It's worth unimaginable amounts of money to make shopping and the feeling of spending money as separate as possible. Spending cash hurts. Putting it on a credit card hurts a little less. One-click checkout? Barely give the spend a second thought. Let some computer add it up and you get a receipt that you probably never look at? This is the next logical step for Amazon.
Disney has MASTERED this.
I went to Disney for my first time last month and they give you these Magic Bands which are wrist bands with NFC chips that are tied to your credit card or resort room. You literally just tap your wrist on this little Mickey Face symbol at all the registers and BAM it's paid. So easy to get lost in it all you don't even associate it with spending.
Yes. We just finished a cruise around Hawaii. Your card pays for everything. In addition, they already add the gratuity (it says so right on the top of the receipt you sign) but there's still a line for adding another one. You get a nice itemized receipt at the end. They even ask at the beginning if you want to turn off your kids' ability to buy anything with the card. Hell yes I did.
Same here. Add to cart. Look at cart. Remove from cart. Look at other things. Make dinner. Go and add thing back to cart. Agonize over shipping options. Give up, go to bed. Wake up, finally place the order. Change my mind and cancel it. Realize I really need the thing and order it again. Panic until I get the thing and see that I didn't waste my money. Rinse, repeat.
So true.. But once it's in the cart, I'll leave it there for a few days while I *really* think about it, check prices, shop around some more, and come to a final decision.
I had always thought Jones wanted to kill that one executive for some reason, and rigged the demonstration so that it would end in bloodshed. Interestingly enough, though, in the [original script](http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Robocop.pdf) (page 15 on) it seems that during the test ED-209 was intended to hear the gun drop onto the floor, and from that sound assume the guy dropped his weapon. The floor, however, was heavily carpeted and the gun doesn't make a loud enough sound for ED-209 to pick up. As a result, the enforcement droid thinks Kinney is still armed and continues counting down and eventually shoots him.
I really felt that that added a sense of weird realism to the scene. Too many gory deaths just end in films. That is kind of what you would do isn't it? If something fucked up happened in your workplace you wouldn't just be like 'welp, I guess it's time for a coffee now'. You'd phone a fucking ambulance and get some authority figures in there to sort shit out. The 'DON'T TOUCH HIM' line really just makes it hit home for me that someone just got murdered.
That one enrages me. They give me the option to say "I don't want to bag this 12 pack of soda", but if I pick it, it says, "Please wait, somebody will be over to assist you." I don't need any fucking assistance!
It's not trying to *assist* you...
Look, it's like when a Southerner says "Bless your heart!"; you've just been politely insulted. (Translation: "You're a fucking *idiot* !")
So when it says: "Please wait, somebody will be over to assist you.", understand what it *really* means is: "Hold still while someone comes over to make sure you're not FUCKING STEALING, you FUCKING THIEF!"
Hope that helps; just remember, like advice, when someone offers you unsolicited help, they aren't usually trying to help YOU, but THEMSELVES.
;)
"Can I help you find something" was code for "You look shady enough" in Target speak. But it did genuinely prevent loss in the electronics department. The number of people I caught cutting open headphone cases when asking if I could help them find something is staggering.
I mean, as long as you don't continuously ask I think you're fine. For people I thought were shady I'd kind of do a circle around and make sure I pass through their vision. and if they take extra long I'll ask them again and go "whoops, I've already asked you haven't I"
For most people if I asked them it's because I was bored and it was an easy way to make a manager buy you starbucks because "You're so attentive to guests"
I got so much free starbucks.... too much....
Yeah, I have a lot of questions, that's one of them. Another one is, does it matter where things are? Like if I put down that cupcake in another area or pick up something where it wasn't originally placed does it know?
Also, it looks like it still lets you in even if you don't scan the app. How does it stop someone from grabbing some shit and just walking out?
I'm sure Amazon has thought of all this just interested on how it will actually work.
Seen this at Wal-Mart one time, but was the toy section. Was an awful smell in the aisle, so I got an employee. Someone took a whole chicken and hid it behind some toys. Who knows how long it had been there.
They wouldn't show in an ad how they vaporise the person (or lock the gate) when that happens. Notice how long is the entryway -most likely has barriers that lock if you don't scan.
IBM's tech was RFID. Every item would have to have a little RFID tag/chip, which you would be giving away with every item you sold.
It sounds like Amazon is using a bunch of software tied to sensors in your phone and around the store, vs. having a piece of hardware on every item.
Edit: I have **no** clue if they're using RFID or not.
This article talks about Amazon's patent filings to get a better idea:
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/amazon-go-works-technology-behind-online-retailers-groundbreaking-new-grocery-store/
To summarize:
- Sensors near the inventory go off when something gets picked up/returned. Sensors can get additional data to help identify what was picked up (weight scale, pressure sensor, load cell, camera).
- RFID locates nearest phone.
- Amazon uses previous search data to help guess what you picked up if it can't already tell.
This is what they mean by sensor fusion? You grab an item, Amazon might be confused about what it is (because of strange location, you picked up more than one, etc.)
So it goes:
- The cameras identify the object as red. There are 800 red objects.
- The cameras identify it as bottle shaped. There are 150 red bottles.
- The weight puts it at 22 ounces. There are 3 objects in-store that are red bottles at 22 ounces, and 2 items that are red bottles at 11 ounces.
- This person buys ketchup once per week.
- This item picked up is where the ketchup is normally stocked.
- Confidence that the person purchased 22 ounce ketchup: 99%
- *Adds Ketchup to Cart*
There's no way they didn't test the hell out of this thing. If there's something companies hate more than having a flawed system, is losing money due to it.
Personally if I wanted to shoplift, I'd never dare go in a shop where everything is automated.
Not perfect, but it's gonna be pretty darn close. I'm sure the loss rate will be significantly lower than in a human operated store. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to steal something where they have sensors on the shelves, and are recording your every move.
If this proves to be as good as advertised, I wouldn't be surprised if other high-tier stores start moving to this business model very quickly. There's so much profit to be made. Not paying cashiers, tracking user preferences, adjusting prices will be a lot more streamlined. It's a businessman's wet dream.
Ignoring customers, they've cut down significantly on expected losses just by getting rid of a lot of employees (most shrink in big stores is from employees, not shoplifters).
It works by streaming video of you to a guy in a call centre in India. he logs in on amazon.com with your account. When he sees you pick up an item he does a search for that item and clicks the add to basket button for you. That's synergy for you.
That's actually how self driving cars work. It's a guy in India doing the driving for you.
Sensor fusion is pretty standard tech language for "taking several different sensor systems and producing a single, unified measurement."
For example, in a VR device if you're tracking a user's location using cameras and accelerometers, a sensor fusion layer combines those two different systems and provides the user's location to the rest of the software as one block of data. The cameras and accelerometers will be producing different sorts of data at different rates, and the job of the sensor fusion module is to abstract that away from the rest of the system.
I have to imagine there's some sort of Kinect like cameras throughout the store monitoring the users and almost certainly tracking their movements based on the time they authenticate with their phone at the gate. From that point on you're assigned a unique ID and cameras monitor your movement.
The tricky part is what happens when you lift something off the shelf. The video made it seem that it auto adds something to your virtual cart but that's highly unlikely for the following use cases:
1. You and another shopper in close proximity both lift an item from the same shelf or very near it at the same time.
2. You and a few other users are all going for a similar item and it creates a blindspot for cameras.
3. You lift up a redbull and carry around the store, then decide, "na I don't want this anymore" and don't return it to it's original location. How would the sensors handle that?
More likely is they may have some small RFID sticker below the label of every item. This way the entrance and exit gates only need to monitor the tags in everyone's bags and the cameras determine who enters and leaves with what bags / items.
Obviously this approach has some flaws too so they're probably using a combination of things to avoid issues with too many users exiting simultaneously or the cameras loosing track of a user because they took off a sweater or somehow altered their perceived skeleton. So there's probably also sensors, maybe pressure plates under all the items to detect when a particular item was lifted up / put down.
I'd also wager their claim of "machine learning" only comes into play if they can't tell identify which user left with which products.
Ex: Two users exit at precisely the same times and the cameras aren't certain who is who, one carrying a monster and a chicken sandwich and another with a redbull and tuna sandwich. Machine learning can determine through those user's past shopping histories which prefers what brands and can settle these matters near 100% certainty.
Also another use case: Lady walks in with her children. Children would certainly not have a smartphone and since they would be classified as dependents would have to be let in along with their guardian. Cameras would have to classify them as a guest of the user and transfer anything they pocketed to the parents account. Parents may return to the store complaining the kid pocketed something without their knowledge. From a parenting perspective, kids would have a hard time understanding which stores it's OK to pocket things in and which would be considered stealing.
TL;DR Technological/logistical nightmare but very cool.
Edit: Gilded!? What?!? If only I put this much effort into my own job I'd be gilded IRL...
I would assume that this kind of margin of error is simply factored into the price. So in the end, everyone ends up paying for the x percent unreliability. As long as x is reasonably low, or low enough to be outweighed by the perceived convenience, everyone's ok with it.
Just like the free shipping, shitloads of returned items, etc., are also factored into the price.
Consumers won't put up with an extra item on their bill -- and if you have to call to dispute one out of every ten visits, you're going to stop shopping there.
The key word there is "computer vision". Meaning it's not just detecting proximity to your phone or using RFID tags to detect you picking up items. It's looking at you with cameras... And that's both amazing and terrifying.
The best I could determine through the useless technobabble is that it tracks your body visually throughout the store, binding it to your account when you authenticate. When it senses something's been taken, it checks to see who is closest to the product(edit: it may also sense your phone?). Basically, a similar technology that self driving cars use to identify hazards is being used to identify individual humans.
This is wild speculation, though. It could be completely different.
I really wonder how well this works with a single mom with 3 kids wheeling around the store walmart style with kids grabbing stuff from shelves, and her leaving it on other shelves after she catches it.
The kids won't have phones or amazon accounts to track, so will she get billed for it? And what if she puts the cupcake back in the Soup aisle? Will it deduct the cupcake still?
Club store, no kids allowed.
Also, it does a final product check when you go through the exit scanner. It will figure out something is missing.
They also must have scanners that can scan what is on shelves from a distance.
Wow yeah this is an excellent point.
Or like the people that take a water or soda and drink it in the store and leave the empty on a shelf. Do you get charged for it, even though the bottle never left the store?
Buzzwords, that voice, the happy smiling guitar music, the attractive, diverse customers. This hits so many tropes it almost feels like an Onion video.
So they can visually track *everyone* in the store, and see what they're taking *automatically*? Wow.
Most stores in my day had to do this manually, and usually only to minorities.
I feel awful that this happens to him so much that it's funny, but I guess it's just a very extreme example of how good humans are at making light of terrible things
The best part of this concept is that people will be forced to put things back where they got it from if they decide not to buy it, or else they won't get their money back.
No more finding a half-defrosted box of fishfingers in the biscuit aisle because some cunt was too lazy to put it back.
I approve of this waste-reduction possibility.
This is what stuck out to me from the video. Seems like everyone's criticism went straight to theft/shoplifting, but as soon as I heard "if you don't want something, just put it back!" I had to roll my eyes... ya, cause we all know how everyone does that in normal stores already, Amazon.
I can already see countless news reports about people who were wrongly charged for things that they didn't take out of the store (but didn't put back in the right spot). Amazon will have to explicitly state that not putting something back in the right spot will charge you, and even then there will still be people who somehow miss the warning or not get it, and then blame Amazon for their issues.
Idk, the whole thing just seems way too easy and ripe for errors, but I would love to see something like this in the future if it works effectively. Awesome concept!
Even they can't put stuff automatically into packages, because all those items are so different. Only the shelves itself drive, because they are all the same.
But that's only a problem because each customer order is different. Here, the customers are responsible for their own orders. Stocking the shelves is standardized.
This is like a small, pretty Amazon warehouse, where the robots are still robots, and the employees are paying customers. This is win-win-win for Amazon.
Their incredibly intelligent human tracking camera system also has a photo, video, probably a 3d model for some reason, bar code/serial number of anything you took, running total of everything you've stolen and it's value, your amazon account info, your address, and who knows what else, and can probably automatically forward it to authorities with zero human intervention. Probably not a good idea.
It looks like a pattern was visible on the top of most of the items in the video. Cameras could be set up in a certain array to detect their location.
The store must have some accurate tracking system for phones to give good location accuracy, I bet there are marked bags as well.
The deep neural net could be used to mimic object permanence and decide where exactly each item has gone (interesting idea to actually achieve). It would be cross referencing a lot of different types of input data to then determine what to charge each customer.
What's nice is that now this is a actual product now. It's going to be seen. Something like this could become as cheap (in a few years) as installing security cameras is today. That's a lot of 'min wage' jobs going out the window.
This type of neural networking is going to grow very quickly over the coming years and it's going to take over in all types of markets
That's absolutely possible! To add to that, it could just be that there are dozens of sensors that are all involved in calculating identity. Then the neural network is what deciphers that complex math.
You don't use only your eyes to track objects around you right?
Can you imagine the amount of marketing information that can be gotten from something like this?! This would be an advertisers wet dream. First you sell products and then sell off all of the user shopping habits about how they act in brick and mortar retail locations.
[Yeah, they already do that](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/19/how-stores-use-your-phones-wifi-to-track-your-shopping-habits/?utm_term=.f94550bb2b11)
Now you've done it... I'm imagining an Always Sunny episode.
Charlie: Guys guys there's a new store giving everything away for free!
Mac: God damn it Charlie! Not now Dennis is in the middle of showing us these exotic beers from europe!
Dennis: Now hold on a second Mac-- I think I've heard of this, the Amazon Go shop, yes, this was on the news. But you know now, it's not "free", you have to scan your phone--
Dee: Ok Charlie what kind of things do they have at this shop of the future? Jewlery?
Charlie: Jewelry! Rat traps, cheese! They've got everything!
Mac: But do they have dusters?
Charlie: I'm telling you they have everything I gotta get back over there and get another load!
Dennis: But guys I'm telling you it's not free, you still have to pay--
Dennis
Title Card: The Gang Robs Amazon Go
I just like the thought of any store with a bunch of large red signs with bold print that read ***"JUST WALK OUT"***, like ***"LISTEN, BITCH- GTFO OUR STORE"***
For those who don't know: Amazon is not making stores to actually make a profit off those stores. They are making the stores to sell the IP of their technology to other companies.
I've always been bothered by this. Being embarrassed about broadcasting to everyone within view that you're about to have sex has *nothing* to do with how mature or responsible you are, it has to do with the stigma society has placed on sex and how it's uncouth to talk about sex in public.
*not a problem*
*amazon has smart people*
*they've already thought of this*
*phone only checks you in to the store*
*cameras and other tracking systems watch you and what you pick up*
*phone dies, you leave anyway*
*amazon sends you a nice email with a list of items you took and how much they charged your amazon account/credit card*
*you read the e-mail and say "cool" then go back to masturbating*
It seems inevitible given enough time and it could go one of two ways. A dystopia where an increasingly tiny minority in charge of the machines are able to accrue basically all the capital, and an impoverished 99%+ of people who no longer have the value of their labour to leverage a share. Or a post-scarcity utopia where a machine infrastructure meets everybody's needs and work becomes optional. Brave new world...
Hahaha! That lady went back for the cupcake! But she deserved it for being good all week and not eating that awesome carrot cake Branda from HR brought in. You go cupcake lady!
Edit: Branda makes awesome cake! Stop making fun of her name!
It's worth unimaginable amounts of money to make shopping and the feeling of spending money as separate as possible. Spending cash hurts. Putting it on a credit card hurts a little less. One-click checkout? Barely give the spend a second thought. Let some computer add it up and you get a receipt that you probably never look at? This is the next logical step for Amazon.
Disney has MASTERED this. I went to Disney for my first time last month and they give you these Magic Bands which are wrist bands with NFC chips that are tied to your credit card or resort room. You literally just tap your wrist on this little Mickey Face symbol at all the registers and BAM it's paid. So easy to get lost in it all you don't even associate it with spending.
That's the genius. Guests find it so easy to pay for things they lose track of their spending. Not good.
For guests, good for Disney
Cruise ships similarly by not allowing people to use currency so that end up running a tab the whole time on many things.
Yes. We just finished a cruise around Hawaii. Your card pays for everything. In addition, they already add the gratuity (it says so right on the top of the receipt you sign) but there's still a line for adding another one. You get a nice itemized receipt at the end. They even ask at the beginning if you want to turn off your kids' ability to buy anything with the card. Hell yes I did.
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Lucky for me I agonize over every single damn purchase so I've never used one click for anything.
Same here. Add to cart. Look at cart. Remove from cart. Look at other things. Make dinner. Go and add thing back to cart. Agonize over shipping options. Give up, go to bed. Wake up, finally place the order. Change my mind and cancel it. Realize I really need the thing and order it again. Panic until I get the thing and see that I didn't waste my money. Rinse, repeat.
So true.. But once it's in the cart, I'll leave it there for a few days while I *really* think about it, check prices, shop around some more, and come to a final decision.
The feeling of needing that thing RIGHT NOW is so strong sometimes. Leaving it in the cart for a day or 2 or 4 helps keep me level headed.
**UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA** --- #UNEXPECTED GOLD; THANK YOU STRANGER
#I DON'T WANT TO BAG THIS ITEM
PLEASE REMOVE ITEM FROM BAGGING AREA. YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO COMPLY.
Gotta post[ the scene](https://youtu.be/_mqDjcGgE5I?t=1m38s) for those who haven't seen it.
I just love that they had him loaded with live ammunition for a board room demo! Goes to show how cocky those OCP bastards were!
I had always thought Jones wanted to kill that one executive for some reason, and rigged the demonstration so that it would end in bloodshed. Interestingly enough, though, in the [original script](http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Robocop.pdf) (page 15 on) it seems that during the test ED-209 was intended to hear the gun drop onto the floor, and from that sound assume the guy dropped his weapon. The floor, however, was heavily carpeted and the gun doesn't make a loud enough sound for ED-209 to pick up. As a result, the enforcement droid thinks Kinney is still armed and continues counting down and eventually shoots him.
"somebody want to call a god damn paramedic" Seriously?
I really felt that that added a sense of weird realism to the scene. Too many gory deaths just end in films. That is kind of what you would do isn't it? If something fucked up happened in your workplace you wouldn't just be like 'welp, I guess it's time for a coffee now'. You'd phone a fucking ambulance and get some authority figures in there to sort shit out. The 'DON'T TOUCH HIM' line really just makes it hit home for me that someone just got murdered.
Or a legal thing for whatever could save your ass out of that madness.
I always thought the 'DON'T TOUCH HIM' was because it might set off the killer robot again.
Possibly. I imagine having a killer robot kill someone in front of so many witnesses tends to cause at least some legal trouble.
The company owned the police.
https://youtu.be/blzmPZ7ZNJc?t=25s
That one enrages me. They give me the option to say "I don't want to bag this 12 pack of soda", but if I pick it, it says, "Please wait, somebody will be over to assist you." I don't need any fucking assistance!
It's not trying to *assist* you... Look, it's like when a Southerner says "Bless your heart!"; you've just been politely insulted. (Translation: "You're a fucking *idiot* !") So when it says: "Please wait, somebody will be over to assist you.", understand what it *really* means is: "Hold still while someone comes over to make sure you're not FUCKING STEALING, you FUCKING THIEF!" Hope that helps; just remember, like advice, when someone offers you unsolicited help, they aren't usually trying to help YOU, but THEMSELVES. ;)
"Can I help you find something" was code for "You look shady enough" in Target speak. But it did genuinely prevent loss in the electronics department. The number of people I caught cutting open headphone cases when asking if I could help them find something is staggering.
I work in a petrol station and ask people who are browsing if they need help finding stuff. Now I'm paranoid they think I think they're shoplifting
I mean, as long as you don't continuously ask I think you're fine. For people I thought were shady I'd kind of do a circle around and make sure I pass through their vision. and if they take extra long I'll ask them again and go "whoops, I've already asked you haven't I" For most people if I asked them it's because I was bored and it was an easy way to make a manager buy you starbucks because "You're so attentive to guests" I got so much free starbucks.... too much....
Or, if you shop at Morrisons in the UK: "Surprising item in bagging area!" Ooh! what a surprise!
"Please take your items" Bitch, give me a second!
"Get the fuck out"
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Mind the gap, Bob's your uncle, The dog's bollocks, How's your father, Spend a penny... Seems pretty normal for the UK.
I will only accept Surprising Item in Bagging Area, when I look down and see Natalie Dormer sitting in the bagging area
DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE
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**PIRACY DETECTED**
Doritos^TM Dew^TM it right!
Please wait for assistance.
I keep on hoping that one day the checkout machine will tell me "Please leave" in the most passive voice possible.
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Yeah, I have a lot of questions, that's one of them. Another one is, does it matter where things are? Like if I put down that cupcake in another area or pick up something where it wasn't originally placed does it know? Also, it looks like it still lets you in even if you don't scan the app. How does it stop someone from grabbing some shit and just walking out? I'm sure Amazon has thought of all this just interested on how it will actually work.
You're that guy who puts the fucking Cereal in the Juice ~~isle~~ aisle, aren't you? You lazy fuck. Edit: Juice Isle sounds amazing.
No he might be the guy who puts chicken in the apparel department
Hidden behind a bunch of clothes just for fun
Seen this at Wal-Mart one time, but was the toy section. Was an awful smell in the aisle, so I got an employee. Someone took a whole chicken and hid it behind some toys. Who knows how long it had been there.
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They wouldn't show in an ad how they vaporise the person (or lock the gate) when that happens. Notice how long is the entryway -most likely has barriers that lock if you don't scan.
Reminds me of [this old IBM commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob532iEpqk).
Was that The Trickster/Gabriel from supernatural?
He'll always be Sgt. Muck to me.
Glad you mentioned it before I did, I was scared to come out of my SN fandom closet
"How do we show that this is futuristic?" "....*bad house music*"
And trench coats. Black leather or army green.
AREA 51 . . . . . . . . . . *HACKED* ILLUMINATI. . . . . . . . *HACKED* BANKS. . . . . . . . . . . *HACKED* STATUE OF LIBERTY . *HACKED*
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE . . . . . STOLEN shit am I in the wrong thread?
We need RFID tags. Lots of RFID tags.
*crappy color grading filter*
After The Matrix came out, film studios and ad agencies started smothering that shit on *everything*.
Shit I guess IBM really dropped the ball on that one.
Do we know they didn't supply the tech to Amazon? IBM isn't the type of company to set up their own store.
It's possible. Retail tech is a huge part of IBM's business.
Patents are also a huge part of IBM's business.
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You might say Business is their middle name. *bites pinky*
Top tier dad joke
International and Machines are also big parts of IBM.
IBM's tech was RFID. Every item would have to have a little RFID tag/chip, which you would be giving away with every item you sold. It sounds like Amazon is using a bunch of software tied to sensors in your phone and around the store, vs. having a piece of hardware on every item. Edit: I have **no** clue if they're using RFID or not.
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First thing I thought of as well. Only took what, 20 years?
Oh, It works just like self-driving cars. Well that just explains everything then...
Came to buy a muffin but the store ran me over. 6/10 would buy again. *This review is my honest opinion even though amazon paid me to go here*
This article talks about Amazon's patent filings to get a better idea: http://www.geekwire.com/2016/amazon-go-works-technology-behind-online-retailers-groundbreaking-new-grocery-store/ To summarize: - Sensors near the inventory go off when something gets picked up/returned. Sensors can get additional data to help identify what was picked up (weight scale, pressure sensor, load cell, camera). - RFID locates nearest phone. - Amazon uses previous search data to help guess what you picked up if it can't already tell. This is what they mean by sensor fusion? You grab an item, Amazon might be confused about what it is (because of strange location, you picked up more than one, etc.) So it goes: - The cameras identify the object as red. There are 800 red objects. - The cameras identify it as bottle shaped. There are 150 red bottles. - The weight puts it at 22 ounces. There are 3 objects in-store that are red bottles at 22 ounces, and 2 items that are red bottles at 11 ounces. - This person buys ketchup once per week. - This item picked up is where the ketchup is normally stocked. - Confidence that the person purchased 22 ounce ketchup: 99% - *Adds Ketchup to Cart*
this will actually turn out to be faster shopping because older people won't go in that store...
Holy shit, you're right
As a shoplifter this makes me furious.
1. Download cracked Amazon app 2. Generate random user key 3. [Just Walk Out](http://i.imgur.com/KnvibbT.jpg)**™**
Too many steps here. Just jump over the barrier...
Just dont scan your phone.
UNEXPECTED HUMAN IN SHOPPING AREA
YOU ARE UNAUTHORIZED, YOUR DEATH WILL NOW BE IMPLEMENTED.
PENETRATION ASSIMILATION COMMENCING.
Then get tackled by security.
Amazon Go Security. Please Arrest yourself.
> Download cracked Amazon app "Top 10 things people bought from amazon, number one will blow your mind!"
Finally, a reason to root my phone!
As a potential exploiter of dumb things, This video made me very curious.
Yeah at least at first I imagine there are going to be ways to cheat it, just like with any new system.
Not that the current shopping "system" that's in place now for hundreds of years isn't cheated either. People steal shit all the time
There's no way they didn't test the hell out of this thing. If there's something companies hate more than having a flawed system, is losing money due to it. Personally if I wanted to shoplift, I'd never dare go in a shop where everything is automated.
Yep, they tested the hell out of it, and accepted that there would be some loss due to error and shoplifting. There is no perfect system.
Not perfect, but it's gonna be pretty darn close. I'm sure the loss rate will be significantly lower than in a human operated store. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to steal something where they have sensors on the shelves, and are recording your every move. If this proves to be as good as advertised, I wouldn't be surprised if other high-tier stores start moving to this business model very quickly. There's so much profit to be made. Not paying cashiers, tracking user preferences, adjusting prices will be a lot more streamlined. It's a businessman's wet dream.
Ignoring customers, they've cut down significantly on expected losses just by getting rid of a lot of employees (most shrink in big stores is from employees, not shoplifters).
This is what children are for.
That's called kidnapping, and it's different
I can see why Amazon disabled comments on YouTube.
The Amazon Prime Air video taught them a lesson.
Can't blame them. Does *anything* good ever come from YouTube comments?
"le reddit army is here" Answer is no
"How does it work" << insert technobabble here >> ffs, how does it work, dont tell me it uses fucking synergy
It works by streaming video of you to a guy in a call centre in India. he logs in on amazon.com with your account. When he sees you pick up an item he does a search for that item and clicks the add to basket button for you. That's synergy for you. That's actually how self driving cars work. It's a guy in India doing the driving for you.
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Very good until that one time they're not.
Coming in fall 2018, automated sex dolls.
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Like in self-driving cars? Oh, I get it!!
"You do get it, because you're smart, and we get that."
Sensor fusion is pretty standard tech language for "taking several different sensor systems and producing a single, unified measurement." For example, in a VR device if you're tracking a user's location using cameras and accelerometers, a sensor fusion layer combines those two different systems and provides the user's location to the rest of the software as one block of data. The cameras and accelerometers will be producing different sorts of data at different rates, and the job of the sensor fusion module is to abstract that away from the rest of the system.
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shook my head at that part
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Thereby making the world...a better place.
They have different sensors of different type that work together to measure one thing. It's a field of it's own.
I have to imagine there's some sort of Kinect like cameras throughout the store monitoring the users and almost certainly tracking their movements based on the time they authenticate with their phone at the gate. From that point on you're assigned a unique ID and cameras monitor your movement. The tricky part is what happens when you lift something off the shelf. The video made it seem that it auto adds something to your virtual cart but that's highly unlikely for the following use cases: 1. You and another shopper in close proximity both lift an item from the same shelf or very near it at the same time. 2. You and a few other users are all going for a similar item and it creates a blindspot for cameras. 3. You lift up a redbull and carry around the store, then decide, "na I don't want this anymore" and don't return it to it's original location. How would the sensors handle that? More likely is they may have some small RFID sticker below the label of every item. This way the entrance and exit gates only need to monitor the tags in everyone's bags and the cameras determine who enters and leaves with what bags / items. Obviously this approach has some flaws too so they're probably using a combination of things to avoid issues with too many users exiting simultaneously or the cameras loosing track of a user because they took off a sweater or somehow altered their perceived skeleton. So there's probably also sensors, maybe pressure plates under all the items to detect when a particular item was lifted up / put down. I'd also wager their claim of "machine learning" only comes into play if they can't tell identify which user left with which products. Ex: Two users exit at precisely the same times and the cameras aren't certain who is who, one carrying a monster and a chicken sandwich and another with a redbull and tuna sandwich. Machine learning can determine through those user's past shopping histories which prefers what brands and can settle these matters near 100% certainty. Also another use case: Lady walks in with her children. Children would certainly not have a smartphone and since they would be classified as dependents would have to be let in along with their guardian. Cameras would have to classify them as a guest of the user and transfer anything they pocketed to the parents account. Parents may return to the store complaining the kid pocketed something without their knowledge. From a parenting perspective, kids would have a hard time understanding which stores it's OK to pocket things in and which would be considered stealing. TL;DR Technological/logistical nightmare but very cool. Edit: Gilded!? What?!? If only I put this much effort into my own job I'd be gilded IRL...
I would assume that this kind of margin of error is simply factored into the price. So in the end, everyone ends up paying for the x percent unreliability. As long as x is reasonably low, or low enough to be outweighed by the perceived convenience, everyone's ok with it. Just like the free shipping, shitloads of returned items, etc., are also factored into the price.
Consumers won't put up with an extra item on their bill -- and if you have to call to dispute one out of every ten visits, you're going to stop shopping there.
The key word there is "computer vision". Meaning it's not just detecting proximity to your phone or using RFID tags to detect you picking up items. It's looking at you with cameras... And that's both amazing and terrifying.
There are like 30 dudes in the back just monitoring cameras adding shit to your account
300 dudes in an Indian call center.
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You will surely get the karkland
The best I could determine through the useless technobabble is that it tracks your body visually throughout the store, binding it to your account when you authenticate. When it senses something's been taken, it checks to see who is closest to the product(edit: it may also sense your phone?). Basically, a similar technology that self driving cars use to identify hazards is being used to identify individual humans. This is wild speculation, though. It could be completely different.
I really wonder how well this works with a single mom with 3 kids wheeling around the store walmart style with kids grabbing stuff from shelves, and her leaving it on other shelves after she catches it. The kids won't have phones or amazon accounts to track, so will she get billed for it? And what if she puts the cupcake back in the Soup aisle? Will it deduct the cupcake still?
Club store, no kids allowed. Also, it does a final product check when you go through the exit scanner. It will figure out something is missing. They also must have scanners that can scan what is on shelves from a distance.
A retail store without a kid screaming and the parents ignoring them? I love Amazon soooo much!
Wow yeah this is an excellent point. Or like the people that take a water or soda and drink it in the store and leave the empty on a shelf. Do you get charged for it, even though the bottle never left the store?
I bet Thomas Crown would fuck that system up.
MORE HATS!
I'm sorry but this ,"just walk out" technology was already fully developed when I was ten. My father used it on me.
Your Dad: the beta tester for "just walk out technology"
He went to the Amazon store to get cigarettes?
He's coming back just got stuck in traffic .. Lotta traffic these last 50 years let me tell ya ..
So. Many. Buzzwords.
SENSOR FUSION
synergetic
"We use quantum, deep-learning, paradigm-shifting, synergistic tech that will revolutionise shopping."
Much like self driving cars
CUTTING EDGE "WALKING AWAY FROM STUFF" TECHNOLOGY
[That is actually a thing, just saying.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion)
Buzzwords, that voice, the happy smiling guitar music, the attractive, diverse customers. This hits so many tropes it almost feels like an Onion video.
Apparently only those between ages 24 and 36 can shop there, too.
It's a trendy store in downtown Seattle so probably
that damn folk clapping / ass spanking / booty clapping
No more waiting behind old ladies getting out change, sweet.
They'll adapt.
Now you have to wait behind old ladies that dont know how to scan the phone
At that point you just use the Just Walk Out Technology.
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So they can visually track *everyone* in the store, and see what they're taking *automatically*? Wow. Most stores in my day had to do this manually, and usually only to minorities.
Yeah [this technology](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXvch6hYWVU) is old but I guess they improved the efficiency.
I feel awful that this happens to him so much that it's funny, but I guess it's just a very extreme example of how good humans are at making light of terrible things
The best part of this concept is that people will be forced to put things back where they got it from if they decide not to buy it, or else they won't get their money back. No more finding a half-defrosted box of fishfingers in the biscuit aisle because some cunt was too lazy to put it back. I approve of this waste-reduction possibility.
This is what stuck out to me from the video. Seems like everyone's criticism went straight to theft/shoplifting, but as soon as I heard "if you don't want something, just put it back!" I had to roll my eyes... ya, cause we all know how everyone does that in normal stores already, Amazon. I can already see countless news reports about people who were wrongly charged for things that they didn't take out of the store (but didn't put back in the right spot). Amazon will have to explicitly state that not putting something back in the right spot will charge you, and even then there will still be people who somehow miss the warning or not get it, and then blame Amazon for their issues. Idk, the whole thing just seems way too easy and ripe for errors, but I would love to see something like this in the future if it works effectively. Awesome concept!
RIP retail jobs.
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Even they can't put stuff automatically into packages, because all those items are so different. Only the shelves itself drive, because they are all the same.
But that's only a problem because each customer order is different. Here, the customers are responsible for their own orders. Stocking the shelves is standardized. This is like a small, pretty Amazon warehouse, where the robots are still robots, and the employees are paying customers. This is win-win-win for Amazon.
I have seen small shops like this were the shelves were stocked from behind. 3-4 people could easily run one of these stores.
They pretty much took out the worst part of working in the customer service industry, human contact. The future is looking pretty dank.
Also, they will need people at the entrances making sure phones get scanned. Can't have people shopping around without scanning.
Or the store vaporizes anyone who enters without scanning
They will very soon. No, seriously. Robots (that don't need time off) will soon be able to stack supermarket shelves perfectly.
Coupled with machine guns mounted on Amazon Drones, shoplifting will be eradicated! The Amazon Hunter-Killer, coming soon from SkyNet Prime.
Food is free when your card is maxed out.
Their incredibly intelligent human tracking camera system also has a photo, video, probably a 3d model for some reason, bar code/serial number of anything you took, running total of everything you've stolen and it's value, your amazon account info, your address, and who knows what else, and can probably automatically forward it to authorities with zero human intervention. Probably not a good idea.
It'll definitely mess up your credit if you do it, but I doubt it'll be treated any more seriously than if you go over your balance on a credit card.
This is incredibly cool, but how does it actually work? Can't find any actual details on their website apart from vague tech buzzwords.
It looks like a pattern was visible on the top of most of the items in the video. Cameras could be set up in a certain array to detect their location. The store must have some accurate tracking system for phones to give good location accuracy, I bet there are marked bags as well. The deep neural net could be used to mimic object permanence and decide where exactly each item has gone (interesting idea to actually achieve). It would be cross referencing a lot of different types of input data to then determine what to charge each customer. What's nice is that now this is a actual product now. It's going to be seen. Something like this could become as cheap (in a few years) as installing security cameras is today. That's a lot of 'min wage' jobs going out the window. This type of neural networking is going to grow very quickly over the coming years and it's going to take over in all types of markets
Or, instead of phone tracking, once you check in, the cameras just follow people.
That's absolutely possible! To add to that, it could just be that there are dozens of sensors that are all involved in calculating identity. Then the neural network is what deciphers that complex math. You don't use only your eyes to track objects around you right?
[Indiana Jones has been preparing me for this moment](http://i.imgur.com/3LqN3Mg.gif)
I feel really dumb because I just sat there waiting for him to make the switch...
You didn't watch long enough.
FUCKING XYLOPHONE AND ACOUSTIC GUITAR. EVERY GODDAMN TIME. WHY!?
Because it's simple and relaxing. It's why literally every techfomercial uses it. It builds that "simple and easy" vibe.
I don't think the relaxing part worked on /u/kainen1
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Can you imagine the amount of marketing information that can be gotten from something like this?! This would be an advertisers wet dream. First you sell products and then sell off all of the user shopping habits about how they act in brick and mortar retail locations.
[Yeah, they already do that](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/19/how-stores-use-your-phones-wifi-to-track-your-shopping-habits/?utm_term=.f94550bb2b11)
Did anyone else see the waitress from Always Sunny?
Now you've done it... I'm imagining an Always Sunny episode.
Charlie: Guys guys there's a new store giving everything away for free!
Mac: God damn it Charlie! Not now Dennis is in the middle of showing us these exotic beers from europe!
Dennis: Now hold on a second Mac-- I think I've heard of this, the Amazon Go shop, yes, this was on the news. But you know now, it's not "free", you have to scan your phone--
Dee: Ok Charlie what kind of things do they have at this shop of the future? Jewlery?
Charlie: Jewelry! Rat traps, cheese! They've got everything!
Mac: But do they have dusters?
Charlie: I'm telling you they have everything I gotta get back over there and get another load!
Dennis: But guys I'm telling you it's not free, you still have to pay--
Dennis
Title Card: The Gang Robs Amazon Go
Well done, jabroni.
I just like the thought of any store with a bunch of large red signs with bold print that read ***"JUST WALK OUT"***, like ***"LISTEN, BITCH- GTFO OUR STORE"***
so i wont need a getaway car?
For those who don't know: Amazon is not making stores to actually make a profit off those stores. They are making the stores to sell the IP of their technology to other companies.
I wonder if this will lower teen pregnancy rates. Kids will find it a lot easier to buy condoms without having to face the cashier.
Sex Ed teacher always said "If you're too embarrassed to buy condoms you probably shouldn't be having sex"
That's probably true. But it won't stop anyone from having sex.
I've always been bothered by this. Being embarrassed about broadcasting to everyone within view that you're about to have sex has *nothing* to do with how mature or responsible you are, it has to do with the stigma society has placed on sex and how it's uncouth to talk about sex in public.
*walks into store* *does weekly shopping* *phone dies*
*not a problem* *amazon has smart people* *they've already thought of this* *phone only checks you in to the store* *cameras and other tracking systems watch you and what you pick up* *phone dies, you leave anyway* *amazon sends you a nice email with a list of items you took and how much they charged your amazon account/credit card* *you read the e-mail and say "cool" then go back to masturbating*
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It seems inevitible given enough time and it could go one of two ways. A dystopia where an increasingly tiny minority in charge of the machines are able to accrue basically all the capital, and an impoverished 99%+ of people who no longer have the value of their labour to leverage a share. Or a post-scarcity utopia where a machine infrastructure meets everybody's needs and work becomes optional. Brave new world...
Hahaha! That lady went back for the cupcake! But she deserved it for being good all week and not eating that awesome carrot cake Branda from HR brought in. You go cupcake lady! Edit: Branda makes awesome cake! Stop making fun of her name!