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Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

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Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#41

Post by mstolpm »

anigbrowl wrote: post #28
adventured wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pfff. If I could get a waiver of legal liability in advance I can think of multiple ways to get around that. Since there aren't any cashiers whose safety could be threatened I'm heartily in favor of people developing creative hacks for the brief duration that remains before we turn the whole damn world into a capitalist panopticon.

So, why trying to be creative? Just robbing the store in a conventional fashion should do - and facing security/police when leaving. Good luck.

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#42

Post by _m8fo »

mstolpm wrote: post #39
_m8fo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. If the store has bathrooms will those be watched too? What's stopping someone from entering the bathroom and changing? It's true that human surveillance can help a lot, but if that's the case you might as well just get cashiers , who double as stockers who are necessary anyways. I'm less concerned about stealing and more interested whether this would be cheaper or a better experience than just having cashier…

What should happen if you change clothes in the bathroom? You would not allowed to enter with any goods not already purchased. So, you have to pick up your items after leaving the bathroom in your "new" clothes in a designated storage area (think: Ikea, Frys or Borders restrooms). Either, your smartphone would identify you against the system afterwards and the picked up items are attached to your account or the syste…

> What should happen if you change clothes in the bathroom? Nothing. Just like in a regular store.

If it ends up working how you describe it sounds like a terrible experience in cold areas where people regularly take off multiple layers of clothing, including but not limited to face masks, gloves, sweaters, coats, etc.

Also, in terms of gaming the system, it doesn't need to be "gamed", it just needs to allow you to walk out with items easily. People already shoplift easily, the question is whether it will be easier with this new system. Presumably the purpose of this is to be both easier for the customer and cheaper for Amazon compared to have cashiers.

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#43

Post by crdoconnor »

chrisseaton wrote: post #18
tarboreus wrote: post #12

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.

I don't know exactly how you'd test this but I'll bet the UK has the heaviest change in the world.

Most of the rest of the world seems to have lighter coins and more smaller note denominations, which is way more convenient.

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#44

Post by mixedCase »

tarboreus wrote: post #29
chrisseaton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally love $5 and $10 bills. I frequently do exact change when I have a bunch of those. Buying a BLT at the bodega? That's $5.75 with a coke. Here's $6. At the end of the day, I fire my change in a bucket and bring it to a machine once a year to get exchanged. 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 AT…

If fewer people carry cash around, there's less of an incentive to mug people for their cash.

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#45

Post by nmstoker »

chrisseaton wrote: post #18
tarboreus wrote: post #12

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.

I like the idea of cash but I barely need it now, I took some out last week but before that it was about six weeks since I went to an ATM. Even my daily croissant at 78p goes through via contactless, with automated checkouts I'm in and out in nigh on 60 seconds.

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#46

Post by gwern »

> Shoppers visiting an Amazon Go store will scan their smartphones upon entering. Cameras and shelf sensors will then work together to figure out which items have been removed and who removed them, the person says; there will be no need for tracking devices, such as radio frequency chips, embedded in the merchandise.

Hold on - "shelf sensors"? Wasn't Amazon originally advertising this as being purely camera-based, and that was why everyone was so skeptical it could ever work sufficiently well? 'Shelf sensors' could cover a heck of a lot short of embedding individual RFID sensors...

Re: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time

#49

Post by jpatokal »

crdoconnor wrote: post #43
chrisseaton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know exactly how you'd test this but I'll bet the UK has the heaviest change in the world. Most of the rest of the world seems to have lighter coins and more smaller note denominations, which is way more convenient.

Australian coinage is probably the heaviest in the world, particularly this monster: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_fifty-cent_coin
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