You know, if I am gonna be hounded by a wise-cracking robot, I better be in a spaceship. Though to be fair, us fatsos can't get enough advice on how dangerous our food is, but it sounds so much more like concern and less like judgement when it comes from a stranger in a Safeway.

It'd be pretty funny if, after a certain point, it started blaring alerts if it detected other shopping carts within a certain range. "Warning, this one's a real fatass," "Wide load, comin' through," or "Make sure fatso here doesn't grab anything out of your cart."

Fuck me the movie Idiocracy really is coming true.

Can't you just not scan the item before placing it in the cart?

I am not seeing a difference between this and letting the media make your political decisions for you.

i am in relatively good shape and one of the things i tell people when they ask for advice is to learn how to read labels. just because something says healthIER doesn't mean its healthy. theres lots of little tricks the companies use such as serving size (yeah, cuz im really going to drink a single soda on 2.5 seperate occasions or eat 6 tortilla chips) as well as "natural' flavors being a huge blanket cop out for any flavoring that isn't 100% chemically made. Inversely, things with alot of calories and fat *such as nuts* aren't junk food as they are high in good fats and vitamins. Oh, and compare labels since certain competitive products have a huge difference in nutritional value due to the way they process their foods. yeah I'm that guy in the store reading labels it works though. If your trying to be healthier just make sure that everything you eat justifies itself (providing a vitamin, protein, fiber, calcium, etc) and you'll be fine.

Am I the only one that doesn't see this as a bad idea? With so many different products and companies out there, being an informed consumer (which I feel is very important--especially in a extremely capitalistic community) is becoming increasingly difficult, if not a full time job. For those who would like to be informed consumers, but don't have copious amounts of time to research different companies this doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Keep in mind, I'm focusing on the ethical/environmentally friendly factors not the "you're a fatass and should by less potato chips" part.

"Beef or chicken? Beef or chicken? How about both!?"
-Tucker Max

I don't think it's such a bad idea, but I think the better solution might be spending these resources on eliminating the production of unhealthy food.

It wouldn't make sense for stores to have these things, they WANT people to buy their product, including junk food!

I agree.

And to a further extent, if this got companies competing to be more ethically/environmentally friendly, how great would that be?

Exactly

I steal from grocery stores. I'll put something in the cart, then into my pockets when no one is looking (or I can get to an isolated part of the store)... will the cart know?

Also, what about homeless people who steal these carts. Will they be lojacked?

I can't possibly see this being a commercial success. Unless these carts are legislated into place, I give them about 5 minutes. A computerized shopping cart is extremely costly (plus, you have to buy a good 150 of them per store), and it's intrusive to the customer. Plus, what store owner in his right mind is going to voluntarily buy a machine that will lead to fewer sales (at least in the beginning)? If this were going to happen at all, wouldn't it have happened already? We can do it now. Why not just hire a guy to walk around the store with each customer and yell a them for buying the wrong product? Because from a business perspective, it's a bad fucking idea, that's why.