21–30 of 79 posts
No mention of people wearing masks or putting them on after the fact or better yet, completely changing clothing? That's the easiest, simplest and cheapest way to beat this.
You know what I find convenient? Cash. You just take it out of your wallet and hand it over in exchange for goods. No tracking, no receipt emails, no machine learning of my behavior to figure out when my partner is pregnant or whatever, no extra apps, no facial recognition, no 2-4% charge for businesses that only doesn't apply if you're an international monopoly. Oh, my phone is out of batteries. Guess I'll just give…
Sounds awfully inconvenient. I'm constantly having to travel to the bank to get more cash, it's easy to lose, steal and destroy, the money I get in change might be counterfeit, it takes a lot more effort to track my cash purchases, and it turns out banks charge merchants a fee for handling cash too! (a local example of a fee schedule: https://www.oregonstatecu.com/business#/tab/fees)
Perhaps this all is a cost some feel is worth paying in exchange for privacy, but a cost nonetheless.
This made me giggle. I've tried to figure out the same thing myself when shopping with a significant other or close friend. I'm having a hard time imagining how this would be cast as an engineering problem.
You know what I find convenient? Cash. You just take it out of your wallet and hand it over in exchange for goods. No tracking, no receipt emails, no machine learning of my behavior to figure out when my partner is pregnant or whatever, no extra apps, no facial recognition, no 2-4% charge for businesses that only doesn't apply if you're an international monopoly. Oh, my phone is out of batteries. Guess I'll just give…
So they've spent an extra year with people who fit the demographics of an Amazon employee trying to trick their systems. That should protect them from people who fit the demographics of an Amazon employee. There still seem to be many of the issues people brought up a year ago, such as how this depends on the presence of a phone with the appropriate app installed, or what happens with groups of people in which only on…
Pretty sure you get notifications each time the app charges you, like to your smart watch if you have one. This is hugely beneficial to individual shoppers. Lining up is such a PITA. Walk in / walk out would be awesome. They should just have a rule that kids aren't allowed to come along. I can tell you that rule alone will have a zillion mothers crying out in gratitude.
> Employees have tried to fool the technology. One day, three enterprising Amazonians donned bright yellow Pikachu costumes and cruised around grabbing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. The algorithms nailed it, according to a person familiar with the situation, correctly identifying the employees and charging their Amazon accounts, even though they were obscured behind yellow polyester. Okay, so 3 employees tested it?…
You need to have an app on your phone and scan a code from the app/phone to enter. My guess is that it is based on location tracking of the phone (via either Bluetooth or WiFi) rather than facial recognition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure you get notifications each time the app charges you, like to your smart watch if you have one. This is hugely beneficial to individual shoppers. Lining up is such a PITA. Walk in / walk out would be awesome. They should just have a rule that kids aren't allowed to come along. I can tell you that rule alone will have a zillion mothers crying out in gratitude.
So if you're a single mom you now need to get a babysitter to go grocery shopping?
No mention of people wearing masks or putting them on after the fact or better yet, completely changing clothing? That's the easiest, simplest and cheapest way to beat this.
How do you figure? Identification isn't only based on your face. From the article: "Employees have tried to fool the technology. One day, three enterprising Amazonians donned bright yellow Pikachu costumes and cruised around grabbing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. The algorithms nailed it, according to a person familiar with the situation, correctly identifying the employees and charging their Amazon accounts, even t…
You know what I find convenient? Cash. You just take it out of your wallet and hand it over in exchange for goods. No tracking, no receipt emails, no machine learning of my behavior to figure out when my partner is pregnant or whatever, no extra apps, no facial recognition, no 2-4% charge for businesses that only doesn't apply if you're an international monopoly. Oh, my phone is out of batteries. Guess I'll just give…
Cash is somewhat ok until you buy something. It's fine to carry around say £100 in a few notes, but then you buy something and you get back £5 and £10 notes and a handful of change and now it's a big jingly mess of shrapnel. I think contactless credit cards are the best right now. You don't need to hand anything over, get anything back, or enter anything, just wave the card.
Also, taking out $100 in 2017 is silly, at least if you spend more than $200 a week, which is most non-students here. I just get out the max that the ATM will let me have and I never regret it.
"But what if I get mugged?" This is silly. If you actually do get mugged, you want to have a big load of money on you, not $3.29. Happy muggers mean fewer dead programmers.
There's a YC company also working on the same thing, here's their demo from 3 months ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeS8TJwBAFs https://www.standardcognition.com/