13067 results about "Cart" patented technology

Improved robotic surgical systems, devices, and methods often include a first assembly with a surgical end effector supported and manipulated relative to a first base by a first robotic linkage, while a second surgical end effector manipulated and supported relative to a second, independent base by a second robotic linkage. One or more of these robotic assemblies may be moved relative to the other. To coordinate the end effector movements with those of input devices being manipulated by a surgeon relative to a display of a surgical worksite, the processor deriving the commands for movement of the robotic linkages may make use of a signal indicating a relative orientation of the bases of the robotic arm assemblies. Surprisingly, the robotic arm assemblies may not transmit signals to the processor indicating a relative translational position of the bases.

A comprehensive system effectuates global electronic commerce on the Internet across frontiers of nations, cultures, and languages. Referral Websites serving various locales offer Buyers the opportunity to view products for purchase. A Buyer selects categories of products for viewing by using drop-down menus that organize products into a clear taxonomy that can be expressed across all languages. Having selected a category of products for viewing, a Buyer receives, from a multi-version relational database, a version of marketing information about each product. The version is one automatically sent from the database to match the Buyer's language, culture, and nationality, as deduced from the use of a particular Referral Website. A shopping cart allows Buyers to select a product for purchase in an interactive way that encourages completion of the purchase. Products can be offered with custom options and in wholesale quantities. Personalized Web pages allow comprehensive customer service after a sale.

The ShopLive system supports existing merchants and malls to better serve customers by providing easy access to merchandise and sales assistance. The shopper accesses the ShopLive system through various portals. They can be a PC, Web TV, mall kiosk, store kiosk, mobile terminal, screen telephone or any other communication device capable of connecting to a communications network. When the shopper starts the shopping mission they can logon in or if already enrolled, they can use a password for a quick entry. They may chose to shop anonymously. A shopper can set up a shopping mission by defining class of goods, price, color and the like and set out to search for that either in their physical location or remotely. Once the items are located video cameras scan the merchandise to the shopper through the terminal. The cameras may be remotely operable to swing through different views to better display the goods. Or they can view items according to pre-determined scan patterns. Sound and other sensory stimulus such as tactile sensors may be used to enhance the shopping experience. The shopper may also ask for help from an assistant (SLA) that acts just like a sales person in a retail setting. This person can help select goods and can discuss the items selected. The SLA can also check product availability and help complete the purchase as in a normal sales transaction. Or, the shopper can use the ShopLive system to check out themselves. As the shopper moves through the shopping mission, they can add items to their electronic shopping cart and have a one-stop check out or they can check out with each merchant. The shopper is also entered into the available loyalty programs and presented with coupons and rebates. At the end of the shopping mission the shopper can either physically pick up the selections are arrange shipping. The ShopLive system supports multiple selling activities including auctions. It is also a rich data-base for merchants and allows targeted advertising. A live browser accesses the shopper to present sales and incentives to the customer. The ShopLive system connects the Shopper and the merchant to make the shopping experience more effective for both.

In some arrangements, product packaging is digitally watermarked over most of its extent to facilitate high-throughput item identification at retail checkouts. Imagery captured by conventional or plenoptic cameras can be processed (e.g., by GPUs) to derive several different perspective-transformed views—further minimizing the need to manually reposition items for identification. Crinkles and other deformations in product packaging can be optically sensed, allowing such surfaces to be virtually flattened to aid identification. Piles of items can be 3D-modelled and virtually segmented into geometric primitives to aid identification, and to discover locations of obscured items. Other data (e.g., including data from sensors in aisles, shelves and carts, and gaze tracking for clues about visual saliency) can be used in assessing identification hypotheses about an item. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

An x-ray scanning imaging apparatus with a rotatably fixed generally O-shaped gantry ring, which is connected on one end of the ring to support structure, such as a mobile cart, ceiling, floor, wall, or patient table, in a cantilevered fashion. The circular gantry housing remains rotatably fixed and carries an x-ray image-scanning device that can be rotated inside the gantry around the object being imaged either continuously or in a step-wise fashion. The ring can be connected rigidly to the support, or can be connected to the support via a ring positioning unit that is able to translate or tilt the gantry relative to the support on one or more axes. Multiple other embodiments exist in which the gantry housing is connected on one end only to the floor, wall, or ceiling. The x-ray device is particularly useful for two-dimensional multi-planar x-ray imaging and / or three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) imaging applications

A vehicle tracking system includes a wheel containing sensor circuitry capable of sensing various types of conditions, such as wheel rotation, wheel vibration caused by skidding, and specific electromagnetic and / or magnetic signals indicative of particular wheel locations. The sensor circuitry is coupled to an RF transceiver, which may but need not be included within the wheel. The wheel may also include a brake mechanism. In one embodiment, the wheels are placed on shopping carts and are used to collect and monitor shopping cart status and location data via a wireless network. The collected data may be used for various purposes, such as locking the wheel of an exiting cart if the customer has not paid, estimating numbers of queued carts, stopping wheel skid events that occur during mechanized cart retrieval, store planning, and providing location-based messaging to customers.

In some arrangements, product packaging is digitally watermarked over most of its extent to facilitate high-throughput item identification at retail checkouts. Imagery captured by conventional or plenoptic cameras can be processed (e.g., by GPUs) to derive several different perspective-transformed views—further minimizing the need to manually reposition items for identification. Crinkles and other deformations in product packaging can be optically sensed, allowing such surfaces to be virtually flattened to aid identification. Piles of items can be 3D-modelled and virtually segmented into geometric primitives to aid identification, and to discover locations of obscured items. Other data (e.g., including data from sensors in aisles, shelves and carts, and gaze tracking for clues about visual saliency) can be used in assessing identification hypotheses about an item. Logos may be identified and used—or ignored—in product identification. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

A console for the input and display of consumer product information such as pricing, etc. The console may be built into the handle of the shopping cart or as a retrofit application on existing handles. The console has a product information input device for numerical values such as product pricing, cost per unit, etc. The apparatus has a calculator and output display for such data. Some space on the console will likely be dedicated to a display panel for advertising. The console may be equipped with a bar code scanner as an alternate means of inputting such consumer data. The console should have an output display, such as a monitor, and / or a readout in order to display the product information such as: cost per unit. A video monitor may be used in connection with the console in order to provide advertising information related to products.

Systems and methods are described for providing fraud deterrents during e-commerce, e-transactions, and digital rights management and access. One or more fraud deterrents may be automatically selected by a client, seller, bank, or other 3rd party and may be implemented or presented to the client as a potential fraud deterrent option that may be chosen. Fraud deterrent options may be provided which are associated with particular aspects of the transaction including a client's profile, the value of an item, or the preferences of the seller. The fraud deterrent features can be provided as part of a digital shopping cart and may be highly customized by the client including allowing the client to customize conceptual passwords which are presented during subsequent transactions.

A navigation system uses a dead reckoning method to estimate an object's present position relative to one or more prior positions. In some embodiments, the dead reckoning method determines a change in position from the object's heading and speed during an elapsed time interval. In embodiments suitable for use with wheeled objects, the dead reckoning method determines the change in position by measuring the heading and the amount of wheel rotation. Some or all of the components of the navigation system may be disposed within a wheel, such as a wheel of a shopping cart.

A wireless, mobile point-of-care system is provided including a plurality of mobile point-of-care carts, each capable of transporting a plurality of patient-specific medication or supply drawers or containers. The mobile point-of-care carts provide for both auto-identification of patient containers carried by the cart, as well as real-time tracking of the carts themselves. Using the combination of these two features, each patient-specific drawer can be located throughout the hospital at any given time. A method is further provided for utilizing this location information to generate a medication delivery / removal plan or route, which can be used by delivery personnel to alleviate the burden caused by making medication carts mobile.

The present invention relates to a multi-vendor Internet Commerce System for e-commerce applications. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved architecture for enabling e-commerce in an efficient and consumer-friendly way for a plurality of vendors through the Internet. A multi-vendor Internet commerce system (MV-ICS) is provided which includes a centrally implemented multi-vendor central processing unit (MV-CPU) acting cooperatively with a centrally implemented multi-vendor shared datastore (MV-SD). Using a variety of vendor-site I / O modules and consumer-interface I / O modules, the resources with the MV-SD may be shared by the plurality of vendor websites. This serves to relieve the individual vendor websites from having to set up and maintain some or all of certain facilities (i.e., programs and capabilities, including merchant database, consumer database, shopping cart facility, checkout facility, and the like). Various logic associated with the MV-CPU ensures that the appropriate communication occurs between each vendor website and the MV-SD, as well as the consumer via a browser.

An improved user interface and method are provided for presenting recommendations to a user when the user adds an item to a shopping cart. In response to the shopping cart add event, a page generation process generates and returns a page that includes a recommendations portion and a condensed view of the shopping cart. The recommendations portion preferably includes multiple recommendation sections, each of which displays a different respective set of recommended items selected according to a different respective recommendation or selection algorithm (e.g., recommendations based on shopping cart contents, recommendations based on purchase history, etc.). The condensed shopping cart view preferably lacks controls for editing the shopping cart, and lacks certain types of product information, making more screen real estate available for the display of the recommendations content. A link to a full shopping cart page allows the user to edit the shopping cart and view expanded product descriptions.

A system and method is disclosed for a shopping system, the system including a shopping cart including a plurality of wheels; a portable electronic device (e.g., a CST or POS terminal), coupled to the shopping cart, for displaying shopping data; and a position mapping system, coupled to the electronic device, for developing a shopper location relative to a start location, the mapping system including a distance measuring system, coupled to one of the plurality of wheels; for providing a distance signal indicating a distance of movement of the shopping cart; and a direction measuring system for providing a direction signal concurrent with the distance signal. Another embodiment is a shopper tracking system including a shopping cart having a plurality of wheels; a portable electronic device, coupled to the shopping cart, for displaying shopping data; and an energy generator, coupled to one of the plurality of wheels, for adding energy to a power source of the portable electronic device. The shopper tracking method includes the steps of measuring a net distance traveled by a shopping cart and measuring direction information concurrently with the distance information to produce a relative location that is offset from a known location and converting the relative location to an absolute coordinate by providing absolute coordinates for the known location.

A system including a computerized shopping cart that includes a closed mechanical cart (1) which interconnects / disconnects to units for the insertion / storage of products upon manual command managed by a shopping computer aimed at managing shopping problems and controlling all electronic functions, i.e. automatic system for optically scanning (7) bar codes (UPC / EAN standard), one for checking (8) the correctness of the customer's operations, one emitting the intelligent multimedia commercial message, one for the wireless exchange of data with the outside, for use in supermarkets. The system provides shopping info (8) (list of products on sale, location, price, other), or of the product being purchased (price, whether it is on sale, partial groceries bill), or already purchased (list of purchased items) or to be purchased (remaining shopping list), guided by appropriate interactive messages (acoustic, visual.

A media enhanced shopping cart system comprises a shopping cart comprising a frame, a basket, a handle, a base tray, and a plurality of wheels, a modular computing device comprising a central processing unit, a memory and a network transceiver configured for wireless communication, the modular computing device being attached to the shopping cart, an inventory component for determining an inventory contained by the shopping cart, a shopping list component for listing one or more products of a consumer shopping list for purchase by a consumer, and a correlation component for correlating data from the inventory component with the shopping list component.

The current invention includes an improved system for an e-commerce vendor to seamlessly incorporate products and services from a third party into its own e-commerce site. This system enables the e-commerce vendor to display the third party products and to accept orders and arrange fulfillment of these products through its own site in a manner that is seamless to the end user. When the e-commerce retailer requests product information from the supplier, the supplier provides the retailer with product information and URLs at which additional information can be located. The retailer uses this information to retrieve product images, descriptions and information and to display this information to its customer on its own site. Each of these items is tagged with a unique element identifier that contains a number of details about the product. This information tagged to the product image or description enables the product to be easily identified by both the retailer and the supplier. When the customer purchases the products from the retailer, the necessary information is tagged to the product information and, thus, is available for placement of the order with the supplier. This enables the product order to be routed to and fulfilled by the third party supplier in a manner that is transparent to the customer.

Image capture devices attached to a computer processor are located in a retail store. Items of merchandise for sale are tracked from their display position to a shopping container using optical tracking software. The software is capable of identifying the items and containers optically. A list of items in each container is maintained in a database. A customer may request a listing of items in a cart at any time via a query. At checkout time, there is no need to scan the items.

Methods and computer readable media for recognizing and identifying items located on the belt of a counter and / or in a shopping cart of a store environment for the purpose of reducing / preventing bottom-of-the-basket loss, checking out the items automatically, reducing the checkout time, preventing consumer fraud, increasing revenue and replacing a conventional UPC scanning system to enhance the checking out speed. The images of the items taken by visual sensors may be analyzed to extract features using the scale-invariant feature-transformation (SIFT) method. Then, the extracted features are compared to those of trained images stored in a database to find a set of matches. Based on the set of matches, the items are recognized and associated with one or more instructions, commands or actions without the need for personnel to visually see the items, such as by having to come out from behind a check out counter or peering over a check out counter.

In some arrangements, product packaging is digitally watermarked over most of its extent to facilitate high-throughput item identification at retail checkouts. Imagery captured by conventional or plenoptic cameras can be processed (e.g., by GPUs) to derive several different perspective-transformed views—further minimizing the need to manually reposition items for identification. Crinkles and other deformations in product packaging can be optically sensed, allowing such surfaces to be virtually flattened to aid identification. Piles of items can be 3D-modelled and virtually segmented into geometric primitives to aid identification, and to discover locations of obscured items. Other data (e.g., including data from sensors in aisles, shelves and carts, and gaze tracking for clues about visual saliency) can be used in assessing identification hypotheses about an item. Logos may be identified and used—or ignored—in product identification. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

An improved user interfaces and methods are provided for presenting item recommendations to a user when the user selects an item to add to a shopping cart. In response to the user's selection, a page generation process generates and returns a page that includes a plurality of recommendations sections, each of which displays item recommendations generated using a different respective recommendation or selection algorithm (e.g., recommendations based on shopping cart contents, recommendations based on purchase history, etc.). These recommendation algorithms may be selected based on collected information regarding the user. The page may also include a shopping cart section which displays contents of the shopping cart.

A method and an apparatus for providing employee gift certificates award and exchange are described. The method and apparatus enable the award of a certificate either automatically upon an occurrence of a designated event, such as a birthday, or upon request, such as by a manager. The method and system also enable the employee to exchange the certificate for goods from various merchants over the internet using a single point shopping cart. The shopping cart accesses the various merchants' sites, searches for specific purchase-related fields, creates a database of those fields, and creates a hyperlink to that merchant's site. When the employee wishes to access the merchant's site, the shopping cart acts as a proxy for the user, but also monitors the communication for specific requests. If a specific request, such as add to cart, has been identified, the shopping cart doesn't relay this request to the merchant's shopping cart, but rather fetches relevant shopping data from the fields database and composes a purchase order which is sent to the merchant's site. The amount of the purchase is applied against the certificate.

The three major problems of retail / wholesale industry, i.e. Security, Inventory, Self CheckOut (SISCO) are achieved by “virtual salesperson” and provided by synergism techniques of 5W's (Weight, Who, What, Where and When). A system that includes combination of steps and / or means for uniquely identifying each and every product (UPC / USID indicium), at a vendor retail premises; steps and / or means for protecting the product / property (brain-like recognition); steps and / or means for detecting / registering a product at a vendor retail premises that has been taken from its storage or display location; steps and / or means for registering that the product has been put into a customer's shopping cart; steps and / or means for tracking customer's location with a unique ID tagging wireless device to a shopping cart; steps and / or means for automatically transacting a purchase of the product, steps and / or means for paying for the product at the vicinity of the products location with laptop / net computers at both ends of exit aisle and / or more computers at convenient places with attached scanner and card payment device; steps and / or means for notifying the customer to pay if the product has not been properly or timely paid for; any missed / unwanted items will be accounted for at reduced manned checkout stations, to received itemized purchases receipt and to sign signature, and steps and / or means for customer ID checking in and checking out by “security guard” wirelessly scans customer's receipt for inventory / security tracking.

Image capture devices attached to a computer processor are located in a retail store. Items of merchandise for sale are tracked from their display position to a shopping container using optical tracking software. The software is capable of identifying the items and containers optically. A list of items in each container is maintained in a database. A customer may request a listing of items in a cart at any time via a query. At checkout time, there is no need to scan the items.

A comprehensive system effectuates global electronic commerce on the Internet across frontiers of nations, cultures, and languages. Referral Websites serving various locales offer Buyers the opportunity to view products for purchase. A Buyer selects categories of products for viewing by using drop-down menus that organize products into a clear taxonomy that can be expressed across all languages. Having selected a category of products for viewing, a Buyer receives, from a multi-version relational database, a version of marketing information about each product. The version is one automatically sent from the database to match the Buyer's language, culture, and nationality, as deduced from the use of a particular Referral Website. A shopping cart allows Buyers to select a product for purchase in an interactive way that encourages completion of the purchase. Products can be offered with custom options and in wholesale quantities. Personalized Web pages allow comprehensive customer service after a sale.

Disclosed is a system and method for using optical flow to detect objects moving past a camera and to select images of the moving objects. A shopping cart, for example, may be detected by subdividing an image into a plurality of image blocks; comparing the blocks to a preceding image to determine the motion of the portion of the object pictured; associating the most common motion with the shopping cart. The motion of the cart may also be integrated over time for purposes of tracking cart motion and selecting a subset of the captured images for object recognition processing. Detection of the cart and image selection improves computational efficiency an increase merchandise throughput.

A media enhanced shopping cart system comprises a shopping cart comprising a frame, a basket, a handle, a base tray, a plurality of wheels, a read component for performing a proximity scan of the shopping cart, a locationing component for determining a location of the shopping cart within a store based on the scan, and a display component for displaying at least one advertisement for a product based on the location of the shopping cart within the store, wherein the locationing component is further operable to determine a location of the product within the store relative to the shopping cart based on the scan, and wherein the display component is further operable to display an indication of the location of the advertised product relative to the location of the shopping cart.

A portable gas fractionalization apparatus that provides oxygen rich air to patients is provided. The apparatus is compact, lightweight, and low-noise. The components are assembled in a housing that is divided into two compartments. One compartment is maintained at a lower temperature than the other compartment. The lower temperature compartment is configured for mounting components that can be damaged by heat. The higher temperature compartment is configured for mounting heat generating components. An air stream is directed to flow from an ambient air inlet to an air outlet constantly so that there is always a fresh source of cooling air. The apparatus utilizes a PSA unit to produce an oxygen enriched product. The PSA unit incorporates a novel single ended column design in which all flow paths and valves can be co-located on a single integrated manifold. The apparatus also can be used in conjunction with a satellite conserver and a mobility cart.