The template is broken. As a journalist tricked Amazon “Just Walk Out”Natalia Solovyova | 29.02.2020
Amazon announced the launch in Seattle first full grocery shop Amazon Grocery Go without cash. However, the technology of cashless payment Amazon Go “Just Walk Out”,
testing, which began in the face of massive sales of over three years ago, has found flaws in the course of a simple experiment carried out by a local journalist.
“Just go away”
The first store that serves visitors to the Amazon format Go, the company has launched in Seattle (Washington state) at the end of 2016. For several months he worked in test mode, bright features of the technology
the employees of the company and then opened up to all comers. Over the next three years, the company has opened similar stores in Chicago, new York and San Francisco.
On opening the first full-fledged Amazon store Go Grocery, located on Capitol hill in Seattle (USA), Amazon announced a few days ago. Its usable area is almost five times
larger than normal shops Amazon Go, and the range of goods includes about 5 000 items, including fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat, Packed
seafood and products for the home.
Payment of the purchased goods is carried out with the help of developed company cashless technology “Just Walk Out” (“Just go”). To enter the store can only be a visitor who pre –
checked in and got a customer account with Amazon, and scanned before entering the store a unique QR code generated by the app on your smartphone on iOS or Android.
To move a client to store special tracking cameras and sensors are installed on each shelf with the goods. They allow to identify the customer, recording every
his movement, and to take into account the goods which he takes from the shelves, as those which he returns back. The amount of payment for the purchased goods automatically deducted from customer’s account upon exiting
store – he doesn’t have to scan for any device self-service and take other additional steps to further checkout.
According to the forecasts of the vendor, in 2020, the amount of annual income from all Amazon stores Go to reach $639 million For comparison, the same indicator for 2018 was $28 million. However, as
informed sources, the retailer was going to open much more stores based on Amazon Go, and its operating loss in the framework of this project continue to grow.
The cashier does not need
Technology that allows you to organize full-scale retail shops with no tills and sellers interested in retailers around the world. So, at the end of December 2012, the first shop without cash
opened in Moscow in a retail network X5 Retail Group. Each package of the product was equipped with RFID-tag information which is read automatically, and to pay for the goods purchased
you cash through the terminal or by credit card.
In March 2017 the first small shop Wheely247 without sellers and Cass opened a Swedish company Wheelys in Shanghai. The buyer had to register and download to your mobile
gadget a special application, but also to “bind” it to your credit card. Selected products had to scan a reader is placed on the packaging bar codes, and cost
the purchase was paid with a credit card.
In April, 2019 in the village of Iasi Ketch (Republic of Tatarstan) also opened a store without the seller based on work which was based on the technology of facial recognition. the purchase was conducted in
a special terminal, after which the door on the way out of the store automatically opened.
Didn’t recognize the clothes
In spite of all show interest in them, the perfection of such technologies to boast of, yet can’t. In one of the first days after the opening of the Amazon Go Grocery his work tested
the journalist of the portal Ars Technica Sam
Machkovech (Sam Machkovech). According to the results of his daring experiment, the journalist concluded that to trust modern technology, such Amazon Go, still not worth it. It turned out that cheat
an automated system is not so difficult as it seems.
First Sam Machkovech conducted experiments on the trading floor, literally juggling vegetables, fruit and products in packages of one color and size, mixing them to check how closely
the sensors will be able to keep track of all these manipulations. By the way, the system did it without a single error. Then, taking from the shelf an avocado and a banana, the reporter went to the toilet, where no security cameras. When
this avocado he, as expected, left on a special shelf in front of the restroom, and a banana was hidden in a backpack. In the bathroom a journalist dressed, took off his sunglasses, put the backpack back on his chest, and,
once in the trading room, took some more vegetables and fruit, then left the store.
The result of the experiment showed that the technology is not as perfect as planned. The system was processing the results of a 20-minute shopping more than 2 hours, and the results were very interesting:
the journalist managed to fool the sensors Go Amazon, the cameras are unable to recognize him after changing. Moreover, the system wrote off the money only for the purchase of the banana, which he hid in a backpack before
a visit to the toilet, ignoring the fruit, which he took after. And, most surprisingly, “attributed to” him the purchase of avocado, which he put back on the shelf, but in new clothes.
The results of the experiment clearly disappointed him. Amazon had two years to Refine the technology. It seems that Amazon is trying to solve a problem that does not exist, but in its place creates
a completely new problem. All this in addition to the inconvenience of using smartphones and the expectation of downloading the app before entering the store.
By the way, according to Mackovic, money stolen in the experiment, the products he’s going to return to Amazon, which has already contacted the company.
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Journal: Journal IT-News, Subscription to magazines
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