NFC-Shopping application for the visually disabled improves the shopping experience for a rapidly growing part of the population.
France, Marseille – 8th December 2011 – Think&Go NFC, the leading NFC application innovator, was chosen by a panel of industry experts as the winner of the Best NFC Application Award at the 1st WIMA NFC USA Congress which was held in San Francisco last week. The “NFC-Shopping” application allows the visually disabled to shop in dedicated in-city stores or from home with improved access to product information and promotions and uses a personal profile to warn them if they choose products which contain ingredients for which they have an allergy. The application was developed as part of a cooperative project involving “L’institut dela vision”, Dassault Systemes’ Social Innovation Platform 3DSwYm, and the Casino supermarket
chain in close cooperation.
According the World Health Organization (WHO) 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide.
Among the multiple features including Tap-to-Basket, Budget control, Text-to-speech, Cross-sales, Promotion, Mobile Payment, Social Media, Think&Go’s submission was selected for two main innovative features: their Client-Server architecture which gives users instant access to information from NFC tags, even in places not covered by 3G networks, and a personal profiler engine which allows pertinent information to be presented according to the individual user’s needs. For instance a user can indicate an allergy to peanuts or lactose, or a preference for fair trade products, and the NFC-Shopping application will warn or recommend her in consequence.
Vincent Berge, Founder and CEO of Think&Go NFC said “We are very pleased to get this award that shows our advanced R&D in NFC-Shopping, and especially for visually impaired people and the elderly. This is just one of several examples of how NFC is changing the shopping experience in retail outlets. It is the result of the launch of our NFC-Shopping solution in April 2011, the work with Brands and Retailers, and 2 years of intense development aimed at bringing the power of NFC enabled services to our customers”
References to this award winning application on the Internet:
• Les Echos (in French)
• Les Echos (via Google Translate)
• Video of the application
