Week 5 - Bits & Bytes

            When you scan an item, the scanner which is your iPhone or smartphone device will store items you scanned temporarily. It will be convenient for you to check out faster if you need to buy the items you bought again on some other day. Most of devices have storage of 15GB or 30 GB which will ensure you to store as many items as possible. Once you scan an item, it will take some kilobytes to save it to your device. It will not take up a lot of your storage capacity because the size of an image will be very small.

            The “Hand-held Scanner” app will also come with an UNICODE system. This system will be able to encode different languages. If you are traveling overseas, you will be able buy items just like you would in the United States. It will allow you to scan, check out, and pay with your credit card internationally. This will be convenient for students who are studying abroad and people who are travelling. However, in order to prevent problems regarding theft, it will be available to certain stores that use RFID tags and its scanner.

            It would be another great innovation if we could get this app to be used internationally because everyone is looking for something new and convenient. Our company will first launch this app in the United States and if people think it is convenient and useful, we will consider whether or not to launch this app to other countries. We hope that self check-out app will draw many people’s attention. If this succeeds, our company will be updating the app more frequently with bug fixes and add new features.

Week 4 - Input

            There have been many concerns from retailers regarding theft and yes, this is a problem we need to consider. If consumers were not required to check out at a register, there may be concern that people would not scan all items in their cart. However, with all the great technologies being put out in the world today, there is an input innovation called RFID, Radio Frequency Identification. This technology would be useful because it would help the retailers to not to worry about the theft problem.

            When our company launches the app, we will be working closely with the RFID innovation. RFID is a system which transmits the identity of an object wirelessly using radio waves. It is an automatic identification technology. Once we get this to work, we will be putting RFID tags on every item that are being sold at the retailers. There are two types of RFID tags, passive and active and we will be using the passive tags which are commonly used. It convenient because it does not need battery power and the cost is much cheaper. If someone tries to steal an item or does not scan an item, the RFID scanners will go off before they leave the store.

            There are some disadvantages of RFID chips as well. Because it is still a developing technology, we can not guarantee 100% whether or not it is completely secure. If this is the case, we can always have someone to check their receipt as it appears on the screen of their device before they leave the store. This is done in many places like BJ’s and COSTCO where you need to show a receipt and check the number of items you have purchased. However, this process would be very hectic if someone purchases more than 20 items. I think we need to work on this issue more in depth to find a way to solve it.

Week 3 – Hardware Components and Digital Video

            The “Hand-held Scanner” will be acting just like a computer device which means it needs a processor, the control unit. The control unit is the component of the processor that directs and coordinates most of the operations. In order this device to be able to read an item that it scans, it needs to go through a control unit. Although not all hardware components will be used for this kind of device, memory will also be used. The bigger the memory you carry, the more it will be convenient for you. Whenever you scan an item and check out, the device will save it for later use. If you need to buy the same an item next time you will be able to check out much faster without having to scan it.

            Our company will be using YouTube most of time to advertise our product. There are billions and billions of YouTube users everyday and once we launch our product and start advertising, the sales of this product will surely be affected. We would need to contact with the YouTube Company to get the contract signed. As soon as YouTube starts advertising our product more and more people will start look into the details and decide whether or not to buy this product. If they find it useful and convenient, even more people will start buying this product and experience it themselves.

            There will be disadvantages of this product as much as there are advantages, hopefully, less. Since this is our company’s first time inventing such technology there could lags among many users. Our goal is to make this device with fewer problems as much as possible. We would want consumers to comment positive reviews on whatever social networking sites they might use to communicate with people. From this point on, we would be communicating with consumers to take their thoughts under consideration.

Week 2-Digital Imaging and Spreadsheet Applications

My entrepreneurship idea, “Hand-held Scanner” will be able to differentiate items that it scans by their colors. It will be very sensitive to its hue, saturation, and brightness. In order for the scanner to scan an item, the barcode needs to have the right amount color. In other words, the barcode will no longer be in black but a specific color that will correspond to a specific item you are trying to scan. If successful, you will be able to self check-out with no problem which is very convenient and fast!

Having said that, the camera which will be like a scanner on iPhone, iPad, and Tablet PC, needs to scan the barcode in high megapixel. If it does not scan the barcode in high resolution, the scanner will not be able to read it and you will not be able to “check-out.” Digital imaging will play a very important role in this technology because the point is to give people an app that is handy for everyone to use. We do not want this app to become a burden for people because we want people to live in a world that is somewhat convenient for them.

The spreadsheet applications will be a useful tool for us, to keep track of how successful we are at selling the apps. We will keep all the data we receive electronically by using pivot tables. This will enable us to quickly and easily summarize and analyze large amounts of data. By using this application we will know how to improve it based on its sales. If our sales are decreasing we will need ways we can improve the app and if our sales are increasing we will be thinking about ways we can build new features.