You Better Not Pout

This Christmas, like many consumers running around, I used my mobile phone to locate gifts in what has been called "the Internet of things" in databases of competing inventories to find cheaper, closer, and more easily accessible presents. Bar-code scanners on devices like the iPhone were likely annoying to store clerks this holiday season, but as this story, "Mobile Phones Become Essential Tool to Shopping," indicates, it is likely that the mobile phones under the tree this year will help choose the packages for next year.