The way Costco's automated pay stations work is that members stand in line and a Costco employee scans the person's membership card and all of the items in their cart. When the member reaches the self-serve payment kiosk, they scan their membership card and pay. The system eliminates the conveyor belt and any interaction with a cashier.
Boston Dynamics' Spot ranges from $175,000 to $300,000, depending on configuration. Ghost Robotics' Vision 60 starts at $165,000. Both companies pitch them as cheaper alternatives to human guards, who cost around $150,000 annually. "Typically, our customers have a payoff within two years," Merry Frayne, senior director of product management at Boston Dynamics, told Business Insider.
Long-range radio waves can pass through obstacles more easily, which makes them perfect for monitoring expansive factories or outdoor infrastructure. A recent report by Fabrity highlighted that these systems use very little power. This allows sensors to operate for 5 to 10 years on a single battery. Using such tech means you do not have to install expensive wiring across your entire site.
Retail point-of-sale systems today offer a wide range of options for peripherals and hardware. Their technical specifications play a major role in selection, and big retailers often choose multiple vendors to reduce a single point of failure. This gives them an advantage to negotiate price or support as well. Technically, these peripherals also require updating with new models and may have new feature sets. This necessitates the redevelopment of point-of-sale applications, increasing development costs.
There's a real convenience to being able to print a lease agreement, a medical form, or a tax document without having to run to a copy shop or library. When you need something signed and returned quickly, having a printer at home means you don't have to rearrange your schedule around a trip across town. That kind of on-demand access saves both time and stress, especially during situations that are already a little chaotic.
Covert recording is a lot about power. So, I was worried from the very beginning when Meta announced they were going to revive the Google Glass idea. That might be influenced by my study subject very well, but it might as well be influenced by every report and story I read on digital abuse and hate speech in the last twenty to thirty years.
In 2024, the NHS began testing whether flying drones could do a better job than couriers shuttling blood samples between labs in Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. Instead of weaving through traffic, the drones simply lifted off, crossed central London, and landed minutes later. Delivery times dropped to barely a couple of minutes, reliability shot up thanks to a lack of roadworks in the sky, and the service turned out to be cheaper too. Since then, more than 6,000 samples have been transported by air.
Electrical retailer AO has upgraded its networks to accelerate its business with informed decision-making, securely connecting a diverse range of devices and streamlining IT operations across all 26 of its offices and logistics centres across the UK. AO describes itself as the UK's most trusted electrical retailer, and is known for its home appliances, consumer electronics and mobile phones. The firm started life in 2000 as part of a £1 bet by founder John Roberts on his mission to sell electrical appliances online.
The new feature, called Digital Home Key, will live inside Samsung Wallet and is powered by the Aliro smart home standard. The new standard uses near-field communication (NFC) for its tap-to-unlock technology. It also supports ultra-wideband (UWB), giving users the ability to unlock their door as they approach and without pulling out their phone.
QR codes are two-dimensional images with glyphs of various sizes that store not just numbers, but text. When scanned, your phone extracts the encoded information and can act on it. For example, QR codes often embed URLs, allowing you to scan, say, a parking meter to launch a webpage where you can pay online.
The technology underpinning retail operations is under scrutiny in 2026 as fashion executives look to streamline systems with the aim to unlock efficiency, cut costs and meet consumer expectations for speed and personalisation in the shopping journey. At the retail event Lightspeed Edge on 12 January, Lightspeed - the unified point-of-sale (POS) and payments platform for SMEs such as Apricot Lane Boutique and Neal's Yard Remedies - convened industry leaders to explore the strategic imperative for integrated technology ecosystems over siloed systems.
When people breathe, speak, sing or clear their throats, their bodies are in constant motion. Air flowing through the lungs, the oscillation of vocal folds in the throat and the rhythmic expansion of the chest all produce tiny vibrations that carry valuable information about physiology and health. However, constructing a device that can capture all of these physiological signals has remained a challenge.
Ring has launched a new tool that can tell you if a video clip captured by its camera has been altered or not. The company says that every video downloaded from Ring starting in December 2025 going forward will come with a digital security seal. "Think of it like the tamper-evident seal on a medicine bottle," it explained. Its new tool, called Ring Verify, can tell you if a video has been altered in any way.