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Amazon Patents Wristbands Designed To Track and Steer Employees' Movements (nydailynews.com)
New submitter hyperclocker shares a report from NY Daily News: Amazon workplace employees may soon be guided by their wrists. The tech company this week received two patents for a wristband designed to guide warehouse workers' movements with the use of vibrations. The concept relies on ultrasonic sound pulses or radio transmissions to detect the position of an employee's hand in relation to a series of inventory bins, GeekWire reported. Upon receiving product orders, warehouse workers are required to retrieve the requested item from such bins or shelves and pack it in a delivery box before moving on to the next order. If a worker's hands begin to move toward the wrong direction, the proposed "haptic feedback system" would cause the wristband to buzz and direct their hand in the correct direction. The wristbands, according to the patent documents, were designed as a means to keep track of products within Amazon warehouses as well as up day-to-day productivity. The proposed tech, however, could also provide Amazon management with a new means of workplace surveillance that would alert them to staffers who are wasting time or breaking for too long.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
This is interesting, but what they really need is some kind of system to keep track of inventory levels. This would prevent situations where I buy something and then they tell me they don't have any on the day it was supposed to arrive. Hopefully they will soon catch up with my advanced thinking.
Something's wrong with Hank's wristband, it's giving us nonsense data. Repeated up down and motions for the past 7 minutes, now it looks like it's speeding up. And it says he's in the bathroom, not at his station. This makes no sense at all.
People could probably fake hand movements, they should instead make all workers put on a GoPro camera hat so they can constantly monitor what every one is doing and looking at then shock their brain when they do or look at something wrong. Problem solved.
Why convert to robots, when you can convert your human workers to computer control!? Hey! Why not have your "employees" chained to their posts!? And have them work 16 hour shifts, for pennies an hour!! Actions like these are what caused unions and higher overwatch of employers by governments. Too bad the corporations own both nowadays.
Please pay no attention to the dystopia behind the curtain!
I seem to recall that the Romans invented iron wrist bands that were able to direct employees (slaves) with an attached communication link (chains). They also had a neck and ankle versions too.
Those are good old fashioned emoticons, not emojis. :p
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At this point warehouse workers are going to become commoditized robot workers, controlled by a central system and mainly valued for their grasping capability. Show up to work, walk to the item(s), collect the items as you're told, put them in the box. Then you may rest for X minutes then back to waving items around.
From an engineering standpoint it's brilliant, you "control" the "last mile" of the warehouse equation, at least until the robotics department finally rolls out their replacement for the humans.
As a human working there though, I'm sure it's pretty degrading.
moox. for a new generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Humanity constructs advanced military spacecraft, but the ships learn to think for themselves. They kill their crews by disengaging the life support systems. However, they keep a small number of humans alive for repairs they cannot do themselves."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.