It will take a year for it to become commercially useful though

Mar 9, 2012 15:33 GMT  ·  By

Toshiba's new invention will probably be useless if it isn't combined with a scale, but that is besides the point, as is the fact that it will take at least a year for malls and other stores to use it.

Long story short, the company somehow made a fruit scanner that doesn't need barcodes to know if you're buying apples or pineapples or pears or whatever else.

By interpreting “visual noise”, a camera with optical pattern recognition can determine shape, surface pattern and coloration.

In other words, it will know what fruit and even what type of that fruit people are buying.

Labels and coupons will still be possible to scan with the new technological contraption.

Now all it takes is to build a database, a process that will be completed in about a year or so, since fruits and vegetables don't all appear during the same season.