from the yes-we-have-no-bananas-but-no-we-do-have-your-face dept.
Ars Technica has a "review" of the new Amazon Go Grocery store in Seattle, WA.
Apparently, the author's first thought was to engage in some petty theft, given that there are no cashiers or visible security guards.
The article is fairly verbose, with lots of photos of the crime scene store. Overall, the new store is just like the original Amazon Go stores, but with extra surveillance features.
From the Ars article:
Because Amazon Go Grocery revolves around the same creepy, watch-you-shop system found in smaller Amazon Go shops, I encourage anyone unfamiliar with the concept to rewind to my first look at Amazon Go from early 2018. Functionally, the newest store works identically. You can't enter the shop without entering your Amazon account credentials—complete with a valid payment method—into the Amazon Go app on either iOS or Android. Which, of course, means you can't enter the store without an Internet-connected smart device.
Once the app has your Amazon information, it will generate a unique QR code. Tap this onto a gated kiosk's sensor, and after a pause, a gate will open. During this brief pause, the shop's cameras capture your likeness and begin tracking your every step and action.
[...]
Where AGG differs is its selection, which is simply bigger and more diverse. Instead of limiting its healthiest options to pre-made meals, AGG goes further to include a refrigerated wall of raw meat and seafood, a massive stock of fruits, and a wall of veggies. The latter receives the same automated water-spritzing process you'd expect from a standard grocer. (See? Amazon knows how lettuce works.)
[...]
The store's massive bathroom hallway is lined with sensors and cameras, but the bathrooms themselves do not appear to have any form of camera or sensor inside them. (I didn't take photos inside the bathroom, because I'm not DrDisrespect. You'll have to trust me on that one.) The hallway also includes a little tray outside each bathroom door where customers are encouraged to put merchandise before using the facilities. I left the only other produce in my hand at that time, a single avocado, on that tray.
[...]
This moment included a dramatic turn to the bathroom's mirror, which is when a lightbulb went off in my head. I had taken off my jacket and put it into the backpack before entering the shop. Could I confuse the cameras with a wardrobe change?It sure seems like it.
[...]
Surprisingly, then, my "costume change" fooled Amazon Go Grocery. Everything I picked up before ducking into the loo was charged correctly. After that, the app clearly lost track of me, which may align with the receipt's claim of a 2-hour, 23-minute shopping trip, well above the 20 minutes I was actually there. And Amazon needed another hour and a half to conclude that I had picked up those first items, ducked into a bathroom, and then was incapacitated by a jacket-wearing madman with an identical beard and haircut. I hope they catch that guy. He might be armed—with a banana!
So, what say you Soylentils? Is this the future of grocery stores? Should the author be arrested and charged with shoplifting? Would you go into a store like this just so you don't have to deal with cashiers (human or automated)?
I encourage (against current best practices) reading TFA, as I left out quite a bit of detail and the many photos have descriptive text as well. Just a crazy thought.
Related Stories
Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with "Just Walk Out" technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company's senior vice president of grocery stores says they're moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.
Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. 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. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.
Instead, Amazon is moving towards Dash Carts, a scanner and screen that's embedded in your shopping cart, allowing you to checkout as you shop. These offer a more reliable solution than Just Walk Out. Amazon Fresh stores will also feature self check out counters from now on, for people who aren't Amazon members.
[...] The company is reportedly keeping Just Walk Out technology in a small number of Fresh stores in the United Kingdom, and some of its Amazon Go convenience stores. Amazon has also implemented Just Walk Out technology at several ballparks around the country. These locations will keep the technology going.
Previously:
• Amazon Go Grocery Review -- Constant Tracking to Buy Bananas [2020]
• Amazon Go: It's Like Shoplifting [2016]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @04:27AM (17 children)
I am actually a decade away from being a geezer, but whatever.
Buying grocery from Amazon ... that's just ...
All you millenials go on about locovore (or whatever), farmers' markets, seasonal produces, and all that, and yet it's you lot that enable Amazon grocery.
Millenials and boomers deserve each other.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @04:52AM (15 children)
In my mid-60s, I feel like a late-stage boomer. Missed nearly all the fun of the 60s 'cause I wasn't old enough.
I don't even buy food from Walmart, although their big store is closer than the supermarkets in the area. Would never consider buying food from Amazon by mail. There is a Whole Foods (owned by Amazon) that is 15 minutes away, have been in there twice since it opened a few years ago. We keep meaning to get to the local farmer's markets, but the ones around here are over by noon and we always seem to get there late...
So it's not me that is supporting Amazon.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2020, @05:01AM (12 children)
You're lucky that there are still supermarkets in your area. Most around here have closed down, along with drug stores and hardware stores. My wife does about 2/3 of her grocery shopping at either Walmart, or Dollar General, because it's a long trek to the remaining grocery stores.
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:16AM (9 children)
No Krogers? You must live in some real boondock, even in po-dunk ozarks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:30AM (8 children)
No Krogers or any stores owned by them [wikipedia.org] here either. Manhattan [wikipedia.org] is such a backwater!
Moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:39AM (7 children)
Ok, I am a moron. Where the hell did you buy your grocery from? Piggly Wiggly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:56AM (4 children)
You won't get an argument from me.
Mostly West Side Market [wmarketnyc.com]. Sometimes I go into H-Mart [hmart.com] to get their Chinese broccoli and fresh Kim-chi.
We have Fairway [fairwaymarket.com], D'agostino's [dagnyc.com], Shoprite [shoprite.com], Key Food [keyfood.com], Trader Joe's [traderjoes.com], Whole Paycheck [wholefoodsmarket.com] and others too, but they're far (subway distance) from where I live, so I generally don't bother with those.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:03AM (1 child)
"Whole Paycheck", eh?
You not from ozark, call me wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:09AM
Just an (apparently failed with you) attempt at humor [urbandictionary.com].
And no, I'm not from the Ozarks. I was born and raised in the place so nice, they named it twice.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday March 02 2020, @02:32PM (1 child)
Was that an argument? It sounded to me like a confession followed by a question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @02:54PM
Was that an argument? It sounded to me like a confession followed by a question.
Really? I need to explain it to you? Man, I sure hope you're an ESL person. If you're not, I might have to group you with GP.
Okay. GP stated "Ok, I am a moron."
I replied that he "won't get an argument from me."
That statement, in this context, is roughly equivalent to "Yes. you are a moron. I'm glad we both agree."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2020, @06:07AM (1 child)
Various stores I have used throughout my lifetime, include Kroger's, A&P (Atlantic and Pacific) Giant Eagle, Brookshire's, Piggly Wiggly, Big A, Albertson's, Price Saver, Safeway, Food Lion, Pay Less, WalMart and Sam's, Winn-Dixie, IGA, Dollar General, Save-A-Lot, and a number of proprietor-owned small town grocers.
You specifically mentioned Piggly Wiggly, in what seems a derogatory manner. How are they any better or any worse, than any of those I have mentioned?
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:25AM
Piggly Wiggly. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...
Now PayLess, their offerings taste like a cheap shoe.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @07:56AM (1 child)
I'm in Germany. I've had 7 or 8 supermarkets (ok, small markets by American standards) to get all food stuffs in a radius of about 1 mile. And then another opened up in my building, so about 1000 ft. from my house.
The city is not designed for a car. No place to park, so people don't drive so much. There are actually people walking in the street. In all these stores, most people shopping there are on foot.
On the other hand, Americans drive to end of their driveway to get the mail. You get based on how you behave - a ginormous store larger than local IKEA with parking lot to match. Yes, there are giant stores with giant parking lots in Germany too. But no one here could imagine living in a city without grocery stores like in America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @12:52PM
That's pretty much what we have in New York City. Most people don't drive and shop at (smaller) stores closer to their homes.
What's more, starting yesterday we joined the 20th century and stores will charge for plastic bags, those fees going to buy reusable bags for low income folks.
Which is something I've been wanting to see for years, as disposable plastic bags are a pox on, well, everything and everyone.
Amaze the Soylentils with the reality that the markets near you don't even stock bags at all, so if you don't bring your own you have to carry everything in your arms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:07AM (1 child)
This is an article about an actual, brick and mortar store, not an online ordering system.
You may not be that old, but your reading comprehension seems lacking. Are you getting enough fiber?
Perhaps this [amazon.com] could help.
(Score: 4, Touché) by kazzie on Monday March 02 2020, @10:02AM
No, because the Australian Government ran out [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @02:19PM
Okay. You're a geezer. What do I win?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2020, @04:56AM (7 children)
Did he get away with the theft of a banana? He doesn't actually state that he carried the banana out of the store, but that he was NOT CHARGED for it.
No, I won't be using anything like this. Sometimes, I actually want to study the receipt. Sometimes, I even do that before I leave the store. More often, I'll look the receipt over once I'm in the car. And, sometimes, the wife looks it over after I get home, to see if I got everything I went after. Or, to determine whether I ate a box full of candy bars, and didn't share with her.
"You bought a whole box of Reese's peanut butter cups? There aren't any in these bags. Did you eat the WHOLE BOX of peanut butter cups on the way home?"
"Well, Honey, that's only twelve peanut butter cups. You make it sound like it's a lot of peanut butter and a lot of chocolate."
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:20AM (4 children)
Read TFA, unless you're too busy stuffing your face with Reese's peanut butter cups and looking over your shoulder to make sure the wife isn't looking.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2020, @06:11AM (3 children)
I read it. It seems that he got the banana out the door in his backpack, but he doesn't say whether he fooled the cameras. Was he charged for the banana?
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:15AM (2 children)
Apparently, you didn't read it very well.
Here's a hint:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screenshot_20200225-191809_Amazon-Go-640x971.jpg [arstechnica.net]
Now go back and try again [arstechnica.com]. And stop smearing peanut butter on the keyboard!
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday March 02 2020, @10:03AM
Is it Jif peanut butter, of Gif?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 02 2020, @10:17AM
Damn, he spent 2.5 hours casing that joint.Ah, I see Amazon's surveillance is far from perfect.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by sjames on Monday March 02 2020, @10:33AM
It's a well known fact that 12 is not a lot of peanut butter cups. I'm pretty sure at least half are lost to evaporation because I certainly didn't eat that many.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:15PM
It's Seattle -- shoplifting is no longer a crime.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday March 02 2020, @06:49AM (2 children)
I'm conflicted on a lot of issues here...
Buying groceries from ever-larger corporate conglomerates: no, just no. We make an effort to buy from local farmers, small bakeries, small butcher shops, etc.. Since we live in a small town, this is actually possible. More: if we don't want our small town to turn into a wasteland, we must do this.
Convenience: This is really just a step beyond self-checkout: if it's a decent system, it's faster and easier.
Surveillance: Maybe it's a sad comment on modern society, but: if you are in a store, you are under surveillance. Maybe only a few security cameras, but you are being watched. Does it matter if the Amazon app is tracking your path through the store? Here's the critical point: as long as the damned thing doesn't continue to report any information *outside* the store, I'm fine with it. Aye, there's the rub: It's a good bet that the app continues reporting to the mothership, even after you've left.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday March 02 2020, @10:36AM (1 child)
> Maybe only a few security cameras, but you are being watched.
Now the security cameras can correlate your internet browser profile, amazon viewing history and credit card records with store activity. If you run a Amazon Fire tablet, probably also your entire browsing history/network activity. If you run an Amazon voice activated thingy, also your activity at home.
That is a huge difference.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DavePolaschek on Monday March 02 2020, @01:37PM
Plus if you’re carrying any phone with WiFi turned on, they’ll track your movements near the store with that. Adobe, in it’s marketing materials to marketers, tells of how they can tell when a customer at a hotel walks through the front door and make it possible to check that customer in without them ever having to visit the front desk, because they know your phone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @09:07AM
Instead of self-checkout, you'll have hundreds/thousands of people working for free solving captchas to figure out whether you took an organic banana or not.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 02 2020, @10:19AM (6 children)
This would be the only acceptable B&M store in the post-coronavirus world. But let's face it, you should get the stuff online with AmazonFresh instead.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @12:20PM (5 children)
I investigated that and AmazonFresh is outrageously expensive. Especially as compared with FreshDirect [freshdirect.com] or PeaPod [peapod.com].
I'd note that FreshDirect has no stores, so you don't have customers pawing the produce, then putting it back on the shelves before they pack it up and deliver it to you like they do with PeaPod (Stop & Shop).
What's more, given the lack of benefits afforded Amazon employees, it's unlikely that something like Coronavirus would stop them from coming to work, since taking a sick day probably means getting fired.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 02 2020, @01:15PM (4 children)
I was joking a bit, and I do not use AmazonFresh. Let me put some actual thought into it.
You would think that replacing a B&M store with a warehouse would reduce costs. Streamlined, no customers to deal with, maybe no/low air conditioning except for fresh/frozen food storage, larger than a supermarket, better use of the volume than a Sam's/Costco, etc. There is a cost associated with delivering to the customer, and Amazon and others are looking at using driverless vehicles and drones to lower the cost. You could actually have both at once (driverless van with drones going the last mile), and driverless trucks could be used to ship products to warehouses (eliminating truck drivers and reducing those costs by 35-50%).
Amazon is mistreating its warehouse workers, but it is also looking to replace them with robots:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-automation-exclusive/exclusive-amazon-rolls-out-machines-that-pack-orders-and-replace-jobs-idUSKCN1SJ0X1 [reuters.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/1/18526092/amazon-warehouse-robotics-automation-ai-10-years-away [theverge.com]
It will take a while to complete (10+ years), and it probably won't be perfect, but that is the endgame. There will be a reduction of the amount of people handling goods and produce, and UV irradiation could be used to kill viruses on the surface of foods at several points in the chain.
Amazon Go in Seattle, Washington may have less employees than a typical store, but it still has infected coofers hanging around. The first two U.S. coronavirus deaths [businessinsider.com] are in the Seattle area. It is past time to have obtained your 50 lbs of rice and beans if you live there.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @02:04PM (1 child)
Pacific northwester here. Yes, covid-19 is live and local. In fact my son's wife worked shift in the hospital where first death happened. They called and asked me (high-risk age-group) not to visit them for a few weeks. Thus far all quarantines have been voluntary.
There is still rice to be had here, although the stores have been mobbed (and shelves decimated) for the past few days.
The latest news here is that virus seems to have been active in this region for the past six weeks - give or take - and many have already survived it.
My "on-topic" comment is merely to point out that vending machines have no heart, and a store devoid of human operators might likewise be lacking in humanity (in the sense of spontaneous acts of charity).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @02:46PM
There are a couple (one confirmed, one pending test results, but the second person traveled with the first to Iran, where she presumably was infected) cases here in NYC too. No deaths so far, and the local news reports [ny1.com] that the confirmed case is quarantined in her Manhattan apartment.
Given that Manhattan [wikipedia.org] is the most densely populated county (26,821.6/km2) in the US, it's almost a given that there will be more cases.
More details about the virus in NYC and its response can be found here. [ny1.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @02:38PM
I *do* use FreshDirect. For some things. Their protein selection is much superior to that of the Westside Market near me. Also, their produce is generally better (for the reasons I stated above). Also, it's nice for them to deliver bulky stuff like a dozen rolls of toilet paper or 8-10 rolls of paper towels (note that I live in NYC, and not only don't I own a car, owning one is incredibly expensive for the amount I'd actually need to use it).
For most other stuff I shop at my local supermarket, which has a great selection of coffee, cheese, cold-cuts, prepared foods and staples at quite reasonable (for NYC) prices. Their produce isn't too bad either and I do purchase fruits and vegetables there, and they do have a broader selection than FreshDirect of the stuff I like, but they don't sell chinese broccoli. However, when I'm ordering proteins from FD, I'll also order fruits and veggies too. And, if I order in the morning, they'll generally deliver it the same day and hump it up three flights of stairs to my apartment door -- which Amazon's delivery partners most certainly *won't*.
AmazonFresh is a distant also-ran for that stuff, even with their acquisition of Whole Foods. I also hate how they (across all Amazon units) manipulate prices so that if you buy something a couple times, they jack up the price 30-70%, then when you don't buy it they slowly ramp the price back down. I got your price elasticity right here, scumbags.
As for replacing humans with robots and driverless vehicles, that's a ways down the road, as Tim Harford discusses here [c-span.org]. It's an interesting talk and likely an even more interesting book.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @03:07PM
I forgot to mention that FreshDirect dispatches refrigerated trucks to areas where the orders are. Given that Manhattan (as I mentioned in another post on a different topic) is the most densely populated county in the US, they can generally fill up the trucks and then spend the day delivering to the customers within walking distance of the trucks.
FreshDirect also adds a delivery charge and a fuel surcharge to all deliveries to defray the costs of deliveries.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:33PM (1 child)
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are very small. Basically, they are passive circuits; a short antenna and a circuit. When energized by a radio wave of the correct frequency, the circuit collects enough energy to return a very low power broadcast containing a serial number.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification [wikipedia.org]
It's my understanding that the US government has been requiring tire manufacturers to embed RFID tags in tires and requiring tire retailers to maintain detailed records of which tires are sold to which customers. This is used, along with RFID readers positioned alongside freeways, to collect data about traffic movement, but also, perhaps, to track the movement of specific vehicles, which are assumed to be associated with certain tires. I think this has been going on for at least a decade, maybe more.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/tracking_automo.html [schneier.com]
RFID tags are embedded in sales tags, packaging, and perhaps (probably), actual items sold. It would not be possible to place RFID tags INSIDE of food but it would be child's play to embed an RFID tag inside each tag which is attached to each fruit, and so it is almost certainly true that this is where the tag is at. This is how they detect shoplifters, as well.
There is nothing to prevent an object from possessing mutiple RFID tags. The objects being sold may have an RFID tag. The packaging it is contained in may have an RFID tag. And the sales tag attached by the vendor may ALSO have an RFID tag. This provides a form of quality control; detecting forgeries becomes easier, and if the RFID tag's serial (IE, sequential) number is replaced by a non-sequential hash of the REAL serial number, or some other form of encryption, then forgery bcomes almost impossible.
(I keep waiting for the US government to catch on to the possibilities and start issuing monetary notes with encrypted "serial" numbers. But, nope. Everyone with a spark of creativity has been ruthlessly replaced. Everyone left is afraid of losing their job. No one dares to be innovative. No one wants to be first. It won't happen until the Chinese do it. Then everyone will be falling all over themselves trying to claim they thought of it first. Those stupid assholes are a fishbone in the throat of America. Now, back to our story.)
Tracking the movement of an RFID tag by triangulating the signal using multiple sensors, and then indexing it against the movements of a specific cart, controlled by a specific person, with a specific face and specific accounting information, should be straightforward. As is notifying the authorities if a banana comes up missing; they can track the movement of stock down to the individual banana. Admittedly, it may not be cost-effective to prosecute you. They just won't let you into the store any more.
Sources of entertainment for the population: trading carts. But it won't matter in the end, you'll confuse the system but they will make the same amount of money and so they won't care.
Better sources of entertainment: putting things down in places other than where you picked them up. But I think some people have been doing this, as entertainment, for years. Just ... now, you're on camera, and they know who you are. They may eventually tell you to stop it.
Sources of angst for the management: people smuggling in their own RFID tags. But, again, I'm not sure that will make a difference. The robot will see two RFID tags, neither will obscure the other, one will make sense and one will not. It wll discard the one it does not recognize. And the antennae will see that bundle of RFID tags in your pocket the moment you walk in the door unless you're wearing shielding. (-:
How about COPYING RFID tags? Well, they won't have too much trouble figuring out who bought the merchandise that the tag was copied from. If there's any sort of a pattern, the responsible parties will see their privileges terminated.
No, I think there's only one way I can think of to jam the system, and that would be to replicate the tag of something that has not left the store yet, AND to discreetly attach such a tag to other people, or their carts, so as to trigger automated shoplifting systems. But the management will probably be able to pin-point whomever smuggled the tags into the store. It would take a network of people and some sort of shielding technology to implement this, properly.
https://www.ebags.com/category/handbags/f/rfid-blocking [ebags.com]
Probably easier to just drop the banana in the handbag. Or to eat it and leave the peel in the garbage, in the bathroom. But there will be no uncertainty about whom took it INTO the bathroom.
I hope this deep dive into shoplifting detection technologies wll save a few hundred of you readers from testing this system, to your loss. Because it's only a matter of time until the notification to the police is entirely automated and there is no human to beg for mercy. Pass the word.
I remember reading a science fiction story, back in the 1970s - it might have been translated - about this guy, living in the future, in Germany, where there is a zoo, with non-terrestrial creatures, and also a scientist, doing an experiment, that involves a beam of energy. The beam passes through the German, and the alien, and suddenly they find themselves in one another's bodies. The rest of the story follows the adventures of the alien, and of the German native, in each other's bodies. At one point the alien enters a futuristic grocery store, where people are billed automatically, at checkout, for the food they take off the shelves. He comes to the attention of the authorities because he does not know how to use the system, and is driven to steal, so that he is tracked down, and captured, and they discover what happens. ... The story ends with the German's discovery, that he is occupying the body of the female of the alien species ... and, he is pregnant.
The future is here. No aliens, though. Yet.
~childo
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @07:17PM
From TFA:
If RFID was in use that would never have happened. Is it painful talking out of your ass like that?
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:05AM
"IBM RFID Commercial - The Future Supermarket"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFhBGKU6HA [youtube.com]
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-go-grocery-store-predicted-by-ibm-commercial-video-2016-12?op=1 [businessinsider.com]
"Titled "The Future Market," IBM's ad depicts how supermarkets could evolve with the use of radio-frequency identification, or RFID. In the ad, a man takes products off the shelf, stuffing them in his overcoat and leaving the store, seemingly without paying. The ad makes you think this guy is a stereotypical shoplifter, but in reality, the store was able to identify what he'd grabbed from the shelves and printed out a receipt for him anyway."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.