Target is rolling out a system of low-powered Bluetooth beacons to meld your physical in-store experience with a digital layer so it can know where you are in its stores and, more importantly, where you are in relation to the items on its shelves. This week, the Minneapolis-based retailer is activating beacons in 50 stores and updating the Target app to interact with them in a test run for personalized, in-store location services.

Following successes at SXSW and NBA games, and with companies like Apple and Facebook pushing the technology, beacons seem poised to become the next big thing in location technology. Retailers have been especially interested in them. Corporations' longstanding dreams of Starbucks having your Frappuccino ready as soon as you're in the door or the Gap sending you a coupon as you walk by the storefront are finally being made real. Or that's what retailers are hoping, at least.

Beacons can provide much more accurate location information than GPS or Wi-Fi. Using GPS, a phone can tell where you are on a street. Using Bluetooth, a phone can tell where you are in a room — close to a stereo that's on sale, for example.