater near me

I hope that these things don't periodically switch from showing the actual products & prices to showing a full-screen ad for something. A movie theater near me does that with their screen-based menus. Very annoying to be trying to decide what you want and suddenly have the menu vanish. It's a bit sad to think how wasteful these are. Not just the waste produced by producing the screens and powering them all day, but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out. Edit: Also, does anyone know what the cameras are for, if not facial recognition or CCTV? I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research. I suppose that could be anonymized and aggregated on-device in a privacy-preserving way, but you'd have to take their word for it.

tootie 5y ago
They absolutely do. That's the main point of them in fact. Revenue for the supermarket. But really it's not a downgrade. Every package is designed to basically be an ad already.
windmark 5y ago
In my city we have this issue with the screens in the subway trains. There are two screens, * one always works and shows ads and selected news * the second one is supposed to show the next stations and connections, except for when it doesn't and shows ads.. for many minutes at a time.
makeworld 5y ago
They are completely for ads. https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408566439833788423 https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408566439833788423
robocat 5y ago
> cameras > I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research It's possible the whole display is specifically for market research. Play with product placement and see what increases sales for the most profitable items.
Izkata 5y ago
> but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out. Now that I know these exist, I kinda feel like being contrary and opening every single one to "look for" whatever it was I wanted.

tootie 5y ago

They absolutely do. That's the main point of them in fact. Revenue for the supermarket. But really it's not a downgrade. Every package is designed to basically be an ad already.

windmark 5y ago

In my city we have this issue with the screens in the subway trains. There are two screens, * one always works and shows ads and selected news * the second one is supposed to show the next stations and connections, except for when it doesn't and shows ads.. for many minutes at a time.

makeworld 5y ago

They are completely for ads. https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408566439833788423 https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408566439833788423

robocat 5y ago

> cameras > I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research It's possible the whole display is specifically for market research. Play with product placement and see what increases sales for the most profitable items.

Izkata 5y ago

> but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out. Now that I know these exist, I kinda feel like being contrary and opening every single one to "look for" whatever it was I wanted.