Out of curiosity, Teresa Chen recently went to an unmanned convenience store, EasyGo, near the China Plaza shopping mall in Guangzhou, China. She used her WeChat app to scan a QR code to get into the store, where she found imported snacks, candy and soft drinks. Every product had a price tag powered by radio-frequency identification, a technology that can automatically track and identify tags attached to objects. After she selected a box of crackers, Chen stood in the payment area and the bill automatically appeared in WeChat. Once Chen paid using her WeChat Wallet (a mobile payment service developed by Tencent), the door opened to let her leave the store. "The whole experience was seamless, as I didn't even need to scan the price tag to pay," said Chen, a product manager for a nutrition supplement company in Guangzhou.

For over 60 years, KFC restaurants have been serving the same secret original recipe to patrons. But Colonel Sanders is going against tradition with a new concept store located in Shanghai, China that lets customers order fried chicken from a voice activated robot. Dubbed'Dumi', the robot is smart enough to handle order changes and substitutes, but its creators say it cannot distinguish other dialects or accents. Colonel Sanders is going against tradition with a new concept store located in Shanghai, China that lets customers order fried chicken from a voice activated robot. Dubbed'Dumi', the high-tech automation can handle order changes, as well as substitutes – but it cannot distinguish other dialects or accents Dumi is a voice activated robot employed at a concept KFC store called'Original '.