difficult vocabularies

[Suthipong]

From: At A Tesco's supermarket in Cambridge, England, the shelves have begun to talk to their contents, and the contents are talking back. Soon, razors at a Wal-Mart store in Brockton, Massachusetts will begin to let staff know when they suspect theft.
Questions: - "the shelves" Are they normal shelves as in general supermarkets?
Why they can talk?
- "contents" What are they and, as same as the shelves, why they can talk?
- "razors" Are they normal razors for shaving? And why they suspect theft?
- What kind of writing is this?

[emsr2d2]

From: At A Tesco's supermarket in Cambridge, England, the shelves have begun to talk to their contents, and the contents are talking back. Soon, razors at a Wal-Mart store in Brockton, Massachusetts will begin to let staff know when they suspect theft.
Questions: - "the shelves" Are they normal shelves as in general supermarkets?
Why they can talk?
- "contents" What are they and, as same as the shelves, why they can talk?
- "razors" Are they normal razors for shaving? And why they suspect theft?
- What kind of writing is this?

What a bizarre paragraph!!! I would love to know where this came from. It sounds like some kind of vision of the future for shops.

- Yes, normal shelves.
- "Contents" are the items on the shelves, the products for sale. Obviously, they can't actually talk but in this writer's vision they can.
- "Razors" - yes, normal razors for shaving.
- This writing could be science-fiction, fantasy or just normal fiction.

The only thing I can think of is that some kind of computer system has been put in place in that supermarket which means that some software on the shelf links with the products on the shelf and counts how many of the product are removed and presumably sold.

So, in the morning, there are 20 razors on Shelf A1. During the day, 15 people take one razor each from the shelf. Somehow, via a computer, the shelf recognises this and records that 15 razors have been bought. The staff then ask the shelf software for updated information and it tells them that there were 20 razors in the morning but at the end of the day there are now only 5. So the staff now need to order some more razors to put on the shelf.

Perhaps this is actually happening now but I haven't heard of it.

[SoothingDave]

The products would have some sort of computer chip in/on them, allowing them to be identified. So there would be communication going on.

This happens today with some systems in place at warehouses.

Theft detection would be as simple as trying to match the number of items taken from the shelf with the number of items purchased at the checkouts.

[Suthipong]

[QUOTE=emsr2d2;777602]What a bizarre paragraph!!! I would love to know where this came from. It sounds like some kind of vision of the future for shops.

- Yes, normal shelves.
- "Contents" are the items on the shelves, the products for sale. Obviously, they can't actually talk but in this writer's vision they can.
- "Razors" - yes, normal razors for shaving.
- This writing could be science-fiction, fantasy or just normal fiction.
- etc.


Thank you.
It's from The Economist, Longman uses this in a Business English text, Intermediate level Unit 14; Logistic- The invisible industry - Retail logistic - The best thing since the barcode. I found it so difficult to me, but I have to teach this to my students.