Or online-shopping sites with real-time inventory synchronization, or real-time banking and investment systems, or thousands of other examples of the new face of the new data warehouse: always on, open to as many as possible, blindingly fast, and increasingly designed for the consumer as much as for the hard-core data junkie.

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Best Buy ( BBY - news - people ) to offer real-time inventory information about product availability at local stores.

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Linen Technology Tracking, a Miami-based company, recently patented a radio-frequency identification chip designed to keep real-time inventory of frequently misplaced or stolen goods.

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The twist is that advertisers can bid in real time for these users, meaning that inventory (or space that could be hosting an ad) can be sold to the best bidder, and thus at a better price.

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Jiwire is using technology it acquired from start-up Nearbynow to also show the inventory at those stores in real-time.

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For online retailers, One Web ensures that product inventory is always updated in real-time, and that search engine listings lead to the correct product results.

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The idea behind real-time tracking is the ability to change promotions and adjust inventory on the fly to nab additional customers.

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Innovative solutions like demand-driven forecasting, in which real-time customer demand information is translated into super-lean production and delivery, have allowed companies to dramatically reduce inventory levels and the costs associated with them.

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