“Just walk out” technology by Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#431

Post by raydev » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

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…

Walmart. But they only care about what lowers costs. They've been researching RFIDs and stufff like this since at least the early 00s, and they rolled a lot of it out in their shipping/transit network, but I'm guessing they have too much shrinkage/theft to worry about in most of their stores. No cost savings, so it doesn't happen.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#432

Post by filoleg » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #430

Here's an off the wall idea. This technology could be used in airport bathrooms to enforce hand washing during a pandemic. It's well established that hand washing, or lack thereof, in an airport setting can supercharge the global spread of disease. The spread of coronavirus could be reduced by up to 60% by consistent handwashing[1] by air travelers. This tech could flag people who walk out of the bathroom without sto…

While I agree with this specific premise in general, it is still disturbing as hell to have someone or something monitor what you do in a bathroom + it opens up a door for a lot of other things. Do you want bosses to know how much time you spend in bathroom on the phone vs. actually doing the deed? Because I can almost guarantee that's where this tech will head, if we continue down this route.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#433

Post by Slippery_John » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

mkolodny wrote: post #353

julienb_sea wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RFID are not good enough for this application. In the end you'd still need to take the items out of the bag to scan them, as RFID blocking tech is real, and RFID at a distance doesn't work that well - especially with a lot of different RFID chips involved. It's also very wasteful and time consuming. You'd need to chip every item in the store, which is a LOT of human labor (expensive), plus those chips are essentially…

I was under the impression that Amazon is using RFID for "just walk out". They filed patents for a "shelf with integrated electronics", which mentions RFID as a potential implementation [0]. Does anyone here know for sure whether "just walk out" uses RFID? [0] https://sqoop.com/details/uspto/10064502

If this really is the same tech they use for Amazon Go then no. I'm not sure where they would have hid an RFID chip in the single apple I picked up from their larger store a week ago.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#434

Post by lazersharkman » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

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.

The worst was when I searched for gorilla glue once. Good ol' Jeffy B thought I'd also want a $100k watch, a racecar/nascar (themed) Bible, and an anatomical model of some gonads. Pretty sure I still have the screencap somewhere

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#435

Post by aficiomaquinas » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #344

athenot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true 5 years ago but with the quality issues on Amazon, I've found myself buying more on eBay.

Yeah, ebay has much better buyer protections unless the item is Fulfilled By Amazon (which carries a cost premium). eBay prices also tend to be better. If you're going to buy cheap chinese crap anyway, just cut out the middleman. Finally, Amazon's marketplace is just not navigable. Their search is pathetically bad, and this is nothing new, it's been a common complaint for years. Some fairly massive amount of their tr…

> Yeah, ebay has much better buyer protections unless the item is Fulfilled By Amazon (which carries a cost premium). eBay prices also tend to be better. If you're going to buy cheap chinese crap anyway, just cut out the middleman.

That's what I thought until I was scammed by a Chinese on eBay... after countless emails, calls, even police reports, eBay did not return the 800 dollars I lost... not sure if it's an isolated case but it was pretty frustrating.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#436

Post by filoleg » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #364

ndelage wrote: post #352

The last few times I've gone to my local pharmacy (Rite Aid) I've watched a single cashier operate more than one checkout registers at a time. She did this because it took so long to process payment and print a receipt -- e.g. while she waited for my payment to go through (via credit card) she'd ring up the next customer on another register. She's trying to ring up the most customers per minute possible and using a s…

Whilst Amazon Go is cool, that's not an argument in its favour. That's purely a US specific screwup. In the rest of the world you can clear contactless transactions in a few hundred milliseconds with competent retailers; that's why it's possible to tap your way through the gates at busy London Underground stations. And retailers love contactless exactly because it's so fast and it lets them reduce staffing/handle mor…

That still doesn't solve the problem of waiting while people get all their items scanned, and I doubt that countries outside of the US have managed to solve that one.

Imo there is nothing in terms of convenience and speed that can beat "just walking out".

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#437

Post by leetcrew » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #318

milofeynman wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that they rolled this out as a thing, but didn't start retrofitting all of their Whole Foods with it. Does it have problems with grocery stores? How does it handle fruits by weight, etc.

Amazon probably doesn't want to radically rock the boat when it comes to Whole Foods at the moment. It is an established well-working business, and they don't want another wave of "WF went to shit after Amazon bought it out, just look at all those changes they've implemented!", given that Amazon's reputation has already been kinda questionable in the public eye recently.

maybe it's just a coincidence, but I've noticed all kinds of everyday things being out of stock (eg, brussels sprouts and lettuce) at whole foods since the purchase. I'm wondering if amazon is getting more aggressive with the JIT inventory strategy.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#438

Post by julianj » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #430

Here's an off the wall idea. This technology could be used in airport bathrooms to enforce hand washing during a pandemic. It's well established that hand washing, or lack thereof, in an airport setting can supercharge the global spread of disease. The spread of coronavirus could be reduced by up to 60% by consistent handwashing[1] by air travelers. This tech could flag people who walk out of the bathroom without sto…

Gary Larson agrees. Sorry, I couldn't find a better image. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8KjQYFOjfafGpGLFpwnwxFq4_c...

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#439

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

I’ll use this tech if and only if Amazon sells it as a package of technology but aren’t themselves in the loop seeing the transactions.

That is, they should be either seeing none of the transactions, or they should be considered a third party that can’t collect or resell the data.

With contactless payments I fail to see the attraction too. Seems like it’s ten years too late. Back when people stood in line to wait for slow card transactions or people paying cash this thing would have worked.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#440

Post by filoleg » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #388

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

Famous last words, as I predict this going just as well as people in 2020 who use cash-only everywhere or, more extreme example, people not using any kind of cell phone just to avoid tracking by carriers.

When you decide to make it really difficult for the world to engage with you, the world will make sure to make it just as difficult for you to engage with the world as well.