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January 15, 2008

PGeeks tomorrow; Wired grocery carts; Scalping at eateries; Open your wifi; Scrapbooking scandal; Goofy NFL endgames

Geeks tomorrow: . Providence Geeks meet monthly at AS220, 115 Empire St., from 5:30-9 p.m. and Wednesday's the day. Nametags, beer and startuppers. Details at the link.

Eat me!

MediaCart.

AP: Video Ads Are Planned for Grocery Carts.

As you get near the Oreos, a coupon will pop up.

I'm inclined to drape a paper towel over it all.

The carrot: No checkout lines. The cart will total and charge/debit your purchase. No word on who bags. (Robot baggers to come?)

But wait, there's more:

Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a website at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list.

Are you bowled over yet?

Money sits: Online scalping's next territory: High-end restaurants? This is an only-in-Manhattan phenomenon, but a startup called Tablexchange.com has carved out a "pay to sit" niche. Restaurants, which don't get a cut, are giving it the hairy eyeball. Richard Coraine, chief of operations for the Union Square Hospitality Group, which operates several dining hot-spots like Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and Tabla:

"I'm already down a hundred when you walk in the front door, and that's not something that I find palatable," Coraine said in reference to the fact that a site like Tablexchange means that people are spending money on a restaurant that the restaurant never sees. "I want to control the entire value equation."

News.com blogger Caroline McCarthy (The Social) makes it read like the Times.

Sharing is good: My Open Wireless Network. "Security guru" Bruce Schneier:

Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people -- and attracts the most criticism -- is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet....

(Refutation of objections to letting folks park in front of your house when they need to Google directions or something.)

...I appreciate everyone else who keeps an open wireless network, including all the coffee shops, bars and libraries I have visited in the past, the Dayton International Airport where I started writing this and the Four Points Sheraton where I finished. You all make the world a better place.

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckminster and his grilfriend, publicist Susan MacTavish Best, visited us in the newsroom a few years ago, and the conversation opened with a story about how they couldn't pick up an open wifi signal when they drove into Providence. In their hometown, San Francisco, you can pull over and connect pretty much everywhere, thanks to the kindness of strangers.

Generation scrap:

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
"Kristina Contes' scrapbooks eschew the teddy bears and hearts for the avant-garde. When she came across a community of crafters in their 20s and 30s who had learned to express their loneliness, narcissism and rage through the hobby, she realized she had found her calling."

A scrapbook career in shreds. L.A. Times. Tension in the scrapbooking world between sentimentalists and edgy young upstarts like "labelwhore" boils over.

The trouble in the land of foam stickers and glossy glitter glue all started in February, after Contes won a contest sponsored by one of the industry's most popular magazines, Creating Keepsakes. Her winning pages featured photos of her feet and her hairless terrier, Chloe. Her name went into the magazine's Hall of Fame and her work was published in a book of the top 2007 entries.

But Contes -- inadvertently -- had cheated.

Someone else had taken pictures that ended up in her portfolio. When Contes called Creating Keepsakes to request that her friend receive a photo credit, the staff member approved it without realizing she had broken an entry rule: Submissions had to be solely the contestant's work. The book came out in October with both names published -- to the dismay of thousands.

Arctic NFL: The NFL playoffs aren't playing out as expected. Mike Lopresti of Gannett News Service puts together a primer on the surreal endgames for those who only notice the NFL as the Super Bowl nears. It begins,

The forecast for Foxborough this Sunday calls for a high temperature of 18 degrees. But enough about the warm-weather site of the NFL conference championships.
It's supposed to be 11 degrees in Green Bay...

Pity the poor fans, who can't run to keep warm. Will they pass?

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:08 AM | Permalink

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Posted by: Pam Cotter on January 15, 2008 11:27 AM

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