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posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 02 2018, @03:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-creepy-at-all dept.

[Amazon] has patented designs for a wristband that would track where its workers put their hands in relation to inventory bins and give "haptic feedback" to signal if they have the right bin to retrieve an item or not. The patent documents were first spotted by GeekWire.

The "ultrasonic bracelet", supposed to be a time- and labour-saving device, would work by periodically emitting ultrasonic sound pulses to a receiver, tracking which bin a worker is reaching for and monitoring how efficiently they fulfill orders. The wristband would also send and receive radio transmissions, pinning a worker's location and giving a burst of "haptic feedback", a vibration similar to those found in phones or game controllers, which would tell the employee if they're reaching for the right bin or not.

The approach would eliminate the need for extra time-consuming acts, "such as pushing a button associated with the inventory bin or scanning a barcode associated with the inventory bin," one patent's description reads.


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by captain normal on Friday February 02 2018, @04:31AM (1 child)

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday February 02 2018, @04:31AM (#631879)

    Why should they stop there. Make implants mandatory for all workers. Save the cost of developing robots to do the work.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday February 02 2018, @05:22AM

    by sjames (2882) on Friday February 02 2018, @05:22AM (#631896) Journal

    They'll do that to help with any worker health issues [imdb.com] that may arise.