Ali's coffee shopping is very popular, but there are still a lot of bug in unmanned convenience stores.

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

A few days ago, Ali's unmanned supermarket "Amoy Coffee" officially opened to pick up customers, attracting the attention of the public and major media. The biggest highlight of "Amoy Coffee" is that there is no internal cashier and cashier.

Although Ali's artificial intelligence test field "Amoy Coffee" is very popular, there are still many bug in unmanned convenience stores.

"the emergence of artificial intelligence will give rise to a new class-the useless class, and hundreds of millions of people will not be able to find jobs because they cannot compete with artificial intelligence." Yuval Herari, author of A brief History of the Future, mentioned it in a recent speech.

A few days ago, Ali's unmanned supermarket "Amoy Coffee" officially opened to pick up customers, attracting the attention of the public and major media. The biggest highlight of "Amoy Coffee" is that there is no internal cashier and cashier.

The speed of the development of science and technology is far beyond our imagination, and mankind is getting closer and closer to the arrival of the "useless class". However, instead of discussing such a sad topic today, let's take a look at how Ali's "Amoy Coffee" is unmanned, and whether such an unmanned convenience store has bug.

The second step is to order in the catering area or buy other goods on your own.

The third step is to pay. When you check out, you have to go through two doors, and when the first door senses the user's need to leave, it will automatically open; a few seconds later, the second door will open, and the deduction has been completed. The prompt will say: "Alipay deducted a total of XX yuan."

This mode of operation is full of science and technology! So, what technology does Ali's "Amoy Coffee" use?

1. Face recognition and speech recognition

In the dining area, the customer asks the waiter the name of the coffee to buy, and the electronic device automatically recognizes the other person's face to complete the identity confirmation, and then places the order through voice recognition. After confirming that the purchased goods are correct, the corresponding amount will be automatically deducted from the Alipay account.

The pick-up area is equipped with an electronic screen, and as long as the customer who completes the order stands at the bottom of the screen, the pick-up number and the remaining time will be displayed overhead. If it has been done, the electronic screen will display: XX number, please take the order.

2. Biometric autonomous perception and learning techniques.

Facial recognition and speech recognition require human cooperation, and Amoy Coffee also has a complex autonomous biometric perception and learning system that allows supermarkets to accurately capture their features even if customers don't look at the camera.

3. Radio frequency identification technology

In Ali's unmanned supermarket, every item is marked with a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag, which is what we often call an electronic tag. It automatically identifies the target object and obtains the relevant data through the radio frequency signal, and the identification work does not need human intervention.

4. Internet of things payment

Ali's unmanned supermarket uses the technical solutions of member account opening, commodity link and Internet of things payment. Among them, Ant Financial Services Group provides technical support for the Internet of things payment scheme. Ant Financial Services Group said that the Internet of things payment technology uses a mixture of computer vision and sensor sensing, followed by uncoordinated biometric technology (which means identity verification can be completed unconsciously).

Cool techs promotes data accumulation and produces "economic benefits"

After reading these cool techs, do you think Ali's unmanned supermarket is very powerful? In fact, Amoy Coffee is not the only unmanned convenience store combined with high technology. In 2016, Japan's Ministry of economy, Trade and Industry implemented the "unmanned convenience store" plan to introduce unmanned cashiers and "electronic tags" in convenience stores. After that, five large convenience stores, including 7-11 in Japan and the whole family, all announced the introduction of the system; at the same time, the Korean 7-11 convenience store chain also opened a new store in Lotte World Tower, the fifth tallest building in the world, with an automatic checkout system built-in to pay through the palm of the hand; in December of the same year, Amazon launched the Amazon Go convenience store in Seattle, USA, using advanced sensors and algorithms.

Smartphones and tablets monitor users all the time and retain user data. Similarly, when you walk into an unmanned supermarket, your words and deeds will become the data source in the "eyes" of cool techs. Take Ali's unmanned supermarket and Amazon's convenience store as an example, both have product identification systems installed on their shelves, and customers are collected throughout the process of choosing goods as they approach the shelves, including their facial expressions and body language as they pick up the goods.

Ali unmanned retail team revealed that at present Ali also uses a combination of multi-channel cameras and sensors. The main function of multi-channel cameras is to monitor the situation in the store and to track and analyze the behavior of consumers.

The data collected through cool techs is very precious for convenience store operators and suppliers. These data can help them improve the location of goods in convenience stores, adjust demand, and optimize operations in the long run.

There are still many problems in the trial field of new technology for commercial use.

Although the use of new technology is eye-catching, there is still a gap between ideal and reality. With the increase in the area of unmanned convenience stores and the increase in the flow of people, even cattle technology will feel powerless. Three months ago, Amazon announced the postponement of the opening of its first cashier-free convenience store in Seattle, Amazon Go.

According to the Bloomberg report, Amazon Go's tests have been in a state of collapse when stores are overcrowded. Amazon's convenience store has a limit on the number of customers, and if there are more than 20 customers, it will be difficult for Amazon Go's technical equipment to track customers and their products, according to people familiar with the matter.

According to Amazon's patent filing for Amazon Go, the key technology in the idea of an unmanned convenience store lies in its special shelves. It calculates who took which item by sensing the relative position between the person and the shelf and the movement of the goods on the shelf. Therefore, when there are too many people, the amount of calculation of the system will increase rapidly, and the accuracy of goods purchase can not be guaranteed.

The previous article also mentioned that Ali unmanned supermarket uses the Internet of things payment technology, which uses a mixture of computer vision and sensor sensing, followed by a "non-cooperative" biometric technology. According to industry insiders, the difficulty of this scheme is that with the expansion of the store size, the amount of calculation of the system will increase, which will bring great pressure to GPU. Even cost aside, the accuracy of identification is difficult to guarantee. It is understood that at present Ali's "Amoy Coffee" can only carry 50 people.

Then talk about the RFID tag mentioned earlier in the article, it uses the non-contact automatic identification technology, I believe you have also seen in some libraries, stores, this is a relatively mature technology. However, this kind of label itself has insurmountable problems, the label is tightly squeezed will not be recognized, glass and other special materials will not be recognized. In addition, in thunderstorm weather, this label also has the hidden danger of strike.

Write at the end

After the launch of Ali's unmanned supermarket, several similar convenience stores have sprung up in the domestic market, such as bingo box, F5 Future Store, 24 Love Shopping, Magic House and so on. Unmanned supermarket may be another tuyere after sharing bikes, but from the current situation, there are still many technical problems to overcome, and it will take some time for large-scale commercial use.