More retailers are getting into the business of seamless shopping by implementing cameras that track items and tabulate the cost, making the customer experience swift, efficient, and headache-free by removing waiting lines.
Circle K convenience stores are in for a makeover, through a partnership with autonomous checkout company Standard Cognition.
"We're trying to constantly look for things to make our customers' lives a bit easier every day," Magnus Tägtström, head of global innovation at Circle K, told Cheddar.
While similar technology has been used at stores like Amazon Go, Standard Cognition's priority, according to CEO Jordan Fisher, is making the customer experience as simple as possible while protecting their identities.
"We have a no facial recognition policy. It's a bright red line for us," Fisher told Cheddar. "As a computer vision company, as a company that leverages cameras, it's incredibly important for us that we're doing this in a principled way."
When it comes to accuracy, Tägtström said each location in a Circle K store is visible by at least three cameras, making it easier to account for items removed or set back in place.
The approach taken by Circle K and Standard Cognition to offer an easier shopping experience by solely using cameras, according to Fisher, is more cost effective and less time consuming than other brands that typically need to remodel their stores to accommodate the new technology.
"It's the same stores that their shoppers know and love; it's the same products — really the same experience, just without the lines," he said.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
