Photo: Smart shopping cart

A number of tech companies are working on "smart shopping cart" technology. IBM customer Stop & Shop Supermarkets is testing one such system in some Boston-area stores.

Fujitsu, meanwhile, has its own wireless, shopping cart-mounted computer, which features scan-as-you-shop technology. The U-Scan Shopper (see picture) tallies items as they're loaded into the cart, alerts shoppers to specials and reminds them what they bought on their last visit. The product was unveiled in July at the 2005 Retail Business Technology Expo in Sydney.