421–430 of 572 posts
We have Żabka Nano which is self-serve cashierless shop in Poland. You just swipe you card at the entrance, get whatever you want and walk out. I think they use computer vision system to detect the products taken from the shelves. It kinda amazes me because it's what Amazon promised but failed to deliver.
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Nobody on this forum believes in startups or technology anymore.
Heck, Elon's ownership of SpaceX even got to me to not really care about space travel anymore, one of my biggest passions since I was 6. But I just can't root for whatever his vision of space faring society would look like.
> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…
This was proven to be false on the WAN show. Only 20% of transactions were low confidence and handled by mechanical turk. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=433kipkEERY&t=8479s
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Predatory pricing: A big gorilla comes in and under prices the entire market. They can do that because they already have tons of money. They do this long enough to break the market and drive the competition out of business. Once the competitors are gone they jack up the prices to unprecedented levels because there's no more alternatives available and bleed the market for all the money. Regular pricing: Charge a fair…
This presupposes some athletic new competitor can’t enter the market and take the margin off the fat incumbent. It’s why we have capital markets: If capturing a profitable opportunity requires spending some money, someone who wants to profit will send that money your way.
I used one in San Francisco once because I wanted to try it out. It was honestly a rather flawless experience for me and I liked it because the scan gate and minders (it was when it launched - I don't know if they kept them) kept the shoplifters out. Shoplifters are unpleasant to share a store with. Unsurprisingly, those who skip some social norms also skip other ones. Anyway, I didn't go back after the first time be…
Damn. I just got an email that they'll be discontinuing the palm payment June 3. I've barely used Fresh and Go, but I use this at self checkout at Whole Foods all the time. Beats finding the code to scan and using Apple Pay. > We're reaching out because you have an active Amazon One account. Amazon One palm authentication services will be discontinued at retail businesses on June 3, 2026. You can continue using Amazo…
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What was rolled back? There was no major change in action whatsoever, only rhetoric, which is meaningless. As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin. [1] Dark money also overwhelmingly flowed to the DNC. [2] And a large chunk of all of Trump's funding came after the previous administration tried to imprison him, which…
Enforcement.
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I found it pretty funny when Mayor Mamdani of NYC pointed out that the people opposing him spent more money trying to stop him being elected than they would end up paying in increased taxes. It really is a game to those people. They can't bear to give up one cent or one ounce of control. Another funny story was that some substack writer (whom I forget sorry) noticed that Bill Ackman subscribed to their substack and u…
Jeff Bezos in FY 2024 filed for, and received, a $2k child tax credit. While the company he was the founder of passed over a trillion dollars in market cap.
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In Ithaca the coffee went downhill lately, that's for sure. On the other hand, my favorite drip coffee anywhere is made by machines that brew it by the cup.
Honestly, it's not even about the coffee. The lady working there would see me, greet me by name, ask after my kids, and start making my drink without me having to tell her my order. That was part of the Wegmans magic for a long, long time. (Same reason closing the seafood counter got a big backlash. There's a similarly awesome guy working there. For now.)
Tipped her generously on her last day there, got a big hug for it.
There's something no machines can replace.