November 3, 2011 06:22 pm EDT

Amazon Flow strikes low blow to brick and mortar, converts barcode scans to online sales

Remember when you had to "walk" to a "store" to buy things? Our grandkids are gonna weep uncontrollably when we explain queuing up at Our Price to buy VHS tapes. We'll recall the date the final nail was driven into brick and mortar's coffin: November 2nd, 2011 -- the day Amazon's A9 released Flow free on the App store. With Flow, you just walked into a store, scan the barcode of a book, DVD or jar of Nutella and it came back with Amazon's price, reviews and "multimedia content". It wasn't the first app to do the job, but we just couldn't help ourselves indulging in another. It wasn't long before the store detectives cottoned on to all the barcode snapping and started issuing automatic take-down tackles if they saw you holding a phone. After that, of course, war was inevitable. (But hey, it was worth it.)

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Amazon Flow strikes low blow to brick and mortar, converts barcode scans to online sales originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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