Panasonic's New Shopping System Automatically Bags, Tallies Your Bill (techcrunch.com)

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (Warning: paywalled; alternate source) that Panasonic is "introducing convenience-store checkout machines that can scan and bag items on their own, joining Amazon.com Inc. in the push for more retail automation." The machines will also tally up the total amount owed at checkout so that all you have to do is pay. TechCrunch reports: Last week, Amazon revealed its own more frictionless convenience store pilot, with a location that lets shoppers simply walk out with whatever they want to purchase, for which they're charged automatically via their Amazon account. The Panasonic system uses tags applied to the goods you pick up to tally the cost as you shop, and then automatically bags your selections via a trap-door in the counter that accepts your basket when you're ready to go. It could help with lines, and could also help address some of the issues with current self-checkout system, which require a user to scan their own items to find out their bill prior to paying. That added step may seem small, but it actually causes a lot of headaches and hangups, especially with shoppers who aren't so comfortable with tech. Panasonic's setup is already in use at a Lawson convenience store near its Osaka HQ, but the broader rollout is still a while off.

Comments

great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon we won't have to interact with anyone at all, everyday!

Re:great!

[Tablizer]

Soon we won't have to interact with anyone at all, everyday!

In the long run that's gotta have effects on the human psyche.

"Sorry, but there is no severed human head registered in this store's catalog. We cannot process that item."

Re: great!

[Anonymous Coward]

How'd you get from automatic shopping payment to never interacting with anyone ever? Or maybe you just can't stop yourself from criticising every single thing because you have no other intelligent contribution?

Re: great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Soylent Green will take care of that problem.

Re:great!

[davester666]

"Can I get a bag for it anyway?"

Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[swell]

As a matter of policy I never use the automated checkout. I never push in a cart from the parking lot. These are tasks for employees who value/need their job. It's not my place to usurp that or contribute to bonuses for CEOs who will be rewarded for eliminating jobs. Perhaps this attitude will cost consumers a few extra pennies; I don't care.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[JoeyRox]

Resigning people to do mundane, robotic tasks like checking out groceries makes them less human rather than more so. I'd rather they be liberated to do more fulfilling work.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're far behind the times, friend.

Here's what a smart slashdotter does:
You grab a bunch of guys from in front of the Home Depot.
You bring them over to your closest Wal-Mart and Kroger.
You let people hire your "workers" to scan and bag their stuff, then push out the grocery cart, load up the car, wave goodbye, all for the cheap, cheap price of 1$.
Of course, you keep $0.50 of that, and $0.25 goes to charity, but my guys are making close to $8 an hour with this system!

If only grocery stores thought of this in the first place!

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing inherently dehumanizing about being a checker or cashier. Checkers in the olden days were faster than today's UPC scanners and still managed to add a shine to the buying process that is sorely lacking today. (I've noticed Costco still has it, though.) The only improvement I can really detect in today's automation is less repetitive stress injury for the cashiers, and the ability for buyers to avoid surly employees in establishments where customer service is not emphasized.

Doing away with someone's job never "liberates" them. If they find better (higher paying, more secure, and/or more fulfilling) work elsewhere, they'll "liberate" themselves within a couple of weeks.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[sexconker]

You really want us to believe your guys are going through a Walmart checkout close to 32 times an hour?
Even ignoring all shopping time, loading time, and downtime between jobs, that's impossible.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you also buy all your food from farms that don't use tractors or combine harvesters?

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As rule I use the self check out, there is nearly always a couple free vs waiting in a line, oh and I also grab a cart if its been abandoned because someone else was in too much of a hurry to go wait in a line at starbucks drive thru, and I return it to the cart return, you know like you're supposed to :-)

Anyways, enjoy trying to avoid automation, the very automation that produced most of those cheap products you just bought at the supermarket. The irony.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[JoeyRox]

I agree but there's also nothing inherently humanizing or productive about people working jobs that can be performed more efficiently by robots.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget zippers on his waistcoat! Think of all the manservants out of business because clothing doesn't hook in the back anymore! What will the rabble do with their time?

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice policy, you need to change with the times though. For right now you might be able to boycott a retail store that implements this sort of automation, but it's coming and there isn't one damn thing you can do about it.

In 10-20 years time, there will be 100,000s of jobs eliminated in the US alone just through automation. Now, how many baggers and checkers will have the skill set (even with training) to get into a new job of maintaining the machines (until they do that themselves too)? Nearly zero, even with training. Not to mention that the 100,000s of jobs are going to be replaced by robots and only turn around and create maybe a few 1,000 which will in turn be eliminated by robots servicing robots.

There will come a day, in our life times, where most of us have no job and have no prospect of a job. New jobs will be created, yes, but only to a point. There will be a point where we are simply talking to a computer "hey build this" and the computer will create it, be it software or some material thing. Yes, even software developers are at risk of losing their livelihoods to automation.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[reanjr]

If the service with human cashiers and cart management were the same quality as that provided by robots and self-storage of carts, then I might be compelled to do the same, but it is not my place to accept poor service to subsidize human labor.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Gavagai80]

I'd like the service customer industry replaced with robots as quickly as possible. There are few jobs more degrading than doing extremely repetitive physical tasks while having to smile at demanding rude idiots who treat you like dirt and try to take advantage of you all day. Past history shows that we've reduced or eliminated most other categories of horrible jobs and actually have a lower unemployment rate to show for it, so worrying about unemployment is dangerously counterproductive until it actually happens.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[rkordmaa]

Any work that can be viably done by a machine, should be done by a machine, employing people for the sake of employing people is just downright moronic. Lets face it, sooner or later there will be very few jobs that actually need doing by a human, its going to happen anyway and lots of people will simply not have a job to do. Society will have to figure out this problem sooner or later anyway. We'll do just fine and figure it out.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[HideyoshiJP]

You see it as mundane. Some see it as an opportunity to do an easy job and get to chat with people all day, especially regular customers.

Re: Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be that, pretty much everyone worked from 12 or 14 to death or you starved. If you were a woman it could be work outside the home (the mill), in it (home spinning), it near ceaseless drudgery of running a home, or possibly all three

The idea that unemployment is lower now is incorrect, but it is true that unemployment is thankfully not the death sentence it could be 200 years ago. Hopefully we will find a way over the next 50 to ensure that remains the case and improve human well being and dignity.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Resigning people to do mundane, robotic tasks like checking out groceries makes them less human rather than more so. I'd rather they be liberated to do more fulfilling work.

Like what?

Every year there are more young people entering the work force and every year automation is removing many jobs from the market, so there is an ever decreasing number of jobs for these people to do. Low level jobs are needed to get these people experience working. I remember back when I first entered the work force. I had this shiny new college diploma but no previous jobs, and every single employer I interviewed with asked the same question. "Our entry level positions require five years of job experience, how much do you have?" I had to work those burger flipping, grocery bagging, gas pumping jobs before "more fulfilling work" even became an option.

I would rather these people contributed to society and worked in a job, even a menial one, rather then getting on the public dole or turning to crime.

Re:Do you prefer buying from robots or humans ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always use the checkout with an actual person working at it. Even if there is an open self-checkout available. I wish to keep people employed. I prefer service to self-service. Efficiency is not penultimate.

Aww sounds too sensible

[Anonymous Coward]

I was having great fun considering all the ways that the Amazon system could be tricked and abused, but this is far too conventional.

Re: Aww sounds too sensible

[Anonymous Coward]

But I don't get it. Why does it need to bag your bill?

Re: Aww sounds too sensible

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing cookies is easy. But why would you do that? If you are smart enough surely you can steal millions from banks and do that legally also. If you are not smart enough for that you better not try those cookies either as it is most likely too difficult for you.

"It could help with lines,..."

[Hans Lehmann]

It could, but it won't. Retails stores now only hire enough checkout clerks to keep customers from abandoning their shopping cart and walking out. When checkout clerks disappear, the stores will simply replace them with as few of these machines as possible. Your wait in line will still be just as long.

Re:"It could help with lines,..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I'll shop somewhere that cares a bit more about customer experience.

What do you do with the millions

[rsilvergun]

who don't have the capacity for that work? Last I checked suicide booths were a no-no. I guess there's always the world's oldest profession, but I've got some problems with that being the difference between eating and not eating food.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[JoeyRox]

What did we do with the millions that no longer work in agriculture? Or in jobs that disappeared as a result of the industrial revolution?

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're suggesting those jobs are kept around, we all pay more, a form of wealth redistribution. Oh snap, no one likes that.

A better idea might be to find something for those people through low cost education and training and other social services, vs locking them into a minimum wage job at the bottom. Hmm. A form of wealth redistribution. Oh snap, no one likes that.

Now which one is worse?

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they spend their days on github writing buggy code, making one-line commits and submitting pointless pull requests to keep their contribution rate up. We call them "rockstar coders".

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Patent Lover]

They check out groceries in convenience stores.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Anonymous Coward]

they started bagging grocery's (>*o*)

Re:What do you do with the millions

[ShanghaiBill]

They check out groceries in convenience stores.

Nope. Back in the 19th century WAY more people worked in retail, because customers were not allowed near the merchandise. A customer would enter the store, walk up to the counter, and give a clerk their list of items. The clerk would then go into the storage room and retrieve the items, bring them to the counter, and tally the bill.

This changed when "self-shopping" was introduced in the 1880s by F. W. Woolworth. This revolutionized retail, and created a whole new pastime of recreational shopping without an apriori shopping list.

So, no, the farmers did not become store clerks, because the clerks were getting laid off at the same time. It is also silly to refuse to use self-checkout because "that's the employee's job" when fetching the merchandise used to be their job too. Times change.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Hans Lehmann]

Though you add some interesting additional information, you're replying to what was intended as a joke. Woosh...

Re:What do you do with the millions

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked retail in a store like that in the very late 20th century. We had a window people came up to, often bearing lists, and we climbed around all over each other getting their stuff (the shop was about as tall as it was long. It was a very small shop, but in a place with very high ceilings).

We sold art supplies on a college campus.

As retail goes, it was probably about as much fun as could be had.

AC

PS - Self-checkout in California has become unlawful (it wasn't, always) for the purchase of alcohol. Somehow you would have thought that would be fairly obviously a bad idea to someone at the start, but hey, saving money for already hugely profitable corporations has always been high on any government wishlist.

PPS - I still use the check lanes even for non-alcoholic stuff. If they want me to check my own stuff, they can pay me to be a checker. Since they don't, I've no problem with letting them scan and bag my stuff.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[serviscope_minor]

What did we do with the millions that no longer work in agriculture?

Many starved. Most of the rest lived in grinding poverty. Eventually, the wheels of progress turned and their grandchildren were OK.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[AmiMoJo]

Eventually, probably fairly soon, robots will be good enough to do most low skill jobs.

With the industrial revolution people were able to transition from one low skill agricultural job to another low skill manufacturing job, and then to a low skill service job. That's not going to be possible next time.

We should see it as a good thing. People liberated from menial jobs. The transition will be difficult, and it will be made harder by some government's refusal to manage it, for political reasons.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[GuB-42]

That's why universal basic income is something that is more and more talked about.
Oh and great job insulting both minimum wage and sex workers. Implying that the former can go kill themselves and that the latter are good for nothing.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[JoeyRox]

Do you have a reference that documents this? Not doubting you - just interested in reading the historical account of this.

Re:What do you do with the millions

[lsatenstein]

They enrol in continuing education and do volunteer in Africa

Oh baby

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda makes me wanna bag and tally you

Tripping over themselves... why?

[Excelcia]

Stores seem to be tripping over themselves to spend money on automated systems to make it easy just to walk in and walk out with what you want. No extra fees, no hassle. People need to remember that any time.... any time they spend money it's with the expectation of getting twice as much back. The motivation can't be to get people in, because once more than one place has it it's no longer a novelty and they don't get increased business. So it's just a straight cost. So if it's just a straight cost, where is the recap? It's in selling out your privacy, shopping habits, brand choices, and movements. In short, we, again, are the commodity being traded.

No thanks. Minority Report holds no appeal for me, and no government seems to want to put any checks on violations of privacy.

Re:Tripping over themselves... why?

[Gavagai80]

The bigger benefit to the store is that when it's easier to buy stuff you buy more stuff. In particular with Amazon's strategy, where you don't even have to check the price or pay in the store. If deceptive $19.99 a month payment plans snare so many people, imagine how easy it is to snare people into buying lots of junk they don't need when the payment is an invisible automatic thing in the background that they don't have to worry about.

Re:Tripping over themselves... why?

[andrewbaldwin]

Who benefits?

the store owners cut costs associated with staff and make bigger profits BUT you now have a lot of people who used to work now becoming unemployed.

Fair enough a checkout operator is not the best job in the world but it does provide employment for some - in addition to their pay they get social and other benefits which they wouldn't get on the dole.

And when the staff are dismissed, who pays their unemployment benefit and other welfare costs? You & me via our taxes.

At the 'bottom of the pile' benefit scroungers are rightly condemned, but those at the top who are effectively getting us to subsidise their increasing profits and income are lauded.

Who will watch for the pump skimmers

[mallyn]

Folks:

There have been problems with hackers installing credit/debit card skimmers at gas pumps.

Now, they choose the pumps furthest out from the convenience store itself so that the human clerk inside does not see what they are doing.

Now that the clerk is about to be replace by one of these Panasonic machines, will these machines do any better job keeping an eye on the gas pumps to make sure that no one is installing credit/debit card skimmers?

Re:Who will watch for the pump skimmers

[Anonymous Coward]

We have these machines called cameras...

Re:Who will watch for the pump skimmers

[JoeyRox]

Considering that some employees in retail steal credit cards numbers I'm guessing it'll be a wash.

Re:Who will watch for the pump skimmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Which will never be looked at until after the fact.

Re: Who will watch for the pump skimmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots will look at them.

This, so much This.

[rsilvergun]

When I'm in line I'm flanked on all sides by additional purchasing opportunities. Magazines, Gum, Chapstick, USB wall chargers, you name it. The Longer I'm in line the more likely I am to buy just one more thing. Usually for a 30% mark up over an equivalent item at the back of the store. You think they're gonna give that up?

Re:This, so much This.

[Obfuscant]

Usually for a 30% mark up over an equivalent item at the back of the store.

An item's price at the front is going to be the same as its price at the back. The UPC code is the same, and the store has no way of knowing if you picked it up in line or while shopping at the back of the store. They're going to lose money every time someone has to stop the checkout process to say "that's the wrong price" or worse, return the item after it has been purchased.

Re:This, so much This.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just gave me an idea for a patent. Thanks.

Re:This, so much This.

[dgatwood]

An item's price at the front is going to be the same as its price at the back. The UPC code is the same, and the store has no way of knowing if you picked it up in line or while shopping at the back of the store.

In practice, the candy bars in the back of the store are sold in packs of 6 or whatever, rather than individually, so the UPC code is different, and they're marked up considerably when sold individually even though the actual cost to the store is probably slightly less.

Re:This, so much This.

[Obfuscant]

In practice, the candy bars in the back of the store are sold in packs of 6 or whatever, rather than individually,

Well, yeah. You pay extra for the convenience of buying one instead of six, and it costs the store more because they have to deal with individual sales instead of a single larger package. There's also more theft and damage in singles, and the shelf space is more valuable up front where impulse buys are a major factor.

You're comparing apples to oranges. When they are truly equivalent, the UPC and the prices are the same.

Do you have a citation for the costs being lower for single unit sales? The fact that they come in boxes of 24 singles doesn't necessarily mean the overall cost is lower compared to a case of 12 six-bar packs. (And in many stores there are singles in the back, too.)

Re:This, so much This.

[Gavagai80]

Self-checkout lines at Safeway at least don't have any impulse buy items to look at (nor any lines most of times of day). So they have given it up some places. It works out for them too, because a main reason I shop at Safeway instead of Walmart is that I don't have to deal with a line.

Re:This, so much This.

[AmiMoJo]

They just make the ones by the checkouts slightly different and much more expensive. On the shelves you might be able to buy a 6 pack at $1/item, and at the till you can buy a single at £1.50.

This trick is extremely common. "Tension headache" pain medication is actually identical to the basic general pain version, but costs more. The same razor in pink costs more than the identical blue one, or vice versa.

Re:This, so much This.

[dgatwood]

There's less packaging in bulk display packs (boxes of 30 or whatever) because they aren't wrapped in groups of 6 or whatever, so the manufacturing cost is lower. And small boxes can be stacked more densely than flat packages because the boxes provide some degree of crush protection, so chances are the shipping costs are lower, too.

More to the point, if the per-unit price from the manufacturer were higher, most stores wouldn't buy the bulk display packs; they would buy the six-packs and rip them open (except in the relatively rare situation where the six-packs aren't labeled for individual sale) and make a higher profit per unit while charging the same price as everybody else who buys the display packs. Eventually, the manufacturers would realize that this was happening, and would reduce the price of their display packs. So it seems fairly safe to say that the stores pay less per unit when buying the display packs, or at a bare minimum, they don't pay appreciably more per unit.

It is true about higher theft risk and higher damage risk. And there is a small difference in the cost of the checker ringing up a single versus a bulk pack. I would expect those to be lost in the noise, though, and certainly not worthy of a large difference in price. They charge you a higher markup because they know most people don't want to buy six, and thus will pay more for the convenience, resulting in higher profit.

Um... they already did all that

[rsilvergun]

without automation. They did it with shopper "loyalty" cards. They started with discounts, and then the discounts became part of the core price. I don't make enough money to take a 20% hit to my grocery bill in exchange for privacy. Most Americans don't.

If you want real freedom you've got to be willing to let the other guy have some money, but as my right wing friends like to point out, who's gonna pay for that?

Re:Um... they already did all that

[rnturn]

At least one of the major grocery chains around where I live (Chicago) did away with their loyalty cards. I seriously doubt we ever got a 20% discount for using one. They lowered their prices (somewhat) and seem to have a lot more buy-two|three|whatever-get-discount deals.

I'm still not ready to entrust a company to have it's electronic hands on my wallet at an automated checkout line. (Go ahead and call me "old school"... I like it.)

Tallies, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes objects, passes them over a scanner, places them in a bag... _and_ adds numbers?

Look, those first two things are amazing, but the adding up, that is next level stuff.

Re:Tallies, you say?

[arth1]

It takes objects, passes them over a scanner, places them in a bag

Drops them through a trapdoor into a bag.
That worries me. I'm probably not the only one who has purchases with mixed fragility and mass. At least a human bagger can swap items around and not drop your heavy bag of salt on top of your tray of eggs.

Re:Tallies, you say?

[serviscope_minor]

At least a human bagger can swap items around and not drop your heavy bag of salt on top of your tray of eggs.

As far as I could tell from my time in the US, that was pretty much the purpose of the baggers. What's even weirder is that when baggers weren't there, some people would opt to wait for the privilege of having fresh raspberries used as padding to stop the potatoes from crushing the eggs, rather than simply shoving stuff in bags themselves.

Personally I like the Lidl approach: you're expected to shove stuff in bags as fast as the tellers can ram 'em through (and they are FAST) and if the teller's done, you GTFO and let the next customer though. And they provide tables so you can re-pack at your leisure without holding up the whole line. That beats the Sainsbury's approach where it's more like sedated cows having shopping checked out by a dead fish.

Re:Tallies, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the Waitrose approach, where your items will be packed by a terrified grinning doll, or the Tesco approach, which is like the Sainsbury's approach but with only one dead fish to service the whole herd, restock the shelves and clean the floors.

Re: Tallies, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Baggers in the USA are both confused and annoyed if I bag myself, so I try to do it collaboratively with the bagger, as a binding exercise that results in the encapsulated avian menstruations remaining encapsulated

we need a mandate

[Anonymous Coward]

I am all for technology and I love seeing new tech but. why are we allowing this short of thing to the market >?
we need to stop allowing robots to take from the lowest class of jobs. you can make a robot to bag grocery's run the till etc but should you? We run into a grater problem then we as people have ever seen. by allowing the low class jobs to be taken over. hell even McDonald is now using Screens to take the order.

and you know what it suxs. they resigned the order taking process to allow for simultaneous orders to come in. so instead of Qing and placing your order then they make it and give it to you, you know have a number. and a crowed of unruly people all getting impatient to ge there number called. the hole thing is a mess as no matter what you feel like you are in a crowd. and crowds are the worst.

back on point this short of thing is inevitable, we need an over hall in the way we think of work. as soon there are not going to be small jobs out there. and the knee jerk retort of well they automated factory's and that has gone fine. I beg to differ this is not the same thing. there is a real danger of there being no uneducated work out there and that is going to case massive civel unrest. and i would argue that this is starting already as know a days you cant get a factory job with out a college degree. my dad works for Chrysler he could not get me a job even thou he has worked there for 30+ years and is pretty high up on the totom pole.

it is a mess and it is getting worse ever year as slowly but surely the jobs viewed as a safety net the always there jobs disappear/

so no timmy you cant get a Mcjob you are not trained in how to fix the server bot 4000
sorry timmy you cant bag grocery or do the till you are not a chaser bot
no timmy you can not driver a truck lol they drive them selves you know this. .....give it time..... well no timmy you know that you are not a DoctorBot so how could you be one? .......and finally .... well timmy to be a good CEO you need Deep learning and its way to complex for any human to try, go back to sleep timmy, we do not need you.

why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"system uses tags applied to the goods you pick up to tally the cost as you shop"

Umm, so the cashier gets demoted to sticking on 'price' tags.
Most(all?) of the stores I shop no longer tag each item....because it is quicker to let the computer price at checkout. So how does this work out again? There is a lot of labor to tag each item.

Couldn't (and wasn't it supposed to) RFID have done this years ago? Sans the cheesy trap-door perhaps.

"The machines will also tally up the total amount owed at checkout so that all you have to do is pay"
Thank God I finally stop adding up my purchases using long addition...... umm, i don't think that is a new one.

Re: why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scan and shop doesn't even require price tags as you can scan the item with the hand scanner you walk round the store with and get it to divulge the price. Unless you are intending on doing a trolley dash it's more efficient than the system noted in the article except that it seems to lead to more theft, but RFIDs will probably obviate the need for scanners and reduce theft.

saw threshhold was 5 cents a RFID tag

[peter303]

For the economics to work. Its 7 to 15 cents now according to RFID Journal (google). At one time Walmart was talking about rfid-tagging everything, but settled at the pallet level. I dont know what the bottleneck was. I like my library system for automatically checking out and returning books.

Re:saw threshhold was 5 cents a RFID tag

[Gavagai80]

People already try to switch the price tags on items and argue they should get the lower price. How do you prevent them from switching the RFID tag with one for a cheaper item? When you have no checker to verify, seems like that could become a problem.

Re:saw threshhold was 5 cents a RFID tag

[rkordmaa]

Theft of all kinds if inevitable in retail, you just chuck it up with all the other operational costs and operational costs are after all included in the price of all the items.

Re:saw threshhold was 5 cents a RFID tag

[CanadianMacFan]

You would have to switch it with a tag from another items that weighs the same thing. It should be on a scale (I saw that it required everything to have a tag and stopped reading since that's stupid).

And what hapens when the amount they charge....

[mark-t]

... is wrong?

How do you dispute charges for something like this? How do you prove that you didn't walk out of there with something that their computer system says that you did?

While the convenience is nice for something like this, and as long as it is working as it is intended, everything will be fine.

But you know... Murphy's law and everything.

Machine-learning vision as a backup

[peter303]

I am impressed by the speed and accuracy of object recognition in the google ML self-driving system. These could examine to objects being purchased as a security backup, much like supers use weight now.

Re:Machine-learning vision as a backup

[John.Banister]

If they require the customers to self-tag for wireless payment, they could continue to attempt to use weight. It would be amusing to see the customer scales at the restroom entrances.

Whats wrong with the good old shopping trolley?

[sonamchauhan]

Whay cant the trolley bill you? Everything has a barcode, or is image identifiable. Just have it ringed by cameras pointing inward on the trolleys rim and a simple weight sensors to confirm placement. Image and/or barcode recognise objecta. Optical flow processing and weight sensor processing. A bunch of raspi zeros and picams should do the job.

Re:Whats wrong with the good old shopping trolley?

[Hans Lehmann]

Because it will frequently fail. Try leaving that out in the rainy parking lot and see how long it lasts. It needs power, so now you have to recharge all your shopping carts every night, and of course they cost twice as much as a normal shopping cart. How does the customer dispute an error?, and yes errors will happen. Also, it's then so much easier to game the system to rip off the store.

This is one of those pipe dream ideas that always show up on TV commercials for big tech companies, yet nobody seems to ask the people that would be expected to actually use it.

Already solved problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Norway one of the supermarkets allows you to carry a scanner with you and you scan the item when you pick it.

This ensures you can see the price then and there and helps with the final checkout where you basically just pay instead of pulling things out and scanning items again and putting them back

Re:Already solved problem

[mind_of_delusion]

Yup, we have the same in France too (at Carrefour and Auchan). It's called Scan'lib for Carrefour, and it's powered by Motorola. To those who are not familiar with the concept : you scan each of the goods you want to buy when you pick it, and at the end of your "store trip", go to a specific station in order to unload your "scanner" (it's more a small terminal than a simple scanner), to pay and have your ticket. But ! there is random controls by some security guards in order to confirm the correlation between the content of your cart and your ticket.

I've seen something more close to this concept : the 360 Scanner by Diebold (formerly Wincor) Nixdorf (information and pictures about it here : http://www.lsa-conso.fr/produi... [french]) : in order to avoid price tag swapping, the system check if the total volume and size of the stuff you're buying match the database records of it (of course, it scan the barcode by using the multiple scanners on the POS). This product has been built in order to satisfy the retailers who weren't wanting to RFID tag all their products (imagine that in a Carrefour, and the cost it implie) : to me, a bad solution to a false problem (there's some flaws : no weight control, mecanical problems, necessity to have an operator to check if the product are well separated when entering the scanner zone (in order to permit the identification of all goods), and other things I can't tell because of NDA ;)).

IBM "check-out" commercial.

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea reminds me of an IBM commercial with a security guard watching someone going through a store picking up things and seemingly walking out without paying. The guard confronts the person and gives them their receipt.

Non-standard bags?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I go shopping, I take a rucksack for the heavy items (so I can walk home with it on my back).
Will it cope with that?
Will it know that I want heavy items together (bottles of stuff, and tin cans usually), but then want the frozen stuff bagged together, the veg done together (but with the heavy items on the bottom etc.)?

At the moment I put a fair bit of effort putting things in the right order on the conveyor belt so I can pack them easily as the clerk flings them down.
Will I finally be free of this?

Horrible Bagging

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the video and it basically drops the bottom out of the small shopping basket and all items fall into a bag underneath. That's pretty horrible. I'd rather my eggs and beer bottles not break and want the bread on top and often I want multiple bags.

did you see the video?

[Dthief]

you gotta break a lot of eggs......to buy groceries

Sam's Club too...

[jermz]

Sam's Club has a similar system on line now too. It's an app that you install on your smartphone. You scan each item into the app as you put it into your cart, then hit the "checkout" button to verify your payment. You show your phone to the receipt checker at the door, who scans it with a handheld scanner to verify that you paid for everything in your cart, and you are done.

IMO, it's not a bigger threat to employees than the self-checkout kiosks. It simply reduces the utilization of the self-checkout lines, reducing the maintenance costs of that hardware and saving the company money. There is still the same person at the exit doors validating the items in the cart match the receipt (mostly a simple count of items).

So is this a "Store" or a "Vending Machine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only ask because I assume that whichever has the least costly regulatory framework will be the winner.

What about quality in the process

[Anonymous Coward]

What is preventing the eggs and bread from getting squished when the trap door dumps the basket into a bag?