Idea

An old out of date PC might do the same job. I'm sure you can find a manufacturer stuck with out of date stocks or lease machines. Much cheaper to sell them to you than recycle them.

If you have a fast booting OS yes.

Do stores care that much?

Since you don't need much processing power why not use a central computer and multiple terminals and printers? Wireless LAN them? I think you will find that's what the big stores do now.

Sounds like a modern supermarket cash register to me.

Ken

I think I need to clarify something much more.

I think my price is as low as US$100. Comparing to a real computer with LCVD and OS and retail software, it is much lower.

I used MCU to do the job. So the boot action is instant.

I think one can save a lot of power fee as a real computer consumes US$10 per month.

Besides, the size of the unit can be as small as 8cmx8cmx4cm size which is compact relative to a real computer.

Finally on thing I missed, it is quiet as comparing to real computer.

You need to incorporate support for RFID tags. They may change the whole definition of "point of sale". For example they may eliminate check outs and the large amount of space they take up entirely.

It seems to be another thing and I think it is not cheap.

and

Not yet perhaps but all the big stores are doing lots of work in this area. It would eventually allow them to eliminate check out staff.

Tesco in the UK..

Wallmart in the USA..

So far it's too expensive to use on every individual product at the moment but that is their objective. They are starting deployment in their warehouses and delivery chain. As volumes increase it will eventually become cheap enough to consider full deployment.

Eventually they will fit tags to every product and have scanners on special unstaffed checkout isles. The idea is that customers would simply walk through these without needing to unload and reloads their trolleys (or even personal shopping baskets), then swipe their credit card. I expect some customer resistance initially but not having to queue will eventually win people over. We already have customer operated check outs for those paying by credit card in the UK.

How about making a portable hand held tag reader that displays what you've got in your trolley as a kinda independant checking device that the customer can buy. Hint design it as a PCMCIA card and write S/W for Palm, pocket PC etc

More:

"Alien Technology has the most ambitious program yet. Their venture funding totals $128 million to push the cost to less than 5 cents a tag. A new factory, being built in North Dakota, will churn out 20 billion tags annually "