European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 30, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday april 30, 19b8 the stars and stripes Paga 7 High tech a Cerf cams to make shopping fun Chicago a the grocery cart of the future is Here a High tech video equipped Gadget tha can say hello and offer games shop Ping tips sports scores and Here s inc catch on the spot advertising to the consumer. We re expecting it to make shopping More fun less of a hassle and More efficient for con Sumers said Forrest Anderson director for. Marketing communications at information re sources inc., which developed the cart. The Chicago based marketing research com Pany spent two years inventing the Vic cart with a liquid Crystal display video screen mounted near the kiddie scat to entertain in form and offer a few words from the sponsors. Shoppers using irl s video cans will be Able to Call up store maps Reserve numbers at the Deli counter find out which checkout line is shortest. Play tick tack toe or trivia games to pass the time in line and gel the time weather forecast or sports scores. The cans would be provided free to the supermarkets with costs paid by advertisers whose commercials could be transmitted nationally by satellite to local supermarkets. The High Lech Carls Are to be test marketed this fall in three stores Anderson said one in the Chicago area the others in cities not yet chosen. If inc test marketing goes Well 1r1 plans to introduce the carts in major City grocery stores in july i�b9 and go National in 1991 with carts in 10,000 supermarkets. The video screens will be especially encased to make them kid proof graph juice proof Shock and water resistant with an alarm system to prevent theft Anderson said. Ads Wil make up about 15 percent of the programming. The rest will be entertainment and information services. Critics attack coast guard Washington a rep. Mike Lowry d Wash. Thursday introduced a measure in the House that would ban use of inc coast guard in the persian Gulf Bui the coast guard commandant defended the plan by saying it would t Hurt anti drug efforts at Home. Lowry. Spearheading new opposition on Capitol Hill said. The Reagan administration should use the coast guard s scarce resources to fight the War on drugs not the Iraq Iran  in the Senate sen. Brock Adams a Wash told his colleagues it would be a mistake to Send lightly armed coast guard vessels into the War torn Gulf. Lowry s proposal will be considered next week As an amendment to a Bill authorizing the Pentagon budget for the fiscal year starting oct. I. Rep. Les Aspin d-wis., chairman of the Louse armed services committee said the restriction will win in a Breeze. It s no  the rising Public fear about the nation s drug prob lems Means inc restriction will win. Aspin explained. Taking the boats off drag duly and putting them into the Gulf won t be popular with the Public he said. The Pentagon is considering sending six coils Cuard boats to help Navy warships patrol the Gulf. The coast guard vessels Are designed for shallow Waters and Navy officials say they could be effective in the shallow Gulf. The Navy is escorting i i re flagged kuwaiti tankers raising fears in Congress that the United states might be drawn into the Iran Iraq War since Kuwait has been accused by Iran of being an ally of Iraq. There have been several clashes Between the Navy and Iran the most recent occurring april 18 when Navy ships and planes shot up two Oil platforms and Sank or damaged six iranian vessels. Adm. Paul a. Yost coast guard commandant told a Senate subcommittee that he would be delighted to Send the ships to the Gulf and said the move would plan to Send ships to Gulf have Only a minimal Impact on anti drug efforts. The boats arc i 0-fool Island class vessels designed to operate in Waters off Florida and the Caribbean on anti drug patrols. The coast guard is buying 3s of he vessels of which 17 have been delivered the boats have n lop Speed of More than 26 knots but their heaviest weapons Are machine guns. Penta gon officials had considered sending the boat to the Gulf last fall but declined because they arc so lightly armed. Yost told the appropriations transportation sub committee the boats would be replaced on Anli drug patrols by other coast guard vessels and by some Navy ships. But earlier Yost had been questioned about anti drug efforts and admitted you can always uie More Money and boats it seems to me we re going to hurl our drug efforts by sending the boats to the Gulf said sen. Mark Hal Field. A Ore. Sen. Alfonse d Avalo . Was even More Crit ical. I think its an incredible policy he told Yost. We kind of Bumble our Way into  the coast guard is facing severe budget problems Yost told the subcommittee including a j100 million shortfall in the current fiscal year. More than 30 Sla tons or facilities have been closed and Anli drug patrols have been Cut by 55 percent. Administratively the coast guard is part of the transportation department but it also has National Security responsibilities and he Navy has offered la pay the Cost of sending the vessels to the persian Gulf Tost said. Yosi defended inc plan this is not an idea off the lop of somebody s head. It was Well thought out and researched he said. But Lowry saw it differently. Sending the coast guard to the Gulf would be just another tragic danger Ous and poorly conceived move by the adm Nistra  to eyeglasses May improve vision for millions Baltimore a scientists have announced plans to develop eyeglasses with Liny color to screens instead of lenses that May help an estimated 2.5 million people whose vision can t be improved by conventional treatment. The device will not restore sight to the Blind or improve  far sightedness or astigmatism but will enhance what vision is left in people who suffer from degenerative Eye disease re searchers at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute said. Wilmer and Nasa s National space technology laboratories will spend is million in the a Cal five years to develop and manufacture the system said Robert Massof a Hopkins ophthalmology pro Fessor working on the project. Ray Gilbert manager of Nasa s technology applications engineering Section said the system is a spinoff of technology developed to create space stations. That technology is used and applied Here he  device would resemble wrap around sunglasses wild Small lenses at the upper outer Corners connected by optical fibres to a Battery powered com Puter at the Waist Massof said. The lenses would capture the Field of vision and images would be conveyed to miniature solid slate television cameras in the Waist pack he said. The images Are processed by the computer and Dis played on inc television screens where the lenses would be. The result would be a clearer and More defined vision than can be produced by conventional Eye treatment. The same world will be on to screens Manisof said. For a Long time the Only thing thai s been done for peo ple with Low vision is provide them with a magnifier. With the technology Avail Allewe believed we could do More than simply enlarge  Nasa scientists will adapt the Inch a feared Eye trackers solid state to screens optical fibres to camera lenses solid state video cameras image processor \ Power Supply ology for the glasses while researchers at Wilmer will determine what the sys tem has to do to alter a pal incl s vision Massof said. The breakthrough is the technology that made this All possible he said. We Are not creating new components for  about 11 million americans have vision defects that cannot be corrected the glasses could Benefit about 2.5 Mil lion people who suffer from severe disa bling impairment or Low vision said or. Small Pali director of the Eye Institute. The system will be adapted from technology used by the National aeronautics and space administration to guide vehicles mass9f said. Nasa uses a Black and White version of the system he said. They mount a to camera on a robot and inc robot goes off to do the task and the operator stays in place and experiences what the robot sees. If a robot can Wear to cameras a person can Wear to cameras Massof said. They May qualify As legally Blind but Are still potentially productive peo ple. They can probably get around but Are unable to read. Recognize faces or things May be very reduced in contrast. So they look somewhat Blank. For the patient who has reduction in sensitivity to contrails where Blacks and whiles look Gray we can Sharpen inc contrast and make Blacks much Blacker whiles much  he could not say what it would Cost but said the eyeglasses could be Assem bled for less than s 1,000. Ii will be of no value unless it is made affordable for the person who is retired and on a fixed income he said. The part of the device that is Uncer Tain in Price is the computer processing thai technology is still rapidly changing. Ii would be hard to guess the total Coti five Yean from now. Researchers Hope it would qualify for insurance coverage As a rehabilitative device he said