Googling your local shelf
NearSt is making the inventories of local retailers Googleable. Their idea is that because you don’t know whether the thing you want is on nearby shop shelves, you don’t bother going shopping on the high street. Instead you go with the certainty of the search box because you know that it will be *somewhere* inside one of $LargeOnlineRetailer’s warehouses.
So the problem for the high street is knowing what is where (and then telling shoppers). NearSt are trying to solve it by taking a look at inside a retailer’s inventory management system and making a big, real-time database which could say something like “Ok, those light bulbs are at these two places near you”. Like internet shopping generally, you can see how this plan works better for easily-comparable things like uniform consumer-packaged products. For retailers, it is £199 to join.
They have teamed up with Google whose position is that it "gives small retailers the ability to compete effectively in the online world, without needing any of the technical and financial firepower of their online competitors." which is polite marketing speaking for “we are quite annoyed that Amazon is the online gateway to buying things instead of us”.
One way to think of it is as logistics but for consumers: where to go to get that light bulb. Treat the high street as a warehouse. You don’t care about the merchandising or the brands, you just want to bosh through your shopping list because you’re busy. Ie: it’s a very internetty, Amazony way to think about the high street. The internet likes reversing and inverting things. And even though this idea is a bit Amazon-without-Amazon, you do slightly wonder why Amazon themselves didn’t do it.
Today: “This item is at WHSmith.” 2019: “This item is at on shelf 6 at WHSmith”. 2024: “This item is already in your house, maybe you lost it?” And then: “This item is in the first cupboard in Mrs Thompson’s house at 11 Acacia Drive, just swipe yourself in with your Prime payment card but please don’t let the cat get out. If you leave a Prime Video flyer on her Sky box you’ll get four extra Prime points”.
Last week: The end or the beginning of high street retail?
AI without ethics
Here are some truly alarming comments from a large Chinese AI co that specialises in face recognition.
An unusual conception of privacy: “SenseTime’s AI systems are more mindful of privacy than old-fashioned cameras because, for the most part, the data collection is passive, with machines doing the watching. “It actually prevents people directly looking at those kinds of video streams”.”
No time for ethics: “SenseTime doesn’t have the luxury of worrying about some of AI’s moral quandaries, including doomsday scenarios of machine uprisings. “We’re not really thinking very far ahead, you know, whether we’re having some conflicts with humans, those kinds of things,” he said. “We’re just trying to make money.””
Singles day and Black Friday
Amazon news dept
The prices of fire extinguishers, ladders and other safety equipment surged during the Californian wild fires. Pricing algorithms partially determine prices by looking at demand and supply levels, so a hike in demand can lead to a surge in price. What’s needed: algorithms that show shoppers where the best prices are across Amazon and its competitors? Maybe. Transparency and accountability in how complex systems work and make decisions? Yes.
Amazon inadvertently exposed users’ names and emails on its website. This kind of thing is pretty rare for Amazon, so you’d guess that it won’t impact Amazon’s ability to sell lots of things.
Amazon Handmade comes the UK and is inviting crafters to apply to become sellers. (Newsletterbot’s line of humorous ceramic Bezos figures is now in development.)
Unintended consequences
One flavour of unintended consequence is when the solution to one problem creates a new, unexpected problem. The plastic straw ban and how it harms disabled people: “Friedman's flexible straw is cited as an early example of a universal design, in other words it's an example of something being made accessible to all people. It made drinking a lot easier and safer for disabled people, elderly people and those in hospital.”
In brief
Parliament invokes rarely-used powers to grab Facebook data. “Parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents.”
Mobile phone co Xiaomi opened 500 stores in India in one day. It’s going for growth at all costs, but outside of China, Xiaomi’s devices come with Google’s apps and services, which means that increased value from internet services may actually benefit Google more.
“Data isn’t the new anything, it’s a stinking mess, an incomplete and inconsistent proxy of the reality it purports to describe. That’s why we spend all our time trying to manage it instead of doing something useful. Data isn’t the glue, we are.”
Walmart is about to overtake Apple in e-commerce.
Social media/shopping app WeChat has over 1bn monthly active users.
.
Co-op Digital news
Co-op Digital launched two projects, recipes and wines (context: One Co-op, one website).
Co-op Group’s pension scheme will invest 50m in social housing.
Events
More events at Federation House. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.
.
Thanks for reading. If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.
|
