As visual creatures, human attention tends to focus on whatever draws the eye most. So with kiosks, functionality centres around the touchscreen interface. In fact, it’s no accident that the vast majority of computerised devices, from smartphones to PCs, are operated via a graphic user interface (GUI) of some sort. It fits with the way [...]
‘Phygital’ might not be the most graceful portmanteau of two words ever thought up. But as a description of the blurring lines between physical spaces and digitised experiences, it speaks to a growing reality in our daily lives. This is especially evident in the restaurant sector. QSRs have long been associated with pioneering self-service kiosks [...]
Facial recognition technology has huge potential in the world of self-service. It is already widely used in kiosks for identification, security and personnel access, including in high-profile applications like border control. In sectors such as retail, food service, hospitality and more, facial recognition systems are being explored as options to administer account-based transactions - everything [...]
One of the classic errors businesses make with new technology is putting all their focus on the onboarding phase and expecting results to automatically follow. The underlying assumption here is that the simple act of adopting tech is sufficient to transform and improve operations. But it’s not technology per se that brings results. It’s how [...]
Kiosks are best known for providing self-service ordering and checkout options in retail and hospitality. But there’s an argument to say that the most common (or at least the most broadly applicable) use for kiosks is as information points. From airports to libraries, office complexes to hospitals, transport hubs to museums and other leisure attractions, [...]
It was Alan Turing, code-breaking war hero, computer science pioneer and all-around mathematical genius, who gave one of the earliest versions of the much-recycled “the machines are taking over” quote. It was during a pretty obscure lecture given in 1951 that Turing suggested that humanity would “at some stage… have to expect the machines to [...]
In our last blog, we tackled the issue of the high shrink rates being reported at supermarket self-checkout points, as customers supposedly take advantage of ‘weak’ security. Our perspective is that the weakness isn’t something inherent in the technology, but rather in the way it is being deployed, without the kind of checks appropriate to [...]
Nearly every business these days could be described as a hybrid operation. That’s hybrid in the sense of a mix of human and machine. The advance of digital technology means that the days when every process and interaction was handled manually by people are a long way behind us. But at the same time, a [...]
Every industry has to take the rough with the smooth, and no technology is perfect. Recently, kiosks have been attracting the kind of attention no one wants from the media, who excel in picking up on a negative and whipping it up into something mildly sensational. The issue in this case? Self-service checkouts facilitate shoplifting. [...]
Ask people where they use self-service kiosks, the most common answer you will get is likely to be supermarket checkouts or fast food restaurants. Make a list of the top 10 answers, and we wouldn’t be surprised if they were all examples of indoor settings. But that doesn’t mean kiosks are for indoors only. In [...]
