The grocery without cash register: cameras everywhere!

How much privacy would you give up for a little convenience? No, it wasn’t a real question, it was a tricky one. And the answer is obvious. All of it, except the dick pics of course. But what if a white coat government expert tells you, that they’re strictly for your doctors or some state financed disease prevention programme? I really don’t want to get all too cynical on this, so i leave the answers to you.

Now, Amazon plans to take it’s share of your privacy cake. The Amazon Go stores offer a completely cash, card or paypass free shopping experience through a revolutionary system called: One Zillion Cameras Watching You. No, just kidding, its simply called Amazon go, but the cameras are there all right. As they put it:

“Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world’s most advanced shopping technology so you never have to wait in line. With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout. (No, seriously.)”

All right, you’ve seen enough scifi lately, and now: you know it. Back in ’89 when Uncle Fred dropped that can of nails on your head in the shed, you actually didn’t recover, but fell into a coma, that ended now, and here we go: the commies won, America is a People’s Republic, everything is free, you can have whatever you’d like, end of story, please turn the lights off on the way out.

(image credit: https://trotskyite.wordpress.com/tag/communist/)

No, just kidding again, sorry pinko.

In fact Amazon will charge you – shockingly – on your Amazon account. As they say:

“Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Our Just Walk Out technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store. Shortly after, we’ll charge your Amazon account and send you a receipt.”

Now these guys doesn’t play balloons, First they triangulate you, like Ahab did Moby Dick, than you’re as good as tracked. They’ve  even patented it back in 2014. What the do not advertise so frantically, is that your voice, noises (yes, you have them, now stop denying it!) palate, movements, maybe even your scents are recorded and stored safely and for a happier eternity. Of course they also analyze and record the color of your skin, thus they are able to:

a. Send you discount offers on Hillary’s hardcover memoirs

b. Distinctly recognize your hands from your legs

c. Warn your doctor on possible melanoma issues

(q) sı ɹǝʍsuɐ ǝɥʇ

Meanwhile it’s just for the employees of the company, but if you liked the idea, its patented, so chances are, it will soon come across the street.

VIA:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/6/13856158/how-amazon-go-stores-work-patent