Everyone has probably heard of Amazon Go stores by now. Back when they were first launched in 2016, they were billed as trailblazers for a new era of ‘cashierless’ retail, utilising ‘just-walk-out’ technology that scans what customers take off a shelf, and charges them for it automatically via a mobile app. The concept has never [...]
As kiosk manufacturers, we won’t hear a bad word about touchscreens. Touchscreen technology has transformed the world we live in. By doing away with the need for a keypad interface, touchscreens have allowed digital tech to shrink down into the pocket-sized forms we now all carry around with us. And more importantly (in our humble [...]
Even our progressively tech-savvy world might not yet be ready for self-service justice. But given the backlog crisis hampering the UK court system right now, there’s a strong argument for giving self-service technology more of a role in legal administration. The backlog of court cases has been an issue since the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite [...]
We’ve written previously about the transformational impact kiosks have had in the QSR sector. But for dine-in restaurants, the love affair with self-service has been much more of a slow burn. There are some very good and obvious reasons for this, of course. Dine-in and QSR operate in very different ways. Fast food is all [...]
Regular readers will know we enjoy a story about innovative and inspiring uses of kiosks and related self-service technology. This month, this story caught our attention about the growing trend for book vending machines in the USA. The inspiring part is how many of these machines are supporting efforts to improve literacy rates. They’re being [...]
In the world of tech, you have to pause for breath every now and then just to cope with the dizzying pace of innovation. Otherwise it all flies past in an incomprehensible blur. So with that in mind, we thought it would be useful to end the year with a forward-thinking look at the state [...]
Another year, another slew of headlines about weak retail performance and rock-bottom consumer confidence. On the back of a sluggish peak Christmas trading period, there is even talk of vendors being forced into pushing up prices yet again in 2025. Just what everyone wants to hear after a solid four years of spiralling inflation. There’s [...]
Remember DVDs? A recent story that caught our attention is the sad but hardly surprising demise of DVD rental company Redbox in the US. Back in the day, Redbox was a true pioneer of self-service kiosks. Its business model was based on placing vending machine-type kiosks where customers could rent DVDs from in and around [...]
The first time most people heard of biometric technology was when they got their first biometric passport. These futuristic-sounding travel documents have been the norm in the UK for close to 20 years, and the government issues some five million of them every year. ‘E-passports’ are still the most visible example of biometric technology in [...]
There is a school of thought that kiosks and smartphones are in direct competition. That everything you can do on a kiosk, you can do on a mobile device. Pay for shopping without the mediation of a cashier, order food, check-in at a hotel or for an appointment, even identify yourself for security and access [...]
