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Amazon Opens 'Surveillance-Powered, No-Checkout Convenience Store' (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader quotes GeekWire:
The first Amazon Go grocery and convenience store will open to the public Monday in Seattle -- letting any person with an Amazon account, the Amazon Go app and a willingness to give up more of their personal privacy than usual simply grab anything they want and walk out, without going through a checkout line... After shoppers check in by scanning their unique QR code, overhead cameras work with weight sensors in the shelves to precisely track which items they pick up and take with them. When they leave, they just leave. Amazon Go's systems automatically debit their accounts for the items they take, sending the receipt to the app. In my first test of Amazon Go this past week, my elapsed time in the store was exactly 23 seconds -- from scanning the QR code at the entrance to exiting with my chosen item...
The company says the tracking is precise enough to distinguish between multiple people standing side-by-side at a shelf, detecting which one picked up a yogurt or cupcake, for example, and which one was merely browsing. The system also knows when people pick up items and put them back, ensuring that Amazon doesn't dock anyone's account for milk or chips when they simply wanted to read the label. The idea is to "push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning" to create an "effortless experience for customers," said Dilip Kumar, Amazon Go vice president of technology, after taking GeekWire through the store this past week... Apart from the kitchen staff preparing fresh food at the back, we saw only two workers in the 1,800-square-foot Amazon Go store during our visit: one at the beer and wine section to check IDs, and another just inside the entrance to greet customers.
TechCrunch calls it "Amazon's surveillance-powered no-checkout convenience store," adding "the system is made up of dozens and dozens of camera units mounted to the ceiling, covering and recovering every square inch of the store from multiple angles."
The Seattle Times reports that the store "was also criticized by grocery-store workers' unions, which feared an effort to automate the work done by cashiers, the second-most-common job in the U.S."
The company says the tracking is precise enough to distinguish between multiple people standing side-by-side at a shelf, detecting which one picked up a yogurt or cupcake, for example, and which one was merely browsing. The system also knows when people pick up items and put them back, ensuring that Amazon doesn't dock anyone's account for milk or chips when they simply wanted to read the label. The idea is to "push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning" to create an "effortless experience for customers," said Dilip Kumar, Amazon Go vice president of technology, after taking GeekWire through the store this past week... Apart from the kitchen staff preparing fresh food at the back, we saw only two workers in the 1,800-square-foot Amazon Go store during our visit: one at the beer and wine section to check IDs, and another just inside the entrance to greet customers.
TechCrunch calls it "Amazon's surveillance-powered no-checkout convenience store," adding "the system is made up of dozens and dozens of camera units mounted to the ceiling, covering and recovering every square inch of the store from multiple angles."
The Seattle Times reports that the store "was also criticized by grocery-store workers' unions, which feared an effort to automate the work done by cashiers, the second-most-common job in the U.S."
From the TFA:
"The company says the tracking is precise enough to distinguish between multiple people standing side-by-side at a shelf, detecting which one picked up a yogurt or cupcake, for example, and which one was merely browsing. "
I would take that as a challenge! What can I get a away with, how can I obscure, or fool the "AI", what are the limitations and assumptions, can I beat the design engineers? Very interesting problem!
If I would be tempted to do that - who hasn't shoplifted once in 47 years - what would that indicate for the average shoplifting rate?
Unemployment insurance is just a holdover from another era, dressed up to appeal to old boomers too lazy to work and too entitled to seek training or personal betterment.
Instead of paying people NOT to work - the big government idea favored by the AC - we should allow federal agencies (especially parks and transportation) to hire unlimited minimum wage workers for infrastructure improvement projects or paid training. This approach eliminates other wage regulation (the private sector must pay higher than the guarantee wage), delivers the ultimate work requirement for government assistance, and provides a direct avenue to labor force retraining/modernization. It's far simpler than the current system involving complex, overlapping big government programs, more economically useful (infrastructure building and maintenance), and more socially useful for able-bodied people (training opportunities, work requirements, etc.).
A jobs guarantee is THE conservative answer to welfare, and it's a shame you (the AC) are too close-minded to see it.
.:Semper Absurda:.