Amazon's new smart shopping cart is awesome, but worst timing ever

Amazon dominates online shopping but retail shopping, not so much -- and with the COVID-19 pandemic and its 24/7 fear being reigned down on us, I don't see a return to norm anytime soon.

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And by norm, I mean walking around the shops pushing a shopping cart around in the United States -- but hey, Amazon thought it would be the perfect time to unveil the Dash Cart.

What the hell is the Dash Cart? It's Amazon's new shopping cart that has a bunch of cameras, sensors, and a built-in scale that works out what is in your cart, totals it, and then charges the cart you've got attached to your Amazon account.

This is different to the wall-mounted cameras that Amazon uses in their retail Go stores, as it relies on its own technologies inside of the shopping cart to do its job. Amazon will roll out the first Dash Cart shopping carts at its first true grocery stores, in the Woodland Hills area of LA later on in the year.

Amazon says that it designed the Dash Cart for "small- to medium-sized grocery trips and fits two grocery bags".

Once you've arrived at the store and grabbed your new Amazon Dash Cart, you'll need to sign into the Amazon app by scanning the QR code. After that, you just need to chuck (well, probably not chuck but gently place) your items into the Dash Cart.

If the product you've placed into the Dash Cart isn't identified correctly, then the Dash Cart will beep -- or it will flash orange if the item needs to be re-added.

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It wouldn't be 2020 and a next-gen shopping cart without a display on it, right? Amazon includes a display on the Dash Cart that will give you access to your Alexa shopping list, as well as a nifty coupon scanner that will discount items as you shop -- probably an incentive to using the Dash Cart.

This is the future of shopping... if people were actually going to be confident of grabbing shopping carts and going to the shops. Thanks, COVID.