With Intel’s new technology shopping becomes high tech and stress-free

Shopping is always fun but at times Shopping it can also be harrowing, especially in electronics or shoe stores. You can't find help or can't figure out if a specific product is in stock. In the future, the shopping experience should be much better thanks to technology. The store will recognize you, dig into your shopping habits, and guide you in the right direction. If your favorite product is in the store, retailers will make sure you know through messaging.

That Minority Report-type technology is still many years away but will be possible with the magic of sensors, cameras, and data analytics. But some retailers have an early start: Some furniture stores are already using virtual reality so buyers can preview how furniture will look in a room.

Poking into users shopping habits and recognizing their face may sound too invasive, but retailers are trying to make the shopping experience better. It starts with products like Intel's Responsive Retail Platform, which can track store inventory and respond to customer needs in real time. Recently RRP announced that it includes hardware and software that could take control of inventory and pass on real-time alerts to sales associates and customers in the store about what's in stock.

Features- RRP includes a range of sensors and a mini desktop-like gateway box with an Intel x86 chip. The sensors, for example, can read RFID tags for real-time inventory checks, with the gateway providing the computing muscle. A large store may need a number of RRP boxes sitting on walls to keep a track of many products in real time. Also packaged with RRP are cloud services for analytics. For this all new retail technology Intel is establishing a fund of US$100 million. And also likely to invest in companies developing compelling technologies for use in stores. The company established a similar $100 million fund for the development of automotive technologies.

The fund and RRP were announced at the National Retail Federation show being held in New York, where Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is expected to give a speech. Intel will also have pop-up environments demonstrating cool shopping experiences based on its technologies.