But Will It Read the Magazines?

Supermarket shoppers may soon tally up their own groceries electronically as they wheel through store aisles.

Executives at this week’s supermarket industry expo got a preview of “portable personal shoppers.” The scanning device lets shoppers record the price of each item as it is taken from the shelf.

Shoppers first register their bank account numbers, then keep a running total of purchases and generate their own register receipts. A cashier does a visual check of the tallied purchases.

“The shopping cart was radical and revolutionary when it was introduced in 1936,” said an industry consultant. “This is the logical evolution of self-service.”