Maria Boggi

I actually did a project on Amazon Go for MSOM and I can confirm that they don’t use facial recognition. The store has Bluetooth beacons that identify what mobile device accounts are closest to the items being picked up by interacting with the user’s Amazon go app that is running on their phone. They use shelf cameras, AI, and weight sensors to determine what has been selected or put back by the user. These stores are great for convenience shopping because there are no lines, orders are short and non-complex. However, this doesn’t seem like a technology that can expand into a full grocery store since there is no way to accept government welfare assistance such as WIC checks or Food stamps and in a large scale there will likely be too much traffic to accurately asses who is grabbing what.

As a previously long time Supermarket employee I could agree that Amazon’s technology will be immensely difficult to implement into a full grocery store. Yes , the current experience they have created is amazing and in terms of convenience shopping may be top of the line, but this is really small scaled locations. In my opinion growing to the point of bigger locations such as a Walmart sized location for instance would be so difficult that even if they were capable of doing so the negatives would outweigh the positive. They would have to account for families all under one device for instance where they would be in separate parts of the store picking out products. There are also times when babies in strollers when close enough pick up the first item they see without the parent seeing or even children who under the excitement of seeing so much candy cant help but put a few in their pocket. To account for these small two scenarios among millions and millions of unpredictable events is just too much to handle without physical , actual employees. Having actual cashiers and employees in store plays an important role in noticing the last couple items a parent has no knowledge the rest of their family has snuck into their cart, bag, etc. To me the technology is not there yet made obvious by the fact that my fellow student states “During a test phase, children placing items on incorrect shelves proved an unanticipated challenge.” To me the technology for this is quickly advancing and growing but might never really get to the point past a small convenience store.

This is another great example of IT creating value for the business. By implementing their technology for bluetooth, cameras, and the app they are improving the customer experience, reducing the friction of checking out and reducing labor costs. While I haven’t experienced first hand amazon go, I did get to experience something similar in Switzerland on a much smaller scale. They have what appears to be a mixture between a cold case you would find in a convenience store and vending machine. A local company prepares fresh grab and go options that are healthy and stocked every morning with seasonal variety and regular popular items. Essentially, if you want to use this machine you have a key fob that you swipe which unlocks the machine, you open the door, take what you want, and close it. The food is on a weight sensor and your have an account linked to the fob which allows you to pay for what you’ve chosen. The people there seemed to really like it and were excited to show me how it worked. I would imagine having this kind of experience at the store would be even better. I wonder though if the savings from reducing headcount is enough to out weigh the potential for lost or unaccounted for merchandise as you mentioned children were moving items around.

This was a very interesting post, and kind of gives us a preview of what the future may look like. Everyone always kind of jokes about robots taking our jobs, and this is a prime example of a way that this is actually happening. It also provides a great example of how technology can be leveraged to give yourself a competitive advantage, as this gives customers a completely unique and easy shopping experience using a bunch of different technologies working together. The biggest concern is how well this technology works. If it is buggy or inaccurate, it can end up costing customers a lot of money and scare them away from entering these types of stores. It will be interesting to see how Amazon executes this and customers begin to use it.

I think this is really interesting! I didn’t know a feature like this existed and I think it’ll definitely revolutionize smart cars/driving. Something that worries me about this is that technology is not perfect. Because the signals are being sent through LTE, there is room for error through malfunction or malicious behavior. I think its similar to self driving cars in that it will take a long time before the technology is accurate and adapted by a large population.

This article is very cool because I believe roads are definitely the next step for the IOT. There is a ton of data about traffic and car accidents that can be collected. Audi is making the right choice by starting this new system. Hopefully, this will become cheaper and available in other cars as well. It should be able to decrease car accidents as well as improve fuel efficiency if the driver and the car is able to receive relevant information about traffic lights and the road itself.

I think this is very interesting. I didn’t know that this technology has been invented. While this technology is pragmatic in that it can prevent auto accident, Its expensive price tag would deter large adoption and relegate this to . To increase its expansion and adoption, Audi should have license it to other car manufacturers for more consistence income and take advantage of the network effect to become the leading company. This strategy would allow more customers access to the technology which mean the market size will increase and allow Audi to spread its fix cost to more customers.