Cold Storage, the Singaporese supermarket chain, will soon equip one of it's shops with shopping carts fitted with 12 inch colour screens. Customers can use the screens to find products in the supermarket or to call up recipes that will guide them to all the ingredients they will need. When a product is brought to the scanner, the screen will show the details and it's price. If the screen is not being used by the customer it will show adverts. Because the shopping cart is also equipped with a RFID-transponder, special offers can be shown on the screen as the customer approaches them. (via mb, Dutch).
In this way, brands are leading us ever more by the hand. On the basis of individual profiles we receive appropriate suggestions so that we have less and less need to think and are even surprised sometimes. This development yet another form of media-evolution we have access to a new screen. If we want to discuss a suggestion with a partner at home, we press the button and we are in touch with them. And if we suddenly decide we want to check a file, that is also possible. Every screen is a window to a virtual world.