"Since launching Amazon Go years ago ..."
Two. They launched two years ago. They're trying way too hard to make it seem like proven technology.
“Just walk out” technology by Amazon
581–590 of 769 posts
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#582It 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…
I don't want to criticize or undermine this initiative in any way but someone like me who frequently uses Safeway's self-checkout machines at my local grocery store, to me this just feels like overengineering. I never had any problems with self-checkout and am always able to quickly scan-and-pay within a couple of minutes when I visit the store once a week.
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be very unlikely and easily reversed based on video data.
>That would be very unlikely Would it? >easily reversed based on video data That suggests a level of effort from multiple parties well in excess of the typical "look at item; look at receipt"
Given that the exact timestamp of when the system thinks an item is picked up is known, it should be trivial to review a 5-second clip and flag it as correct or not, training the ML model at the same time.
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#584[deleted]
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another major cost in retail is "loss" ... I can see this being pretty effective at loss prevention and coupon fraud (even my small town grocery store require an associate to visit the self-check kiosks if a customer has a coupon).
I was actually just thinking about coupons and how this would change that landscape. Physical coupons would be pretty useless I could imagine, everything would have to shift to digital, unless you could scan them on your way out, which would then just defeat the purpose of "just walking out". I think my mailman would appreciate it regardless, due to the large amount of unwanted coupons that get put in my mail almost…
Seems like you'd want screens to help people with stuff, so they could double for scanning coupons. The problem with checkouts isn't the scanning, it's that they have to create a physical chokepoint.
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The simple solution is to simply make the customer to scan the item when they put it into the basket. It might be somewhat counterintuitive but in the end it makes better read rate.
The amazon thing is obviously based on computer vision which in the hindsight makes sense. And makes more sense than our ideas that includes CV as one of the source into sensor fusion magic...
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#587An obvious question I have is theft. How do you prevent it?
Also, how do you sell items that are locked up?
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fear not! Yesterday I shopped at a big box grocery store where all I did was scan my cart with my phone, pay with the attached card, and walk out the door.
What brand grocery store was that?
Most UK supermarkets offer this service. You need a store scanner that you pick up with the trolly. Scan everything, then pay and leave. You'll get stopped very occasionally for staff to check you aren't stealing. But they don't do much other than make you pay for things you haven't scanned. "Oh the kids put it in there without me noticing."
Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#589Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon
#590Aaaand 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…
We have to consider the question: “why not both?” Consider that Amazon, in addition to serving a high scale, high availability e-commerce website, also offers white label services for fulfillment, payment, and serving high scale, high availability websites. In other words Amazon provides, as a service, virtually every piece of infrastructure needed to deliver Amazon’s core business. So I wouldn’t infer that this is an either/or. At the very least I’d expect Whole Foods to adopt this service, for instance.