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“Just walk out” technology by Amazon

justwalkout.com

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Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#381

Post by xapata »

WalterBright wrote: post #367
hammock wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In hindsight it seems obvious that the play was to "AWS" the whole thing: make yourself the first/best customer, nail the implementation, then sell it to the world. It's not just about "AWS"-ing the thing. It's about gaining access to all of the transaction data and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you. A retailer like Walmart would NEVER use this tech, they know their data is one of the most valuabl…

> and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you. Amazon is always putting up ads for me based on my purchase history, but they're never what I wind up buying. I have no explanation for what is wrong with their algorithm.

Turns out that math is hard and people are difficult to predict.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#383

Post by fastball »

chrysoprace wrote: post #368

>Will people still be working in stores with Just Walk Out technology? >Yes. Retailers will still employ store associates to greet and answer shoppers' questions, stock the shelves, check IDs for the purchasing of certain goods, and more - their roles have simply shifted to focus on more valuable activities. I think this raises questions about ethics in technology. Not to mention the creepy cameras watching your ever…

> I think this raises questions about ethics in technology

Does it? I have yet to see an instance where any amount of luddism makes any sense. Stifling progress "for the jobs" is always bad for humanity in the long run.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#384

Post by unholiness »

I'm curious, how does this technology deal with items that aren't individually packaged? Is there a place for vegetables, meats, bulk foods, etc, or is the technology limited to acting like a giant vending machine?

I hope that stores like these will one day be hubs where we can refill all our bulk products and actually save on shipping and packaging. I fear that stores like these will just sell me individually wrapped apples because it's not worth the effort.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#385

Post by larzang »

WalterBright wrote: post #367
hammock wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In hindsight it seems obvious that the play was to "AWS" the whole thing: make yourself the first/best customer, nail the implementation, then sell it to the world. It's not just about "AWS"-ing the thing. It's about gaining access to all of the transaction data and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you. A retailer like Walmart would NEVER use this tech, they know their data is one of the most valuabl…

> and marrying that to what Amazon already knows about you. Amazon is always putting up ads for me based on my purchase history, but they're never what I wind up buying. I have no explanation for what is wrong with their algorithm.

But you just bought a toilet seat, surely you want five more toilet seats, you toilet seat enthusiast you.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#386

Post by kortilla »

boublepop wrote: post #246

Aaaand there’s the play. Amazon wasn’t trying to compete with other retails stores by leveraging their tech edge, they were positioning themselves to becoming the single provider of retail checkout solutions for the future. You either opt-in to giving Amazon all your retail data, or you become the only old fashioned “wait in line to get served” store on the street. And where is the competition? Is there anyone at all…

> And where is the competition? Is there anyone at all who can provide something like this?

Um, Walmart and most major grocery stores already have self checkout areas. So “wait in line to get served” isn’t quite the comparison. Most companies will give zero fucks about adopting this unless it becomes the expected norm.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#387

Post by IshKebab »

fastball wrote: post #383
chrysoprace wrote: post #368

>Will people still be working in stores with Just Walk Out technology? >Yes. Retailers will still employ store associates to greet and answer shoppers' questions, stock the shelves, check IDs for the purchasing of certain goods, and more - their roles have simply shifted to focus on more valuable activities. I think this raises questions about ethics in technology. Not to mention the creepy cameras watching your ever…

> I think this raises questions about ethics in technology Does it? I have yet to see an instance where any amount of luddism makes any sense. Stifling progress "for the jobs" is always bad for humanity in the long run.

Yeah especially when the jobs are unpleasant ones. Are any young people disappointed that they can't work in the coal mines?

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#388

Post by sequoia »

I won't do it. Because 1. I value what's left of my privacy more than saving a minute of human interaction here and there (are you really that busy? I'm not and I have 4 kids) 2. I won't contribute to twisting the arms of my local retailers and forcing them into amazon's yoke.

In short: to hell with this.

Edit: yoke

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#389

Post by bonoboTP »

mithr wrote: post #161
nck4222 wrote: post #63

My biggest problem with this is that from what I can tell, the only way to know how much you're going to be automatically charged (as well as what items the tech thinks you're purchasing), is to go to a kiosk in the store and get a receipt. Which seems to completely defeat the convenience of just walking out in the first place. I wouldn't feel comfortable just walking out without knowing how much I'm going to be char…

As long as the process for getting refunds is frictionless and well-implemented (perhaps similar to Prime Now), then if you can afford holding the charge on your credit card for a few days, this doesn't really seem like a problem. The process becomes: go to the store, pick up what you want, and then at some later point take a quick look at the "receipt" for verification, quickly flagging anything that seems off. With…

> quickly flagging anything that seems off

Do you memorize all the time whether you grabbed two or three bags of chips or exactly how many cans of beer etc?

How do you prove you didn't buy something? Or will they just accept your word? If anyone can just say whatever, then people will just ask for refunds of stuff. Will they check the footage in each case? But maybe it can work in the US. It sure as hell won't work in many other countries, where people look for loopholes all the time.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#390

Post by kortilla »

thu2111 wrote: post #358
reaperducer wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where is the competition? Is there anyone at all who can provide something like this? One of the big tech companies in the 80's demonstrated this. I think it was either IBM or AT&T/Bellcore. Essentially, it was just a scanner at the door that read RFID tags in each item, and your credit card. This was back when RFID was still oh-holy-shit technology. The reason I think AT&T might have been involved is that the vi…

That's not the same thing at all. Doing it with RFID is trivial. The hard part here is the backwards compatibility with a retail ecosystem that uses UPC barcodes rather than (expensive) RFID tags.

Well it goes to show you that this isn’t really solving a burning issue at all. If it was, they would have thrown the cheap RFID tags on everything 30 years ago.
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