How The New Prada Store Spies On You
from the we-know-what-you're-trying-on... dept
It seems that the new (and it's not even that new by now) is becoming the store used by any reporter who wants to make an example of the "new technology" being used in retailing today. It seems the big excitement over at Prada is that they use RFID tags on all their products so they can track who's doing what with what merchandise. They're eventually going to let people read the tags themselves and create "virtual closets" of items they've tried on or are interested. Of course, some people (as they always are) are concerned about the implications for privacy... However, it's not really clear why the system ever needs to know who you are, and why you're even bothering to walk into a store with such overpriced goods (but, that's a different story, I guess). At the same time, they do get a good quote out of someone who points out that all this miraculous technology does little to make the shopping experience any better, and really just makes life easier for the people who work there trying to sell you stuff. Update: It seems that it's not just the overpriced fancy Manhattan stores where this is an issue. Safeway supermarkets are testing out similar technology attached to their shopping carts. You can slide your "loyalty card" and the touch screen on the shopping cart will flash ads at you as you walk up and down the aisles. Of course, I remember when it was popular to attach little calculators to every shopping cart - and within a month every single one of them was smashed and broken. I imagine those touch screens and personalized pop up ads are not long for this world.
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