Getting shoppers in and out conveniently is the goal behind the U-Scan Shopper.

"The whole idea is to help consumers on their shopping trips. In fact, what grocers are up against right now is they have more competition than ever before — from supercenters, warehouse clubs, even convenience stores," Slack said.

Couple that with on-the-go consumers looking to make a quick stop at the store to get stuff for that night's dinner.

"Nobody goes to convenience stores because they're price-sensitive. They go because they're in a hurry. If you're the grocer, you want to get the loyalty of that customer. If you're the grocer, if you make it easy for them when they're shopping in the store, then hopefully they'll come back for the major stock-up trips as well."

Privacy remains a bugaboo with many shoppers, including those hesitant to use store loyalty cards. And that could be a problem with the U-Scan Shopper, which can even track how long you've been in individual aisles.

But the loyalty card, which can prompt the individual electronic deals, is not required. Shoppers wanting privacy can still use the U-Scan Shopper, but they'll just get the general advertising and scanning capabilities.

"If you value your privacy, our device doesn't force you to do anything to identify yourself," Slack said.

"Any level of user can use it," Warner said. "We're not asking the consumer to change their behavior in any way from what they're doing today."

Klever beginnings

What Klever Marketing and Fujitsu have been doing dates back a few years. A company with early-stage "smart cart" technology went bankrupt — its technology soon became antiquated and retailers weren't impressed with it or its cost — so a few years ago Klever Kart, as it was known then, bought its patents and public shell and did a reverse merger, becoming Klever Marketing.

By 2001, however, Klever was in what Warner calls "hibernation and self-preservation." The company eventually contacted Fujitsu and sold them on the device concept.

Fujitsu acquired Klever's non-U.S. patents, its software and certain rights in other related intellectual property for the U-Scan Shopper. The companies will jointly market the product within the United States, and Fujitsu will market the product outside the United States. Klever, a whisper of a company that has outsourced most operations, will be in charge of lining up the devices' in-store advertising and managing that for participating grocers.