How Does Amazon Go Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,011 words · ~5 min read
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thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable
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notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos alright so
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it's friday evening right after work and you've run low on provisions yet again
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maybe the grocery store is packed to the gills with customers and even the
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self-checkout lines are long or maybe you have to buy something that
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you'd rather not anyone see you leaving the store with hmm
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so wouldn't it be nice to have a way around the crowds the long waits the
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vague sense of embarrassment you get when you had an 18 pack of toilet paper
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to the cashier so this is one of the ideas behind
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amazon go a new concept grocery store that allows you to walk in grab what you
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need or maybe some things you don't and walk right out without any pesky human
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interaction and to be clear it isn't just a glorified place for you to pick up
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things you've already ordered like we've seen with amazon's locker system the
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only pre-visit setup is to download the amazon go app on your phone and link it
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to your amazon account when you walk inside you'll scan your phone against a
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turnstile and when you're all done shopping you just walk out amazon has
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even put up signs everywhere saying this exact thing turning just walk out into a
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slogan to sell customers on the simplicity but how exactly is it keeping
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track of what you buy well some of the inventory control features are fairly
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obvious like weight sensors under the products kind of like what you see in an
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overpriced hotel minibar that can detect when a box of cashews has been lifted
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off of them but unlike that system amazon's is smart
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enough that it won't charge you if you put it back but much of the real magic
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actually happens above you so if you look up in the rafters you'll see an
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array of hundreds of cameras and sensors not only keeping an eye on things but
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feeding information about customers moving around the store to servers that
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use machine learning to determine exactly what you've put inside your
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shopping bag or your backpack or whatever now aside from saying that they don't
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use facial recognition in this process and that some products are tagged with
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special patterns to help the cameras pick them out amazon has been relatively
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tight-lipped about exactly how this process works which makes it either a
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little magical or a little creepy depending on your perspective
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one thing we have seen though is that it does appear that profiling a customer's
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body shape and size is part of this special sauce as one of the issues that
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amazon's engineer tangled with prior to launch was the system mistaking one
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customer for another if they looked physically similar now these little
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imperfections mean that amazon staffers are still supervising all of this
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automation plus they need a surprisingly large number of human employees at the
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store to help customers prepare ready to eat meals and check ideas for those of
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you who want to partake in adult libations apparently the state of
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washington hasn't decided is ready to trust computers to keep smearing off ice
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out of the hands of unsuspecting college bros
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but wait why am i specifically calling out washington state
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well the only amazon go store currently open to the public is in downtown
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seattle in one of the same buildings that houses amazon's headquarters and
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amazon has been cagey about providing details about his plan to expand to more
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locations in the future probably because outfitting a store like this not only
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requires a huge financial commitment upfront but according to amazon also a
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ton of computing resources to function properly so it won't happen overnight but amazon
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is betting that their new go store might resemble the future of retail and
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there's been lots of speculation that we might see similar tech employed at whole
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foods which amazon now owns an idea that's already catching criticism for
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reasons from concerns about huge amounts of data mining to automation putting
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people out of work to making it easier to overspend since there's nothing
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stopping you from walking out with perhaps more than you need however you
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might feel about all that though we tried it and if you find yourself in
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seattle anytime soon i'd say it's worth giving it a shot so let us know down in
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the comments if buying some fancy expensive cheese without the rigmarole
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of going through a checkout made you feel liberated or just kind of funny
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