Look and Buy Promotes Aisle Browsing on the Web - Perceptual Robotics - Product Information

ENT, August 18, 1999

If your business isn't on the Web, it's dead. Analyst firms from Framingham, Mass., to Research Triangle Park, N.C., have been repeating this mantra for two years now. But what about the retailer who relies on the brick and mortar establishment with aisles of products for customers to peruse? How can they effectively generate the same feeling on the Web?

When the standard catalog approach falls short, one Evanston, Ill.-based company has a solution that can take customers from the browser to the aisles. Perceptual Robotics Inc.'s (PRI, www. perceptualrobotics.com) Look and Buy software uses Web camera technology to help users control cameras throughout a store and wander through aisles filled with products.

Look and Buy lets Web users remotely pan, tilt and zoom live video cameras placed in a retail location or product showroom. The only technology needed is an ordinary Web browser, without any additional software or plug-ins needed at the customer end. Present customers include Microsoft Corp., Nortel Networks, Ford Motor Co., IBM Corp. and CNN.

PRI has a lot of experience in user-controlled Web cameras. The company provided the same type of technology to baseball fans during the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Boston last month. Using a browser, users could control a camera placed behind home plate. The company provided the same type of service during the NBA finals, the WNBA draft and the Grammy Awards.