Just head to the Amazon Go store, open the corresponding app, and scan your phone on the way in. From there, you can stow away your phone and grab all the items you need. When you’re finished collecting your items, just walk out of the store. No more lines or registers. Amazon will then send a receipt and charge your Amazon account.
As Amazon explains, the stores use “the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.” – PC Mag
These kids started a book club for minority boys. It’s the most popular club in school. – Getting boys to read is no easy task, and for boys of color, especially African American boys, it’s even more difficult. The reasons are myriad, but the reality is stark. In fact, African American males have unique educational needs when it comes to succeeding in school and going on to (and graduating from) college, and while research has identified these needs, getting them met remains a struggle. So to see this basically self-started book club for boys of color is not only heartwarming, but it’s an opportunity for more books to be written and published that will appeal to boys.
Thanks for the Aziz Ansari related links, both today’s and Friday’s. They’ve really resonated with me, and with many other women, I’m sure. The New Yorker short story Andie J. Christopher links to, “Cat Person,” is worth reading, too.
The reason the Amazon store doesn’t use checkouts is because they’re interested in tracking the shoppers as much as (or more than) they’re tracking the items. They’re not just recording what you buy, but what you look at, pick up and put back, etc. According to yesterday’s story in the Financial Times (no link because it’s paywalled), “shoppers are tracked by hundreds of cameras on the ceiling and a computer algorithm that analyses their every gesture, and then tallies up their receipt when they exit.” That’s also why it’s not going to be scalable technology for a while.
@Sunita: That sounds really creepy.
@Sunita: @Janine: Oh God, is this the future? Creepy is too mild a word.
@Jayne: Yeah. *shudder.* I hope they don’t start doing that at Whole Foods, too.
@Janine: @Jayne: It will be hard for them to roll it out any time soon because the technology is complicated and not well developed. This is a demonstration project as much as anything, from what I can tell. I’m also optimistic that as people realize the extent to which their data are being aggregated and monetized, they’ll be more skeptical about projects that aren’t transparent and careful about what is done with that data.