More on Amazon’s Brookfield Place Store

As first reported here, Amazon is indeed opening a store at Brookfield Place—but, unfortunately, it won’t be a bookstore. According to Recode, it will be a “cashierless convenience store” called Amazon Go that will “utilize a combination of sensors, cameras and computer vision to automatically charge customers for items upon exit without them needing to stop and pay.” There are a couple of other Amazon Go stores in Seattle and Chicago; some sell groceries and prepared foods, other just prepared foods. Either way, it seems unlikely to thrill the ultra-luxury brands nearby….

 

4 Comments

  1. Finally, something cool. Wonder how long the line will be just to go in and spend money.

    • Does the “combination of sensors, cameras and computer vision”—which I take to include facial recognition—not cause any concern? Or perhaps that horse has already left the barn.

      • From my discussions in the past with people in the know, facial is not a part of this. You tag into the gate with the QR code, and from there your motions through the store are tracked (object tracking), but you are not personally identified. For your family to enter, you would scan your code to let each person through.

      • That horse was flogged to death many years ago. The NYTimes mentioned in passing (re: the recent bombs) that the average Manhattan resident is photographed 200 times each day by surveillance cameras. You (we) live in a post-privacy world…..

Comment: