

Google Launches The Ultimate Jobs Killer - bond
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/09/26/google-launches-the-ultimate-jobs-killer/

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andos
Pardon me if this question is stupid; I am not a native speaker and perhaps I
am oblivious to certain nuances of English. That said, didn't the author mean
this piece to be titled “Google launches the ultimate _job_ killer?” Singular
_job_?

~~~
wccrawford
This is one of the situations where it could go either way. Normally, you
would say 'ultimate job killer', yes... But in this situation, we're talking
about jobs in the abstract. It isn't killing a few particular positions here
and there, but actually killing those job roles altogether.

When the cotton gin was invented, it didn't just take a few jobs away, it
eliminated the position of cotton picker. Nobody does that job any more
because a machine was just too much better at it. (It probably invented a new
position for the person who runs the machine, but that's a different point.)

~~~
jws
The cotton gin (1793) separates the cotton fibers from the seeds. The cotton
still needs to be picked. Machines were eventually built to pick cotton but
didn't get good until the 1950s, well after many blues and early country and
western songs could be written about picking cotton.

In a historical pre-echo, Ely Whitney spent a lot of time and money suing
planters for making illegal copies of his cotton gin.

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caller9
This is supposed to be the dream behind RFID. Smart shelves know when they're
under stocked. They can even tell if cart is in range to display ads. They can
tell if you remove product A, eyeball it, put it back and get product B. They
can track your cart's RFID chip throughout the store to make a heatmap on a
per-store basis. Better yet, after a while they can make a heatmap for you, or
more importantly <insert demographic>. Then you checkout and it ties that cart
to your name and probably other info.

Checkout is the friction point this guy is focused on and probably will be how
RFID is sold to consumers, but the real money in RFID is selling customer info
to marketers.

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arghnoname
With these sorts of things, I think people often lose sight of how cheap human
workers can be. Automating a unionized factory, where the workers get a good
salary and benefits, saves a lot of money. Automating away a $8/hr job by a
system whose savings is lost as soon as someone takes advantage of it and
steals a toothbrush, I'm not as sure.

Some fancy cart that has a built in scale and scanning mechanism to work as
the self-checkout lanes do would help somewhat with theft issues, but would
also be expensive, prone to breakage, etc. Why not just get a teenager or
other low wage worker. Sadly, we have plenty of the latter.

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GBKS
The discussion about technology replacing jobs is worthwhile, but why does the
premise need to be based on such a negative attitude towards food and grocery
stores? The argument really loses it's effectiveness when it's based on a
whiny attitude.

Personally I enjoy going grocery shopping, especially when a trip to a
farmer's market is involved. However, I can see how it's a turn off to deal
with food when your eating habits consist of frozen pizza and chips.

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italophil
Self-service check outs did not catch on
[[http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/09/26/superm...](http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/09/26/supermarkets_start_bagging_self_serve_checkouts/?p1=News_links)].
I don't see how using your own phone would make it any better for the avg.
consumer.

~~~
kokey
They did catch on in the UK, but I think minimum wage and other labour
regulation had a lot to do with encouraging it.

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Goladus
My thoughts...

Supermarket clerk is hardly an ultimate job.

Tediousness of checkout is as much a psychological issue as a real one. I
rarely spend more than a fraction of the time checking out as actually
selecting the groceries I want.

Produce usually doesn't have a barcode, especially anything sold by weight.
Bakery items often have no barcode either.

The problem of trying to buy an entire week's worth of groceries for a whole
family in one shot isn't addressed at all by google wallet. It sounds like
this guy should look into some sort of service that delivers groceries to his
door. (Which could create jobs, incidentally)

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janesvilleseo
I understand that progress is needed, and while I tend not to think of myself
as a Luddite, this rekindles a thought I had about how automation/tech is
replacing people. That question is since a lot of people have been replaced
and a lot more people will be replaced, what low skilled jobs will be left for
people in the near to long term?

Teenagers at the very least have not yet even had the time to be in the job
market to acquire advanced skills. Will advances like this completely solidify
the new life stage called 'adultolescence" while at the same time change the
experience of what we now call adolescence?

~~~
kokey
The industrial revolution keeps on destroying low skill jobs, for the benefit
of everyone overall. There is always a group of people who lose these jobs
initially but in the long term it's never been that big problem for society
after about 200 years of doing this. However, it won't hurt to be more
proactive in helping people get retrained and move into other kinds of jobs.
There is even some opportunity in offering a path for people who lose their
jobs in one industry to get trained to work in other industries which has
demand. I think the people who suffer the most are those who insist on trying
to hold onto a type of job that is disappearing, being the last group to lose
their jobs and being behind others when it comes to retraining. I think it's
the same as people who refuse to move away from a town when industry there is
shutting down.

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DirtyCalvinist
My parents' local supermarket already has a version of 'scan as you place in
the cart.' This works ok for small trips, but two-cart food sprees are much
better handled by the folks in the green smocks behind the cash registers.

~~~
veloper
How do they prevent theft? With the (Yo)u-Scan machines in my local super
markets the approx. weight is used to verify your purchase.

~~~
Roboprog
Indeed. Google Wallet? As he described the scan-and-walk process, it sounds
more like Google Shoplift -- but maybe that's just the first thing that came
to my mind. Of course, if you had some kind of disposable "smart bag" to do an
RFID scan of its contents, you _might_ be getting somewhere with this.

~~~
billybob
I think that's overengineering. Why not just use weight, like they already do
in the self-checkout line? Weigh the shopping cart full of groceries, subtract
the weight of the cart itself, and compare to what they're paying for. If it
seems wrong, investigate.

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eftpotrm
Is the US that far behind the UK in retail grocery?

A UK supermarket did scan-as-you-pack maybe 15 years ago. They've since been
bought out and that option no longer exists, but it's hardly revolutionary or
something that's only just becoming possible thanks to Google Wallet.

What seems bigger though is the next step possibility. SAYP allows you to save
on headcount at the tills alone (and even then not by much as you still need
some form of check-out procedure to manage the exit handover), which is hardly
where the majority of the staff load comes. No; surely the bigger retailer
benefit comes from moving away from these huge edge-of-town barns altogether?

If I signed up with Tesco Clubcard, they'll already populate an online
shopping basket with a regular shopping load that's typical of my purchasing
habits, automatically, and deliver that to my door. (I mention Tesco because I
know this from others, not that no rivals exist). Ocado operate as an online-
only grocery business with picking and packing systems as sophisticated as any
to ensure speedy delivery of intact groceries without packing cases of mineral
water on top of soft fruit.

What the author is describing is frankly a primitive system. Go the whole hog,
be the grocery Amazon. Eliminate the need to have a retail barn that's kept
attractive, temperature controlled and has a small army constantly stocking
shelves. Eliminate the need for each town to have so many large presences per
retailer with a constant feed of large trucks keeping them stocked and operate
primarily out of regional distribution hubs. _Then_ you'll see the real
retailer cost savings.

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ordinaryman
I believe Google sending you an email asking..

    
    
      Can Google Wallet schedule your weekly/monthly/periodic shopping list 
      for the following items from <your-regular-store>?
    
      - <item-1> - <quantity>
      - <item-2> - <quantity>
      - ..
    
      [Yes, schedule now] [No] [Change item-list and schedule]
    

..should be the eventual evolution of such a service.

~~~
innes
Well, I guess my digi-wallet asking me if I want to order groceries is
slightly less weird than my internet-fridge going ahead and doing it without
asking.

Still, I'm not convinced that it makes sense for my 'wallet' to be doing this.

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kazuya
I expected from the title a story about the future where Google uses purchase
history collected from its Wallet service to predict items to be purchased
next time, and even sends them to the home. Certainly that will kill many
retail jobs.

Amazon does this, though imperfectly, and in fact it suggested me a periodic
purchase plan of diapers after I bought it from them a couple of times.

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mevans
My local Giant has this already, but isn't tied to my phone. You just scan as
you go, and then pay at the end. It is cool, but I'm not sure it's much
faster.

Also, I have to wonder about theft. How many people are just throwing things
in the cart, and not scanning?

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sek
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy>

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innes
_And let me explain how Barcode Scanner (or something like it) combined with
Google Wallet will make my life as a consumer more productive_

Yep, this will really speed things up.

Instead of scanning items on the way out, (i.e.
"beep...beep...beep...beep...beep") people will scan as they shop "okay...
just line up the cameraaaa... hmm it's not seeing it, turn the phone a bit...
oh i beg your pardon hang on [moves out of the way of another shopper who also
wants a can of baked beans]... [phone grabs barcode]... ah finally... beep." -
one can of baked beans purchased.

Can't wait!

Also, given how fragile self-scanning checkouts are - presumably calibrated to
prevent shoplifting - how will scanning stuff yourself and then walking out
with it be acceptable to supermarkets?

~~~
wccrawford
Have you tried the app in question? Even with the low quality cameras on the
first Androids, it worked really well. On my 8MP camera now, it's insanely
fast. And since everyone would be doing it as they picked things up, the lines
to check out will be limited to making sure people didn't steal.

Having said all that, I think elimination of the traditional supermarket is
more in line with what I want in the future. There was a startup on here that
talked about having no customer-accessible store. The customer orders from
home, drives up in their car, the store loads the order in the car and
collects the money, and the customer drives home. Eliminating the customer's
driving is a logistical nightmare, but I expect that will eventually be
solved, too.

~~~
innes
_Have you tried the app_ No I haven't - I've just used the 'standard' Android
barcode scanner. So now I feel a bit sheepish given that I may have over-egged
the pudding with that little scenario!

I've used internet supermarket shopping in the past, when I didn't own a car.
It was reasonably good, and you paid £5 for delivery within a 2 hour window.
You would tend to sometimes accidentally buy a weird size of some item though.

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pitdesi
This article doesn't make any sense... This is NOT the future, Self-scanners
have been around for a long time and have never caught on anywhere to my
knowledge.

Self-scanners have been around for several years. Market District in
Pittsburgh had them in 2005 when I lived there
([http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/01/review-grocery-
stor...](http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/01/review-grocery-store.html)).
They never caught on, and ultimately the company stopped using them in 09
(<http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09226/990741-28.stm> note: this article
doesn't provide any details).

The problem is theft prevention and time. Every so often (appx every 10
customers), they would randomly check every item on your receipt. You think
you're done, but you aren't, they need to check every item on your receipt.

The thing that IS potentially a game changer in this regard (which the article
doesn't mention) is RFID. With RFID combined with Google Wallet, the theft
prevention problem can be solved much easier (ie alarm goes off if you are
stealing)

