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Comment by seanwilson | Hacker News Reader

Will this actually work? How is this going to be reliable with arms, hands, clothes, other people and other products blocking the view of the cameras?

I wonder why they didn't put cameras in the shopping basket instead. At least then it would always have a clear view of items going in and out.

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The article says that there won't be shopping baskets or trolleys. You'll carry out what you want in your own bags.

I live in South Australia and since plastic bags were banned from being provided free in stores, the vast majority of people BYO reusable shopping bags. A slim minority buy store-branded plastic bags (15c each), usually when they've forgotten to BYO. It very quickly becomes the default and any complaints dry up.

Do you think they would have opened it if they didn't have a pretty high degree of confidence that it was working? It's been in beta for quite some time.

There are better places to steal from than those with massive numbers of cameras pointed at you from all directions.

I think the bigger deterrence is to get in the front door they already have your name, address, and card on file.

That said, several articles have mentioned Amazon intentionally is NOT using facial recognition as part of the tech.

I'm not referring to facial recognition. I'm saying if you shoplift, they are going to be able to provide the cops with video evidence, and they will know who you are.

The bigger problem is if they overcharge too many customers. Having to complain afterwards because it lists items you didn't buy eliminates the advantages of faster checkouts.

That's very true. And if they are not confident about their predictions then it might be difficult to push back when people fraudulently claim to not have purchased something.

they probably have tested it extensively, but sometimes people do mess up http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/1.3773054

The site you linked to is satire. It is not a thing that actually happened.

good catch, thanks!

> Do you think they would have opened it if they didn't have a pretty high degree of confidence that it was working? It's been in beta for quite some time.

I'm sure they've tested extensively but how are they getting around the issues I mentioned? It feels that even for a human with slow motion cameras it would be hard to 100% track what they're claiming. For example, picture a customer very close to the shelves taking two sandwich items with one hand and dropping them into a bag where the items are getting occluded by each other and the customer's body.

They may be opening it and willing to eat the costs. Lot of competitive pressure in this area.

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