Posted on 12/06/2016 8:56:13 AM PST by jcon40
Theres a term used to describe people who walk into a store, help themselves to a sandwich or a cupcake, and then promptly walk out: Shoplifters. But maybe not for much longer. Amazon just lifted the lid on its new Amazon Go technology, which looks to fundamentally transform the retail world.
Heres how it works. You enter a store using Amazons propriety technology and flash your personal QR code to a reader. Then, you just pick up what you want and walk out. No dealing with infuriating self-checkout machines or cashiers. The money is automatically taken from a nominated credit or debit card. Its the ultimate in grab-and-go retail convenience.
Amazon Go is powered by a combination of computer vision, sensors and machine learning, packaged up into something the company calls Just Walk Out technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at heatst.com ...
But what if somebody grabbed your smartphone? They could then steal from your account to pay for items that you did not want to buy.
No credit cards used. it works with an app.
The idea was to get rid of lost/stolen credit cards.
The second you walk out the store, you are emailed a sales receipt.
Don’t know. But when I use my apps, I have to put down my code. I never write down my code.
“You still get to select the product you want off the shelves.”
Perhaps, but in Walmart’s current order-ahead plan, you don’t.
OTOH, my daughter hasn’t complained about close expiration dates or dinged cans, but they are just getting started with this and need to put on a good face for awhile.
Wait until you look at that list and see that Facebook Trackers are predominantly used whether or not you're a Facebook user.
I already kind of sort of do this at Sam’s Club and Walmart.
Downloaded their apps. At Sam’s I swipe my own products as I shop. It’s paid for right then and there and I skip the checkout. Show my receipt on the phone to the lady at the door.
Walmart’s grocery app. I shop online, choose a pickup time. Go to the designated spot, show my email, they load it, pay online. You have to spend $30 to use it and if you call 10 minutes before you show up for pickup, your things are waiting.
I love it.
Sounds almost exactly like a project that my team did in my MBA program 2 years ago ... and yes, there were Amazon employees in the class. The benefits of a program like this are trivial in regards to cost savings for retail clerks ... you still need people in the store. Where the big savings come in are in reduction of shrinkage (shoplifting), and reduction in warehouse costs, especially when integrated with online shopping. In short, you no longer need to treat online separate from retail ... every store can be a mini-warehouse and you can fulfill online orders from the stores. When we did our cost analysis, there was about $40M in launch costs, then about $1M per store to implement. Our model was to charge out on a subscription service to the retailers, and it modeled out as a VERY lucrative business.
I SAW!!!! Google and Facebook make up half of them!!
And how the heck does what I look up online on my laptop pop up as recommended searches on my smartphone!?!
Some things you look up online you don’t want popping up on your cell phone!!
Most loss is from employee theft.
I think they will be obsoleted by this.
You need to have a valid credit card and an account at the store in order to get inside in the first place.
I expect prices will be lower -- less shoplifting loss, lower labor, etc.
Biggest plus of all -- you know all those internet compilations on the "people of Walmart?" Well, you won't meet any of them in the store.
It is only sort of open to the general public. The credit card and account requirement screens out the low end customers without discriminating on any protected status. Plus, if they get a bad customer -- zotted.
Emailed receipts have already been around for years.
The $15 an hour brigade should love the idea...
And to make it more shocking, a cartoon.
It does help to try to get the sense from the passage. Now maybe I am biased towards symbolism, but this is a book with a lot of symbols anyhow, and it would be in keeping with the general theme.
Hand suggests actions; head suggests thoughts. Buying and selling suggests the give and take of general social intercourse. 666 suggests a vain imitation of God, or maybe even specifically the Trinity.
In a society that worships this beast, if you won’t worship him, you just won’t get along with anyone.
We see little microcosms on earth even now that look like this.
And he’s even wagging his evil finger at us (OK, that’s the cartoon not the scripture, but it seems characteristic.)
I view this with some pain because I had to live through a microcosm of this when I was young... eventually I did learn some of it which then put me behind a different kind of eight ball.
That began to change again when God rebuked Satan in my salvation. I wasn’t really able to know what it was to use this power to become whole, though, till He taught me to rebuke Satan, too. It isn’t railing at that evil but still majestic angel... it isn’t trying to argue with him... it’s just a short, sharp, telling NO which Jesus backs up in His grace to me.
Well anyhow, at some point apparently almost the whole world is going to become like this. It will be a difficult challenge to be a saint in it.
The items that were scanned and associated with your account in the store, are sensed as they go. They could go out in anybody’s cart, probably. That might lead to another kind of stealing, pilfering a pre-scanned item from somebody else’s cart — and they end up paying for it.
I will look into Ghostery.
Another thing to do is change your advertising ID.
I think it is easier on androogle devices. Locate google settings, Ads, advertising id. Opt out of targeted ads, and bounce the advertising id. Do this at least once a week, and try to after ANY transaction of ANY type conducted on the phone. The ad id information is what the giggle monster sells for targeted adds.
KYPD
There is still a problem with it. Currently, punks will take security tags from packages, and place them in or under carts. When a customer walks out through the security sensors, alarms go off and it embarrasses the customer. Punks get their laughs.
Only now, with this new system, the customer gets falsely charged for the punked tags with no merchandise. Customer has sad face when they review the charges later on at home.
Not true of most stores. A brother-in-law has worked at Walgreens in SF for decades. They have many customers walking out with goods every day. Management forbids them from doing anything about it. Brother-in-law got sucker-punched by an Obama son when he challenged him about merchandise, so now he goes along with store policy and lets shoplifters walk out with the goods. I don't understand why they allow this, but it's store policy. Most of the shoplifters are blacks.
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