South Korea's virtual grocery

20 October 2011 Last updated at 23:01 GMT By Jason Strother PRI's The World A young woman shops at Seoul's Seolleung station, using her smartphone Online shopping is nothing new, especially in plugged-in South Korea. But one company says it's going further. It's testing out a virtual supermarket in a public place.

At Seolleung underground station in Seoul, there's a row of brightly lit billboards along the platform, with hundreds of pictures of food and drink - everything from fruit and milk to instant noodles and pet food.

Standing on the platform, a man in his 60s who gives his name as Mr Bae, says it looks to him like an advertisement for a convenience store.

When I explain it's a virtual supermarket that you access with your smartphone, he doesn't seem impressed. He says he doesn't have a smartphone, so it's not for him. But he says, it's a good idea for younger Koreans.

And that's who this virtual supermarket is primarily designed for, according to Homeplus, the South Korean affiliate of the British supermarket chain Tesco.

No time to shop

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the number of smartphone subscribers in South Korea had passed 10 million, up from just a few hundred thousand in 2009.

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Our customers are really busy and many don't have the time to go to the supermarket ”

End Quote Jo Hyun Jae Project co-ordinator That might be why Homeplus's project co-ordinator, Jo Hyun Jae, is sounding so confident.

He says young Koreans increasingly rely on smartphones to take care of many of their daily tasks.

"Our customers are really busy and many don't have the time to go to the supermarket to do their shopping," he says. "So our virtual store allows them to save time."

Kim Yoona, 25, volunteers to give the virtual supermarket a try.

After downloading the Homeplus app to her smartphone, Kim stands on the platform, checking out what's on offer.

She has more than 500 of the company's most popular grocery products to choose from.

Several "shelves" at the virtual store

"I'm thinking of buying the Maxin Mocha Gold Might, an instant coffee mix," she says. "They have one, two, three, four, five, six kinds of coffee mix lines. Because Maxin is my favourite, I will buy this."

Kim holds her phone over the black-and-white QR - the Quick Response code - just under the picture of the coffee.

There's a beep, and the picture of the coffee appears on her phone screen.

She selects what bag size she wants, then the app asks her to enter when and where she'd like the product delivered.

'Quick to adapt'

If orders are placed before 13:00, the company pledges to deliver the groceries the same evening.

Homeplus's Jo Hyun Jae said there are plans to put virtual stores in other underground railway stations, especially those close to the city's universities.

And the company wants to introduce them in other countries too, he says.

"We think this concept can work outside of Korea, since many young people around the world are adopting smartphone technology."

A display of virtual groceries on the platform

But Kwon Ki-Duk, at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, says there are aspects of local consumer culture that make technology like the virtual grocery more likely to take off in South Korea than elsewhere.

She points out that Koreans are very quick to adapt to new technology products.

"Koreans are really interested in converging and cramming many different functions into a single gadget, and mixing technologies, in order to find novel ways to complete ordinary tasks," she says.

But, says Kwon, South Koreans are not ready to abandon today's supermarkets - not yet at least.

The country is famous for its long working hours and tough work culture. Going shopping, she says, is a way for people to relax when they are not working.

She includes herself in that group.

Continue reading the main story Tesco entered South Korea in 1999 in a joint venture with Samsung. Homeplus in South Korea is Tesco's most successful international business. Tesco has 409 stores in South Korea and employs 25,000 staff.

Source: Tesco

After trying out the virtual store, Kim Yoona agrees that for her, it does not yet replace a physical supermarket.

That is because she likes to see and touch items before she buys them.

"When I go to the real store, I can check the quality of the vegetables or fruits," she says.

There doesn't seem to be a smartphone app that can do that.

Not yet, anyway.

Additional reporting by Rob Hugh-Jones.

You can hear a radio version of this piece at PRI's The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH in Boston. The radio report was first broadcast on October 6, 2011.

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Virtual people to get ID checks

29 July 2011 Last updated at 00:12 GMT Is that cyclops the same one you saw yesterday? The faces and behaviour of online avatars could help identify the people controlling them, scientists believe.

Using both characteristics, researchers hope to develop techniques for checking whether the digital characters are who they claim to be.

Such information could be used in situations where login details are not visible or for law enforcement.

Impersonation of avatars is expected to become a growing problem as real life and cyberspace increasingly merge.

Signature moves

Avatars are typically used to represent players in online games such as World of Warcraft and in virtual communities like Second Life.

As their numbers grow, it will become important to find ways to identify those we meet regularly, according to Dr Roman Yampolskiy from the University of Louisville.

Working out if their controller is male or female has an obvious commercial benefit, he said. But discovering that the same person controlled different avatars in separate spaces would be even more useful.

As robots proliferate we will need ways of telling one from the other, said Dr Yampolskiy.

"It's useful for profiling of avatars for marketing purposes by businesses in virtual worlds," explained Dr Yampolskiy.

"It also has some applications in forensic tracking of avatars across multiple virtual communities."

The technology may also have implications for security if a game account is hacked and stolen.

Behavioural analysis could help prove whether an avatar is under the control of its usual owner by watching to see if it acts out of character.

The research looked at monitoring for signature gestures, movements and other distinguishing characteristics.

Limited expressions

Researchers discovered that the lack of possible variations on a avatar's digital face, when compared to a real human, made identification tricky.

However, those limited options are relatively simple to measure, because of the straightforward geometries involved in computer-generated images.

Dr Yampolskiy's team generated large data sets made up of many possible faces in Second Life and Entropia Universe and then studied them to spot key characteristics.

"It's very preliminary work as we are still collecting data," he said. "So far we have been very successful."

Dr Yampolskiy pointed out that another factor driving the need for avatar identification was the increasing use of telepresence and augmented reality.

Especially for businesses, it will be important to ensure that on-screen facsimiles represent the people they purport to.

Further work by the group will extend the identifying work and behaviour monitoring to robots.

As more and more machines start to work alongside people access to controlled areas would rely on being able to tell one from another.

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