A small domain communications system for personalized shopping assistance

By integrating wireless, video, speech and real-time data access technologies, a unique shopping assistant service can be created that personalizes the attention provided to a customer based on individual needs, without limiting his movement, or causing distractions for others in the shopping center. We have developed this idea into a service based on two products: a very high volume hand-held wireless communications device, the PSA (Personal Shopping Assistant), that the customer owns (or may be provided to a customer by the retailer), and a centralized server located in the shopping center to which the customer communicates using the PSA. The centralized server maintains the customer database, the store database and provides audio/visual responses to inquiries from tens of customers in real-time over a small area wireless network