Scientists are using Bluetooth to track attendees of the Rock Werchter concert in Europe this weekend in hopes of finding new ways to track numbers of people entering retail stores, to track suspicious movements, or to track evacuations at mass events, according to a report from Reuters.
None of that sounds very good (or all that interesting). but one possible application that retailers would find useful is the chance to track items as they move around stores. Not just to prevent theft, but to know what items were picked up and where they were left behind in the store to better understand shopper behavior and to better strategize their product mix and placement.
If I pick up one CD but then put it down by another CD, and then buy that second CD, it could offer insights into where to place that CD to better promote it, for example.
Tie it all to loyalty cards or mobile apps, and suddenly digital store displays can make recommendations based on what I've got in my hand, what I've before, and/or items I've expressed interest in, and that kind of tracking can generate revenues in short order.
And it's a lot more fun than imagining all the less benign ways this kind of technology can be used to spy on us.
Read more, here.
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