The NYT has a happy review of the new Ikan grocery scanner, a home countertop item that scans your empties and maintains an online grocery list for you. When the cupboards are bare simply log in, place your order and wait for your replacement sustenance to knock on your door.
Okay, so I love the technology. A consumer-level gizmo that reads barcodes? Yay! A gizmo that reads barcodes and communicates with the interwebs? Super awesome! An "online database of one million products"? Neato!
But we don't get outside enough as it is. Not one of us. We're isolated from other humans in ways unfathomable even 20 years ago. We work online, go to school online, shop online, chat online and meet potential dates and spouses online. Look, it's creepy. Internet-dependent living is just creepy.
I'm as web-addicted as the next nerd but I refuse to give up my scratch-paper-and-pen grocery list. I won't abandon my twice- or thrice-weekly trip to the neighborhood grocery store. At the store I can smell the birthday cakes being made in the bakery. I can ogle the olive bar, admire the asparagus mountains, fondle the navel oranges until I find just the right succulent few. I can chitchat with the checker, smile at the bagger, experience the actual sights, sounds, smells and sensations of an actual public place. And that's super duper awesome if you ask me.
Just when you think you've seen every barcode use and permutation imagineable along comes