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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
We recently published a blog assessing the role self-service kiosks are playing in the shift towards a ‘cashless’ society. In it, we argued that the kiosk industry should be cautious about pushing the cashless ticket too fast. People are by and large far from averse to innovation and new ideas. But as we’ve seen with [...]
The start of the new academic year is a busy time of new beginnings for families and professionals. It means new classes, perhaps a new school, college or even leaving home for university. For schools, it means new intakes, new goals, starting afresh the journey to deliver the best educational experiences possible for every student. [...]
In the hyper-accelerated world of digital technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) feels like it has been around forever. A little like 5G mobile (and AI, for that matter), it’s a technology that got talked about and hyped-up long before it was ever really ready to make a difference out there ‘in the wild’, as [...]
