In described embodiments, a device and method for diagnosing brain and neurological issues is provided. The device measures the performance of Convergence, Divergence, and binocular tracking capabilities of a subject's eyes, which can be used to determine whether a subject has experienced a brain or other neurological event.

Some embodiments provide apparatuses and methods useful to providing control over movement of motorized transport units. In some embodiments, an apparatus providing control over movement of motorized transport units at a shopping facility comprises: a central computer system comprising: a transceiver; a control circuit; a memory coupled to the control circuit and storing computer instructions that when executed by the control circuit cause the control circuit to perform the steps of: obtain, from one or more of the communications received from the motorized transport unit, route condition information comprising information corresponding to an intended route of travel; obtain additional route condition information detected by one or more detectors external to the motorized transport unit; detect an object affecting the intended route of travel; identify an action to be taken by the motorized transport unit with respect to the detected object; and communicate one or more instructions.

Methods for enabling a multiple storage marketplace through selecting a permutation of inherited storage created in a tiered hierarchy mechanism through a topology of multiple hybrid cloud storage systems. Through those methods of permutation, a seamless mechanism of local storage, on-premises cloud and hybrid cloud storage management, a scalable configuration is achieved that enable a top-down flow of storage space accumulation throughout the topology. Any node in a particular topology space is capable of selecting a unique permutation that would hold for a particular session of storage space flow. Through those methods, a marketplace of storage space is created, thereby proliferating the topology of multiple hybrid cloud storage systems with ad-hoc permutation based selection of inherited storage spaces. The marketplace is independent of the storage system topology, number of nodes in the topology as well as the number of elements chosen in the permutation.

A method for conducting a plurality of electronic service exchanges over a network and a tangible, non-transient computer readable medium including instructions stored thereon to carry out the method are disclosed. The exchanges are conducted between two or more service providers on a basis of service time and description, and do not involve any monetary transaction. The method includes receiving information about an offered and requested service to initiate service exchanges. A plurality of parameters associated with the offered and requested services and an instruction set for each exchange are then identified. When the identification results in a match between the offered service and the requested service of a first service provider on a first terminal coupled to the network and the requested service and the offered service of at least one additional service provider on at least one additional terminal coupled to the network, the service exchange is conducted.

A central computer system is configured to simultaneously task various ones of a plurality of motorized transport units to temporarily attach to a corresponding mobile item container and to move the temporarily-attached mobile item container in a retail shopping facility in correspondence to the movement of an authorized consumer while also receiving and analyzing video input provided by video cameras that are included with at least some of the motorized transport units to identify security and safety anomalies in the retail shopping facility. By one approach, the central computer system identifies security and safety anomalies in the retail shopping center by characterizing contents of images as being either expected or unexpected and as being either potentially harmful or not potentially harmful. So configured the central computer system is able to not only identify anomalies but assess a degree of threat posed by a given anomaly.

A housing contains a plurality of motorized transport units in a stacked relationship to one another, with a bottom-most one of the plurality of motorized transport units serving as a locomotion mechanism that selectively causes movement of the housing with the plurality of motorized transport units contained therein. By one approach the aforementioned housing has a cylindrical form factor and includes a cylindrically-shaped chamber configured to receive the motorized transport units, By one approach, for example, this housing includes no lifting mechanism to lift any of the motorized transport units into itself and further has no integral locomotion mechanism by which the housing can move itself. The interior of the housing can include at least one track formed therein to receive a corresponding part of each of the plurality of motorized transport units which the motorized transport units can engage to thereby lift themselves into the interior of the housing.

A numbering system is provided having an identifier with hexadecimal, vigesimal, quadrivigesimal, or any other suitable alphanumeric characters includable on a card and an account identifiable using the identifier. The card can be a gift card, a customer loyalty card, or a customer incentive card. An interface may be connected to a communications network that is accessible to associate the identifier with an account and manage funds associable with the account. Funds data may be associable with the account and storable on the remote server, the funds data relating to the funds transferred by a user to a card issuer. The identifier may be storable on the card in an electronically readable format, and may be included on the card via printing and/or imprinting. A method is provided for using the numbering system.

Shoppers may access images and box or outline particular objects in the image. The outlined object may be used to search for the product. The product may be identified in a database of products through image recognition and/or the assistance of community members. When a product match is identified, the shopper may be presented with a link or other purchase information to acquire the desired product. When community assistance is used, the image of the requested product may be published to the community, where members who are familiar with the product may identify the requested product and offer the product for sale or provide a referral to a seller.

A shopping and marketing method of an item for specific consumers includes: installing a networking module having an induction chip with item ID onto an item body; (2) sensing the item by a mobile device connected to a marketing website and transmitting the item ID to the marketing website; (3) verifying the item ID by the marketing website; and (4) connecting to a marketing webpage of a corresponding group if the item ID is matched. Therefore, the item ID of the item is provided for logging on a specific website to achieve the marketing method by transmitting a specific corresponding message to specific consumers.

A multi-platform e-commerce distribution system includes a bi-directional data translation system, a product distribution platform, and a commerce graph API. The bi-directional data translation system extracts product data and translates product data. The product distribution platform includes a product repository of the purchasable products containing information that has been converted into a unified product schema. The bi-directional data translation system translates product information between formats of one or more different merchants and the unified product schema of the product distribution platform. The bi-directional data translation system also translates the product information between the unified product schema of the product distribution platform and one or more formats expected by one or more individual e-commerce platforms. The commerce graph API receives orders from one or more purchasers via multiple third party applications that are converted into order transaction data in a unified order schema. The commerce graph API also converts the order transaction data in the unified order schema into order write back data in a platform-specific format expected by the e-commerce platform of product origin.