Revised spec expedites time-to-market, supports retail service robots
by Andy Mattice (OMG Retail Domain Task Force Chair, and Solutions Enablement & Senior Architect, Lexmark
OMG issued its Unified Point-of-Service (UnifiedPOS) v1.16 specification, supporting retail communications service devices/robots. The revised specification allows retail application developers to use software development environments and languages for other POS peripherals and capabilities.
The specification addresses peripheral capabilities, including the following:
- light control (e.g., blink cycles, changing colors and alarms)
- power support (e.g., power failure, battery level, and CPU temperature notifications)
- video capture (e.g., generating and archiving photos and videos, and reading encoded data), individual recognition (identifying and analyzing people and goods)
- sound playing and recording
- voice recording (converting speech to strings)
- speech synthesis
- gesture control (registering and executing poses or motions via components)
- device monitoring (e.g., tracking measured values and notifying of value changes)
- and graphic display (e.g., images, videos, and web pages).
Standards reduce the cost and time-to-market for new technology and services such as service robots. That's important for retailers who typically have an IT spend of less than 2% of revenue.
In summary, the specification intends to simplify further the retailer technology implementation and management experience (e.g., inventory management via buying pattern data collection) while simultaneously elevating the consumer experience (e.g., facilitating product location).
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