Amazon has had my attention for the past few weeks as they've been making exceptional headway in the advancements of technology and e-commerce. It intrigues me so much to see how these advancements will shape the way we shop and work and live in the not-so-distant-future.
The most recent announcement has been of an entirely self-serve grocery store which charges payments to customer's account automatically. I searched back to find the first mention of the new system in an article from Mashable in March 2016 (http://mashable.com/2016/03/14/amazon-selfie-payment/#mnLJBBYcJmqn) which speculates about the release of a patent that describes using facial recognition to act as a more efficient password than key codes and series' of letters, digits and special characters.
The Guardian has since covered the official release of this exciting new concept by first giving insight into the initial show-store near the Seattle Amazon headquarters, describing the sensors used which record what a customer has picked up to purchase and suggested from insider leaked reports that up to 2000 of the same 'Amazon Go' stores could open across America. A few days later, The Guardian released a more informed article of the Amazon Go systems - now serving to provide informed information rather than rushing to break the headline first. The second article informed that plans will be going ahead to introduce the stores to the UK and then presents a worrying argument about the potential job losses that this turn of events could bring. The idea of technology replacing humanity is an interesting concept which, from what I know of my research, will be a present theme in an upcoming exhibition which I intend to visit and document here in my critical journal.
Just yesterday, Amazon made their first commercial drone delivery to a customer in rural UK. Given recent news, the fuss and uproar over the use of drones in retail now seems quite unnecessary as Amazon are seemingly not slowing down in their plans to totally transform our shopping experiences. I wonder whether these technologies will branch out into fashion retail specifically? Will Asos soon be delivering our next-day deliveries via drone? Will we be making returns via drone collection?
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Unbelievably, just a couple of weeks after writing this post, it has been announced that Amazon are also investigating the use of self-driving cars in competition with Tesla and Google. Again, this adds another interesting layer of development to the future of retail which I worry could be significantly detrimental in some instances.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/05/amazon-go-store-seattle-checkouts-account
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/09/amazon-go-stores-uk-trademark-us
http://mashable.com/2016/03/14/amazon-selfie-payment/#mnLJBBYcJmqn
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/technology/patent-reveals-amazons-self-driving-car-ambitions/
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