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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
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday January 22 2018, @03:45PM (12 children)
Um actually no. Its a stereotypical hipster fetishization of blue collar working life. Once you culturally appropriate their PBR and Old Milwaukee beer, and culturally appropriate their hobbies and clothes, there's not a hell of a lot left aside from culturally appropriating their workplace lifestyle of walking into the stock room and taking whatever you need to complete your work.
Some dysfunctional companies might serial number each machine screw and require forms, but most blue collar workplaces, you need a piece of generic conduit for SCADA or network cabling, or a 6-32 screw or whatever, you walk into a room and take it and walk out. Kinda like the amazon experience.
Another example of blue collar workplace lifestyle being emulated is there's a big ass pile of roof shingles and you need a pack of roof shingles so you walk up to the pile and take one.
Another example is where blue collar people making their kid a bookcase is called "life" but urban hipsters making a bookcase is a fetishized holy worship to tweet about their unique experience of the "maker movement".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @03:56PM
Let's not be obtuse. Amazon Go is like no other grocery store where a customer walks in, grabs items, gets in line, pays for them, and leaves.
I do however want to see what happens when someone tries to pull a fast one on Amazon. You probably get flagged right at the point of entry if your Amazon account isn't matched to your lumbering meatbag body.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 22 2018, @04:09PM (6 children)
Gods, yes. This ^ Modded up.
Rich hipsters make me fucking sick. They're not quite the same level of evil as their counterparts on the other side of the aisle, but I'm seriously tempted to rob them blind and force them to actually LIVE poor for a while and see how much they like it. It's a local version of "poverty porn tourism," like when they go to Southeast Asia and shit all over it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:34AM (4 children)
Thank you for sharing your insights into your criminal mind with the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @03:43PM (3 children)
That thought has crossed the mind of anyone who has ever eaten out of a trash can. "Criminal mind" my ass. If I scare you that much, you can always leave the site and pretend the big scary mean lady doesn't exist :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:16PM (2 children)
This is a classic case of projection. You have thoughts that urge you to commit acts beyond those of mere survival and well past the line into criminal behavior and then assume that everyone else entertains those same thoughts. We do not.
You are not scary, as your publicly-proclaimed criminal preferences are not a problem that a can of pepper spray, a pistol, and/or a shotgun cannot be deployed to deter or deny.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:39PM (1 child)
Yeah? My dick is still bigger than yours and it's a clitoris. Come get me, Mr. Internet Tough Guy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:48PM
I wonder what a tangled mess of neural cobwebs allows you to unironically first deny the criminality of robbery (notably outside the bounds of survival) and in the next breath present yourself as a hunted victim when a person who may be someone you publicly designated as a fair-game robbery target denotes a short list of practical tools to deter or deny your criminal behavior preferences.
Then there's the obvious penis envy.
(Score: 2) by lx on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:15AM
Marie Antoinette had a little cottage built on the palace grounds.
She went there to dress up as a milk maid and played being poor.
What happened to her is as they say History.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 22 2018, @04:46PM
Um, actually, yes. From this review [geekwire.com], emphasis mine:
To re-emphasize: 23 seconds, and the majority of that accruing to the shopper's own benefit instead of delaying and inconveniencing them.
Looks to me that if they can achieve price parity, or better, that they're got something that can be very successful. There's every reason to think they can, as they will incur reduced costs as compared to an employee-based checkout operation. As to the privacy aspects... the volume of business Amazon does, and the success of the Alexa product, are pretty clear indicators that isn't a major consumer hurdle.
You only get so much time - it's a naturally limited resource, and people don't like to do things that they perceive as "wasting their own time." This makes a significant inroad on that.
No, you're completely missing the human side of this.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 22 2018, @06:01PM
It was quite attractive: birch plywood with oak trim
I gave it to my ex when we split up
Someday I'll make another
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday January 22 2018, @06:28PM
Maybe or maybe not related, but I'd expect this to be possible at "club stores" where you have a membership fee. This is stores like Sam's Club or Costco. From experience, those kinds of stores tend to attract a slightly more affluent group of people as clientèle, who might be on board with this for smaller order sizes (larger order sizes I would expect to still be inspected by cashiers for the foreseeable future).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @08:18PM
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.