Amazon Go store opens in Seattle; lets you take stuff of shelves and walk out

Amazon announced a new in-store shopping experience on Monday called “Amazon Go.” The idea is simple: it’s a store where you can walk in, take stuff and leave without ever visiting a checkout counter. Yes, you can pretend to be a shoplifter. Kind of.

You’ll need to have the Amazon app installed and, unlike a shoplifter, you’re actually paying for the goods you decide to take with you. Sorry, Winona Ryder. You’ll scan your phone as you walk in the store, according to the video above that demonstrates the technology, and Amazon will know what you’re picking up to take home.

“Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning,” Amazon explained. “Our Just Walk Out technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store. Shortly after, we’ll charge yourAmazon account and send you a receipt.”

This sounds kind of tricky, and I wonder how many people might accidentally either get charged for something they didn’t buy, or make off with goods they thought they paid for. The former reminds me of a hotel minibar fridge that can automatically detect when beer is removed, sometimes charging the guest even if he or she places it back.

Kind of like shoplifting.. but legal

Amazon’s first store will take the form of a grocery market with pre-made breakfast, lunch and dinner options, in addition to snacks, chocolates, cheeses and other products. In other words, you’re not going to walk in and out with an $8,000 UHD just yet, which suggests perhaps Amazon is still just confident enough in its technology that it wants to beta test with food first.

The first location will open at 2131 7th Ave in Seattle, Washington ,on 7th Ave and Blanchard in early 2017, when the public can begin entering the store. It’s already open for Amazon employees.

SOURCE AMAZON

                         

Ace Combat 7 looks absolutely stunning, will save the series from itself

Ace Combat 7 is shaping up to be exactly the game I want it to be. I suppose the addition of optional VR support is nice, and the actual headlining news of this article, but I’m more excited about the series returning to form. This trailer from PlayStation Experience shows that’s just what’s happening.

Right off the bat, we hear about the Kingdom of Erusia starting a war, and my heart skips a beat. For those who don’t know, the first six Ace Combat games take place in a science fiction world called Strangereal. This alternate reality planet resembles Earth, but it’s also made up of fictional continents and countries. Strangereal was abandoned for a real-world setting in the previous generation’s Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and it hasn’t been heard from since.

Basically, Ace Combat needed to catch up with Call of Duty’s sales figures, and gritty realism was Bandai Namco’s attempt to keep the series relevant.

However, gritty realism is a thing of the past, and the past is now the present thanks to the emergence of reboots. So many series have gone “back to their roots” over the last few years, and Ace Combat 7 is now about to do the game thing. With it, we get a slick aerial combat game that focuses on anti-war storytelling just as much as it does combat, and it does so with a much grander sense of purpose than a simple war game. Can’t wait!

Ace Combat 04 and Ace Combat 5 getting any love?

The series hit the peak of its popularity on the PlayStation 2 with Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. DualShockers approached Producer Kazutoki Kono about the chance of ever seeing a remake of those two, and his response is one that suggests it’s unlikely.

In terms of remakes, I’m very thankful that there are a lot of fans and voices saying “hey, we want to experience the story again.” Should the chance present itself, I would certainly like to examine it, but there are a lot of tricky issues that we took on with the past wars, thematically, so it would be a very tricky thing to navigate.

But if the chance presents itself, then I would like to explore it, absolutely.

So, yeah, the Ace Combat games tell great stories, but they are meant for a certain time and place. However, those that know me know I don’t subscribe to the silly idea of graphics needing to be updated for a game to be enjoyable to a modern audience. I remember both games being brilliant in spite of their limitations, and I bet you they would still hold up in their original forms.

Even if remakes aren’t possible, why not give the digital PlayStation 2 Classics line-up a try? Neither game has ever been released digitally through the PlayStation Store, and they are simply too excellent. This unfortunate situation should be fixed as quickly as possible.

How about using them as a lead up into Ace Combat 7, which will be released for the PlayStation 4 in 2017?

source: DUALSHOCKERS, DESTRUCTOID