Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Just walk out” technology by Amazon

justwalkout.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 769 posts

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#541

Post by derefr »

leetcrew wrote: post #437
filoleg wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd guess that that one's down to increased usage of grocery delivery services, rather than logistical optimization.

If you've got a Whole Foods and a less-upmarket grocery store equally far from you, you're gonna get your staple foods from the less-upmarket store, and just go to the Whole Foods for the things only they carry.

But if you're making an online order with a fixed-overhead delivery fee from Whole Foods, you're not going to make a separate online order with a fixed-overhead delivery fee from the less-upmarket store; so you're going to end up ordering the staple foods from Whole Foods, too.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#542

Post by monkin »

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…

> 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.

Is this still a thing? In Poland most shops allows you to scan and pay for products in matter of seconds without any help. No lines, no hassle. :)

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#543

Post by CurrentB »

It it just me or are people massively underestimating this? I feel like the impact of this will be close to the self driving car in terms of a vast rollout of massive new automation.

I've been to Amazon Go a few times, the small one in NYC, and the selection is underwhelming but the walk out experience is amazing. And since then I've fantasized about just walking out pretty much every time I'm in a grocery store. The technology really feels special, like a sudden vast improvement in something I never really even thought could be improved.

If there are two grocery stores to choose between, I would go further and/or pay a bit more for the one I can "just walk out" of.

Not only that stores could cut staff pretty much right away. Amazon could charge some fraction of the payroll reduction + processing fees and it would be a no brainer for stores to implement, especially as the number of competing stores increases.

People are talking in this thread about how there is some competition "in the works", but amazon has multiple live deployments already. People are talking about the obvious dystopian angle here (spying on your data). Personally I'd give any company all by buying habits if it means I can skip lines after buying the stuff.

Personally I think this is going to be huge, and I will be betting big on Amazon.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#544

Post by deegles »

crobertsbmw wrote: post #538

Am I the only one worried that facial recognition is a huge part of their technology and they are going to be violating all sorts of privacy concerns?

What evidence is there of Amazon misusing the data they have? Of all the big data leaks in the last, say, ten years, how many have been from Amazon? I’d be much more worried about the security practices of the bank your credit card is attached to (have you looked at the data sharing terms?), your credit history (Equifax...), the thousands of security cameras already in stores and streets, or your phone carrier (see many examples of location data being shared or sold), or you maybe have a browser extension or two that has access to your browsing history...

I agree that Amazon has access to a lot of data, and will have more with this system, but they’ve been remarkably good at stewarding it so far. There are much bigger fish to fry in terms of data privacy right now.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#545

Post by derefr »

dfox wrote: post #392
thu2111 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doing it with RFID is surprisingly non-trivial even in the physical sense. That is the error rate of RFID bulk reads is small enough for opportunistic tracking of stuff, but mostly unacceptable for basing any kind of financial transaction on that.

Don't do a bulk read, then. Build RFID readers—and an RFID-blocking envelope, and a 3G or WiMAX radio—into shopping carts/baskets. Detect each item as it enters/exits the cart using the RFID reader inside the cart, and then use the radio to report it to the store, to sync the physical state of the cart/basket with an equivalent virtual shopping cart. Then, put an RFID tag on the outside of the cart/basket, which will be detected by the door scanner when you leave. Charge for what's in the virtual basket when the physical basket leaves the premises.

Yes, you'll have to recharge your shopping carts/baskets. Just design them to ensure they pass through charge (like a string of Christmas lights) when stacked together, so you only have to plug in (or have a cradle for) the bottom one (for baskets) or frontmost one (for carts.)

It's still a worse idea than using computer vision, if you've got that, but it's not something we couldn't have pulled off a decade or more ago.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#546

Post by notatoad »

AllanHoustonSt wrote: post #467
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…

I feel like self checkout kiosks already solve this. Commodotized Amazon Go tech is a minute improvement in convenience compared to traditional cashier -> self checkout.

apart from the line up at the self-checkout, the number of people who can't seem to operate a self-checkout is still non-trivial.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#547

Post by 43920 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #480
soheil wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is terrifying that people actually advocate for such authoritarian measures outside of mainland China. Every tyrant ever existed probably had at least one valid reason to justify their particular flavor of tyrannical rule. Coincidentally often it's not very difficult to find numbers that back up stripping people of their freedom, just find the right statistics.

Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks) are already monitored by cameras. Also, I don't understand how this proposal is authoritarian in the slightest. As written it involves zero coercion. The only enforcement mechanism is social pre…

> Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks) are already monitored by cameras.

This is basically the definition of a slippery slope.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#549

Post by Rantenki »

jp555 wrote: post #537
tmilard wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, IBM "thinks" the future. Other companies build them. Conclusion : ideas are worthless, Execution is key

And in what universe is great execution devoid of ideas? Do you mean to say that doing something well is way better than imagining doing something well?

Doing something well means you already imagined doing something well first. Or, in other words, "imagining doing something well" is necessary, but not sufficient to actually do something well.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#550

Post by wackget »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #474
WalterBright wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Maybe their real algorithm is so scary good that they can only use it for internal use. Didn't they also show pregnancy-related items to women who didn't even know they were pregnant yet? Or maybe showing a wild selection of weird products results in people "brainstorm" other shopping needs, as a kind of anchoring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#Anchoring_in_negotia...

No, that's a misconception. They sent letter(s) to at least one person who had been purchasing products commonly purchased by [knowingly] pregnant women. In at least one case, family members "discovered" the pregnancy this way.
Post reply on HN