Touch Screen Cash Register

Touch Screen Cash Register

The future of the touch screen cash register is about to be unveiled
this week at the National Retail Federation show in Chicago. The new touch screen cash register figures to lead the market with an Amazon-style of recommendations and reviews to the retial market.

Intel conceived of the touch screen cash register machine, it's not getting into the point of sale business. The electronic cash register prototype won't go into production until 2012. The touch screen cash register is meant to highlight a new direction for retail terminals, made possible by the chipmaker's newest processors. "We wanted to show the future," says Ryan Parker, of Intel's Embedded Computing
Division. "And people don't like looking at motherboards."

Intel turned to Frog Design, the San
Francisco-based outfit for help wrapping up its silicon, known for both objects Apple IIc and interfaces. Frog took a depressing look at future
machines, which average five years old. They then came up with a concept that replaces today's haphazard agglomeration of cash-box, signature pad and barcode scanner with a triple-touchscreen aluminum altar of lights that looks like a pinball machine from the Holodeck.

Two vertical screens function as kiosks, promoting consumer ads and promotions. Flash an RFID store loyalty card, and your purchase history pops up - along with recommendations for what you might buy today. At checkout time, the salesperson brings the counter screen to life with their badge; images of your items materialize. So do related products for the salesperson to talk up, and hopefully sell you.

The goal of the touch screen cash register is to combine the marketable social possibilities of shopping in the real world with the Web's ability to up-sell.

But touch panels and next-gen processors don't come cheap. A machine like this is expected to cost far more than the typical black box, so
Intel had to be ready with some of up-selling of its own: energy savings. Today's registers draw up to 250 watts and are typically left on 24/7 to receive inventory info. The prototype uses more efficient screens LCD screens and processors, but more importantly, it goes to sleep as soon as a salesperson walks away. It can be remotely awakened for updates and diagnostics. The future of cash registers is just around the corner, look no further than the first touch screen cash register.

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