Today, I learned that:
What do you if you live far from the city, it is in the middle of the night, the only jar of baby food fell to the floor and got crushed, the only grocery store is of course closed, but your baby is still crying because s/he is hungry?
The Icelander Robert Ilijason, who lives in a village called Viken, in the county of Skåne in the South of Sweden, met with exactly that situation. His solution was to set up a new type of convenience store, a totally unmanned store, open 24/7. The registered customers download an app to their smartphone, which gives them access to entering the store anytime. They pick up a product, use their phone to scan its label and register the purchase. Once a month, they receive an invoice to pay. And the store owner cannot complain, so far nothing has disappeared from his shelves uncounted. Video monitoring guarantees that fact.
The store has created a lot of interest from all over the world, quite understandably so. Reference #1 below, in Swedish, from Radio Sweden, interviews the owner and gives more details. An article in English can also be found in reference #2 below.
Robert Ilijason in his unmanned convenience store. Photo by Linnea Edin/Sveriges Radio
Finally, my around-the-globe-trip is close to coming to an end. After the 37-hour day before, it was good to lay over in Montreal. And even though the weather was rainy, I did not mind, because as you know, Montreal has a famous huge underground city with shops and food places. Nearby is also the McCord museum, which showed handicraft and traditional Canadian interests. See also references # 3 and 4, as well as the photos, below.
Photos I took in Montreal on 2005-04-20. In the upper row are external and internal views of the underground city, and in the lower row are shown two favorite Canadian pastimes, ice hockey and hunting, from the McCord museum.
… That’s what I learned in school !
Refs.:
1: Sveriges första obemannade matbutik
What did you learn in School today? 
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