Elderly To Get Satellite Navigation To Find Their Way Around Supermarkets 80
Three government centers in the UK have been working on a way to use digital technology to help the elderly and the disabled. One of their ideas is a supermarket satellite navigation system to help elderly people who get confused by changing layouts in the aisles. Professor Paul Watson, of Newcastle University, said: "Many older people lack the confidence to maintain 'normal' walking habits. This is often due to worries about getting lost in unfamiliar, new or changing environments." A kitchen for Alzheimer's patients packed with hidden sensors and projectors is also in the works.
Re:Sweet (Score:3, Informative)
The product is placed as per store management, if it doesn't come from even higher.
So, the clerks won't be the ones keeping the map data updated. The people altering the planograms would.
Non-issue.
Re:How this isn't an onion article is beyond me. (Score:2, Informative)
Having worked at Lowe's, I'd venture that about 80% of the questions I got were variations of "Where is (foo)?" Usually they had a pretty good idea of what it was they were looking for, but not the exact name. They quite often knew they needed (for example) a joist hanger, but of the 14 different kinds we had they didn't know which one they needed. Thats 14 different kinds of *just* joist hangers. We had about 120 different kinds of nailer plates/menders/rafter trusses/ties/etc that are all used in wood frame construction and are sometimes called joist hangers. It can get a bit overwhelming for the customer that doesn't know *exactly* which one they need. In general, the only customers that knew *exactly* which one they needed were contractors and they had already bought them 20 times before.
It didn't bother me to help customers find items, but when the customer service manual says you should -walk with- the customer and help them (basically until they told you to go away) but the boss tells you you take too much time with the customer it gets frustrating. I completely understand why people get upset with the "It's on isle X" (and then employee walks away) type answer, but that's what some of the managers wanted us to do.
An item location service however it works would be good; but it would have to be fairly smart about helping the customer get the right name for what they're searching for to pare down which kind of joist hanger they needed, with pictures and a good list of synonyms for each product.
Re:How can this work? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think DGPS means what you think it means. It's not really used in consumer devices and it certainly will never help you in situations where you do not have a signal. DGPS mostly helps with ionospheric errors and Walmarts aren't _that_ big...
I'm guessing you're thinking of A-GPS which does help in low signal environments and is used in consumer devices. I'm still quite surprised to hear a sirf III working reliably indoors -- I've never seen that happening.
Also, surveyors using GPS in caves? Do you have a link for that? I've never heard of it before, and I have to say it sounds pretty improbable.
Re:You mean slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
It's okay for Slashdot to do it, because I'm not elderly and easily confused.