Grocery baskets may soon become high-tech

Anyone who has done grocery shopping knows about those small plastic baskets near the doorway. Just lift up the handles and carry one through the aisles to hold a few quick items.

Now, a Glenview-based company is merging those baskets with a new technology that works with your smartphone.

Shopping Baskets Plus, which started in December, is partnering with another firm to add adhesive vinyl labels with a printed code. The code and your smartphone can work together to bring up similar items for comparison shopping or the store's weekly specials on your phone's screen.

Those new baskets now are available to grocery stores and other retailers, said the company's General Manager Randy Pickard.

“If you go to a shelf and pick up a tube of toothpaste, the basket will read the bar code,” said Pickard. “It shows up on your smartphone and tells you another store, like Costco, may have a great price on it, but it may be 12 miles away, so you can decide to buy it where you are.”

The code printed on the vinyl on the basket has a QR code, which means quick response, and offers two-dimensional images that can be read by smartphones. It uses technology similar to the store's checkout bar code scanner, Pickard said.

When a shopper with a camera-equipped smartphone, loaded with a QR reader, points and clicks at the code on the shopping basket, a promotional page from the retailer's weekly specials comes up.

If you need a QR reader, some downloads are free. Pickard said he has a price comparison bar code reader on his smartphone that connects to a database of products that he uses. This advanced capability to connect to a database requires a fee. But a basic QR Code reader is free.

While many stores still are using the old-fashioned baskets, Pickard hopes they'll order the high-tech version.

Surfing: The Dallas Cowboys needed a data center inside the stadium that could support more than 30 organizations affiliated with the franchise in more than 90 locations, including the stadium and 35 pro shops selling team merchandise. The data center would also need to support team operations from cheerleaders, scouting, medical staff and concession stands to game-day requirements, such as 3,000 televisions and stadium lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. That's when Vernon Hills-based CDW helped to outfit the stadium with new HP servers, storage area network and other technology.

Ÿ Define My Style, an online style community for girls 13-19, has launched DMS2Go, an iPhone app. Define My Style worked with West Monroe Partners, a Chicago-based management consulting firm, to design, develop and launch the app.

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