101–110 of 769 posts
Can we start a list of technological magic that is actually "1000 people in India watching and labeling videos" (or functional equivalent)?
(I have no idea if this is still the case, for the record.)
SNL had a great sketch about them - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS9U3Gc832Y
> The uploader has not made this video available in your country
In UAE.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a German it is always a culture shock to see how popular self checkout is in the UK, even though I see it used more often recently in Germany too. I think Germany is about a decade behind...
Wait until you see how popular it is in the US! I can't remember the last time I saw someone use a manned checkout line; my local grocery store has 1 manned lane and 12 self checkout lanes, and the manned one is almost always empty.
its empty because it’s considered rude to burden the poorly paid checkout person when you can self-service. Once all of the self-service lanes are occupied, the sentiment shifts and customers uneasily queue up in the manned lane, frantically watching if the self-service lane clears up so they can jump out of the manned lane.
One of those freak cases in behavioral econ where the causality is very straightforward and explicit.
I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. I really like using them, as they allow me to put stuff directly into my bags as I go. I think a further improvement on a system like that would be to use the cheap RFID tech (UHF EPC) so that when you walk through the anti-theft barriers, the system knows exactly what you got, and then there's no need to scan a…
> I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. Scan-as-you-shop has been around for at least a decade at this point I think, at least in some parts of the world. ICA (supermarket in Sweden) been doing it for as long as I can remember, and I came across this image of the scanner being used at the store on Mediawiki: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S…
Can we start a list of technological magic that is actually "1000 people in India watching and labeling videos" (or functional equivalent)?
I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. I really like using them, as they allow me to put stuff directly into my bags as I go. I think a further improvement on a system like that would be to use the cheap RFID tech (UHF EPC) so that when you walk through the anti-theft barriers, the system knows exactly what you got, and then there's no need to scan a…
The problem with your second suggestion is that it gives the customer no recourse for improperly tagged/scanned items. Interaction with a human or checkout system before leaving the store is necessary, given how ripe for abuse a totally automated checkout system would be.
I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. I really like using them, as they allow me to put stuff directly into my bags as I go. I think a further improvement on a system like that would be to use the cheap RFID tech (UHF EPC) so that when you walk through the anti-theft barriers, the system knows exactly what you got, and then there's no need to scan a…
It's like a gift-registry, but you take all the stuff with you when you're done instead of letting other people buy it for you later. We've got Barcode guns at self-checkout here, and I've begun to arrange my items barcode-up in the cart, so I can just get everything rapidly. I often don't bring my bags with me, because I'm going to have to load everything into the car anyway.
So I always bring a bag or a foldable crate, throw everything in while shopping and then put that in the car.
> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. That line was unintentionally hilarious to me. Like looking inside a TV and finding a bunch of fast-working little people drawing images.
It isn't that bad an idea. Imagine that next time you are drunk, you can hire a driver who will drive you back home remotely (along with some AI to stop the car in case connection goes away).
That’s what it’s actually like. It’s just strictly more work than simply having a cashier.
I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. I really like using them, as they allow me to put stuff directly into my bags as I go. I think a further improvement on a system like that would be to use the cheap RFID tech (UHF EPC) so that when you walk through the anti-theft barriers, the system knows exactly what you got, and then there's no need to scan a…
> I think that the scan-as-you-shop style systems are definitely the next realistic step for grocery stores. Scan-as-you-shop has been around for at least a decade at this point I think, at least in some parts of the world. ICA (supermarket in Sweden) been doing it for as long as I can remember, and I came across this image of the scanner being used at the store on Mediawiki: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S…
I stopped using it after they required using their loyalty cards/apps to use it.
> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. That line was unintentionally hilarious to me. Like looking inside a TV and finding a bunch of fast-working little people drawing images.
The article they link for that isn't readable without subscription. Were they actually labeling data live? That sounds like effectively a secret concierge following you around and writing down what you're getting & like it would be pretty difficult to keep up with. Otherwise, labeled data and machine learning kind of go hand and hand. It's not wild that Amazon would dogfood its own product while creating training dat…