The future is here!

Went to Koriyama city today with the family to have a look at my favorite shop Yodabashi Camera and to do some other shopping. At Yodabashi I had a play with the new Fuji 3D digital camera. It has 2 separate lenses on the front of the compact camera shooting simultaneously to produce a 3D image which can be viewed in real time on its rear LCD screen. It was quite fun to play with but I think just a bit of a fad and cant see it taking off myself. There are also digital photo frames which can display the 3D images.

But the main thing that caught my attention today was at the super market. After getting a few bits for dinner and ready to check out I was greeted at the checkout not by checkout girls but by a new system (as far as I know anyway) where you do everything yourself. Kind of like at a self serve petrol garage I guess. Never mind the flying cars, the future is here! 8)

So they had a bunch of these DIY checkouts which dont take up that much room like regular checkouts. They have an LCD screen with a recorded voice (you can choose from Japanese or English) then just scan your items, pop in the cash or card and your done!

Whats stopping people from just steeling the items Im not sure of but at least its very quick and easy. Im not sure if this is the norm in other parts of the world or Japan and Im just way behind the times, but this was the first time Ive seen them today anyway.

Heres a little crappy mobile phone pic of what the "self serve checkout" looks like.