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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 22 2018, @03:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the ripe-for-hacking dept.

Amazon Go is a go:

The first clue that there's something unusual about Amazon's store of the future hits you right at the front door. It feels as if you are entering a subway station. A row of gates guard the entrance to the store, known as Amazon Go, allowing in only people with the store's smartphone app.

Inside is an 1,800-square foot mini-market packed with shelves of food that you can find in a lot of other convenience stores — soda, potato chips, ketchup. It also has some food usually found at Whole Foods, the supermarket chain that Amazon owns.

But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.

[...] There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. For now, Amazon says its technology simply changes the role of employees — the same way it describes the impact of automation on its warehouse workers.

Also at TechCrunch.

Previously: Amazon Go: It's Like Shoplifting


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @08:18PM

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Monday January 22 2018, @08:18PM (#626212)

    stereotypical hipster fetishism of blue collar working life

    While you can find plenty of jackasses in any group, I think you have your view on most hipsters focused on blue collar activities precisely backwards. It's not always, "I want to pretend to have a lower income job and make a ceremony out of trivial things and show how much I don't confirm by using beer that hoity-toity people snub." That, admittedly, is the case with the popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

    But in other cases it's often the exact opposite: "I can't fix a clogged toilet. I don't know how to change a tire. I struggle to boil water. Last year I spent $3,000 on fancy coffee drinks and $5,000 on imported wine and I'm out of money. But my grandfather that never went to college wired his own house and repaired his own cars. My neighbor that works as a plumber cooks the best steaks I've ever had and took $50 from me when I lost our bet over whether he could brew his $2.50 per pound coffee to taste better than anything I ever got at Starbucks." In other words, it's a sign the person is maturing by realizing how helpless and embarrassingly unskilled they are.

    Now, the blue collar men and women are often more self-sufficient because they don't have a choice. The low income mom that makes amazing meals could either learn to cook well or give up on tasty eating, because she couldn't afford restaurants. The backyard mechanic started out when his own car broke and he could either fix it cheap or stop owning a vehicle. The best incentive to learn home wiring is wanting electrical service in a room that doesn't have it and having no budget for a contract electrician. But even if there was no noble goal in their motivation beyond basic survival, the result is often - not always, but often - tough, pragmatic, flexible people who learn and adapt. A typical hipster wakes up one day and realizes that he or she can navigate fancy pants society but when it comes to most of the practical aspects of being an adult human they can't find their ass with both hands.

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