From offline shopping to wanting an Internet sense

Posted: December 16th, 2009 | Author: Alex | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Shopping online has fundamentally changed my expectations and comfort level, when I buy things in general. I noticed this clearly, when I recently ventured to a local shopping mall to attempt some not-yet-too-late holiday shopping – offline.

I do a significant portion of my shopping on the Internet and I have come to appreciate customer reviews, recommender systems and many other features that have become common at a lot of online stores. I often take information provided by those systems into account when making buying decisions. I have gotten used to those features and – as I realized on that day at the mall – I miss them in their absence.

Usually, I am content to satisfice, but when I am in the store without access to those familiar features, I feel a bit deprived, as if one of my senses were shut off. I like that imagery, too: The idea of an additional sense, based on Internet data is an intriguing one.

The following video shows how MIT’s Sixth Sense may have the potential to act as an additional sense to equip you with the features that you may have gotten used to on the Internet.

I wonder when we will routinely wear devices that integrate cameras, microphones, displays/projectors, etc. and that continuously scan our surroundings and have the ability to feed us data about it back in real time. It could be a version of Sixth Sense using discreet packaging.

Quick access to product reviews, as we look at a book or CD in a store sounds like a useful feature. Maybe sunglasses (and their integrated display) could provide directions as we are walking. It could also display quick stats regarding our surroundings, incl. a warning of nearby danger. The potential for applications seems endless.

In the meantime, I am of course still stuck with unfinished shopping.

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