American retail giant, Amazon has taken the wraps off Amazon Go – its new futuristic brick-and-mortar grocery store initiative which get rids of the need for lines and checkouts. Starting in its hometown – Seattle, the ‘Just Walk Out’ shopping experience store will open to the general public in 2017.
The first Amazon Go centre (Seattle) is a grocery store with roughly 1,800 square feet of retail space, offering perishable grocery goods, fresh and ready-made meals.
The concept reportedly uses computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning (i.e a mix of sensors, cameras, microphones, and algorithm). Customers taps their phone (using Amazon Go app) near the sensor when walking in and surveillance identify them. The cameras captures when they stop in front of an item, what item was picked & whether items stayed in their hand or was returned backed to the shelf.
The microphones determines where the users are by the noise they make and loads of sensors also take note of when items have been picked or returned back to the shelves. Upon leaving, users are billed automatically on their registered Amazon accounts for the purchases made.
In order to use Amazon Go, the only requirements are the Amazon Go app, a supported smartphone (maybe Android and iOS) and registered Amazon account. The beta version of the app is currently available to only Amazon employees, with the public launch date scheduled for sometime 2017.
