The year is 2050 and your dingy old toaster has finally given up it's last crumbs. You hop onto Amazon in hopes of finding a suitable replacement as there's no longer any box stores you can travel to. Dumb appliances have been phased out and newer internet connected appliances have taken over. It's better for the consumer they claim.
Not wanting an overtly fancy contraption you pick a no frills unit that includes a touch screen along the side. A few hours later it arrives. Setting it up was almost as easy as your old one. Plug it in, enter your wi-fi password, and a credit card to start your free pro trial of the monthly subscription service that tweets at you when the toast is done. It says you can cancel at anytime but it requires a 5 day waiting period. It also requires access to your contacts.
Tired and just wanting your toast you agree. You insert two slices of white bread and press the big red GO button on the touch screen. An electrical motor whines from inside the toaster at it begins to retract the toast into itself. There's a few seconds of silence as the toaster slowly heat ups. While awkwardly standing there you notice the touch screen flickers and begins to display a buffering icon. An ad for I Can't Believe it's Not Butter begins to play. To make matters worse you can't even ignore it by looking away due to a small tinny sounding speaker playing the company's jingle.
2 years later, Amazon discontinues updates on the toaster. No one notices, but it still toasts. 8 years later, people hack them and cause them to burn down some houses. Of course, it was the owner's fault - they were running a discontinued toaster that wasn't receiving software updates anymore.
Later, when it's discovered that the toaster occasionally catches on fire, users are encouraged to pay $9.99 per month for "Toaster Plus," which causes an alarm to play before the fire starts, so that you know to get the extinguisher.
Then they let you customize the alarm noise, so that you can choose how to be alerted of the future house fire. Soon, companies get rich selling $3 "toaster fire ringtones."
Eventually, even after fire-less toasters are "invented," people prefer the old, "still catching on fire" ones, since "toasters have always worked that way."
All the while I couldn't help but want to share how good pan-fried/toasted bread is. It's the butter of course, just generously butter up a pan, spread the bread so it soaks up the butter. Takes a little longer, but you also get to feel like a cook.
I use to be so enthusiastic about technology. Now I almost dread the next innovation for how it will inevitably find it’s major use case in advertising. I swear I’m turning Luddite.
That's only the first iteration. Next, they'll only load individual packed proprietary toast-pods. Budget third-party pods will work, until the manufacturer rolls out a silent firmware update to brick your toaster, on the grounds of violating the EULA
This is perhaps the existential crisis that engineering in all its forms has to deal with. Much of the Western ethos and certainly engineering culture in general is about making life better. Instead, our only task now is making it more profitable.
Samsung fridges have machine vision systems to catalog their contents, then combine the data with data from samsung smart TVs. That way, they can be joined against your tv watching habits. This is all to better target ads.
If you disable it, then it breaks the demand response function on the fridge, indirectly killing polar bears and other living things.
They cost as much (or more) than non-connected versions.
WiFi password? Even by 2035ish it’d come with integrated mobile data so the user won’t have to worry about ensuring it has consistent network access to the mothership.
Ever read Ubik? I think the only thing missing is that it should charge your for each piece of toast you make and remit the payment to either the manufacturer or your landlord. If you are behind on rent, you can’t make toast.
I do not blame cooler screen for selling this technology to anyone. But I want everyone to consider how much it takes to bring about a technology like this to a grocery store.
If this is any of the big chain groceries, the manager doesn't even have the authority to put a sticker on the glass door. This was vetted by hundreds of people and none of them thought... glass?
Business class tickets were purchased, hotels were booked, months of back and forth, daily meetings. Hundreds of thousands were spent on pilot programs like this one. Still no one thought... glass?
In my opinion, it's a silly idea. But I applaud the person who had this silly idea, built a company around it, got deals with screens, door, glass, and cameras manufacturing companies, and then convinced a grocery chain to buy this for their store.
I would really, really love to have been in that sales pitch meeting.
Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad.
Everyone here who’s worked for some moderately large corporation knows exactly why this was done: it’s a flashy pet project for some “labs” team in an otherwise boring retailer and maybe they’ll recoup some of the cost in ads, minus whatever they lose for it being an awful idea. Some charismatic product manager sold it to execs as “being the future of connected retail” or some other BS. In a few months they’ll be removed because it’s a stupid idea.
When the company that made these was analyzing their market, I have no doubt they were targeting this exact scenario knowing that even the stupidest products have a place to make a boring brick and mortar retailer think they’re doing technology.
One day someone will be hunched over on a sidewalk, dying of thirst, and a patrolling Nestle®-branded drone senses (using state-of-the-art machine learning "customer needs" technology) his predicament. The drone hovers there projecting a holo-ad about Nestles hot product "Nectar of Life" which is just water from the region's last remaining aquifer cut with brackish water from the coast. The ad ends with a map to the nearest vending machine and buzzes off for it's next engagement. The man, too weak to move, just sits there, nothing he can do except wait for another ad drone to come by.
In the '90s I was in a technology based art class at CMU. An artist talked about a project they wanted to do: a music streamer, but it would use GPS to know it's location, and play music from the local culture, to keep you connected to your surroundings.
This is obviously a comically idiotic idea, but ... hmm ...
If someone had taken this and put it in a museum as an art installation, I would love it. Thinking about it like that ... it tickles something in my brain. Using those absolutely huge, gorgeous screens, using our most sophisticated technology ... just to display a flat, bland, skeuomorphic representation of a completely mundane part of the human experience: the convenience store fridge section. I dunno, I'm finding it hard to describe what I feel thinking about this as a piece of "art". It would definitely make quite the statement. The size and scale of it is what takes it to another level.
I hope that these things don't periodically switch from showing the actual products & prices to showing a full-screen ad for something. A movie theater near me does that with their screen-based menus. Very annoying to be trying to decide what you want and suddenly have the menu vanish.
It's a bit sad to think how wasteful these are. Not just the waste produced by producing the screens and powering them all day, but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out.
Edit: Also, does anyone know what the cameras are for, if not facial recognition or CCTV? I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research. I suppose that could be anonymized and aggregated on-device in a privacy-preserving way, but you'd have to take their word for it.
They absolutely do. That's the main point of them in fact. Revenue for the supermarket. But really it's not a downgrade. Every package is designed to basically be an ad already.
> but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out.
Now that I know these exist, I kinda feel like being contrary and opening every single one to "look for" whatever it was I wanted.
> cameras > I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research
It's possible the whole display is specifically for market research. Play with product placement and see what increases sales for the most profitable items.
They have these in my local Walgreens and I hate them. I think the drink coolers were stocked for maybe a week after they were installed. Since then it’s been 50/50 if the product the screen is showing is actually behind the door. I don’t think the store employees are able to keep on top of stocking without being able to see what’s in the case.
You've got to put on your homo economicus hat and think outside the box of social norms and common decency. The solution is to find something that's the right size to prop the doors open. Then prop the door of each section that you're comparing, so that you can see products and ponder each one. After you pick something out, pay it forward by leaving the doors propped so the next person has an easier time. For full credit, make sure to wear a mask to defeat the facial recognition cameras.
There's an angle that the company making these didn't think of. That's exactly the kind of critical use case you miss when you don't do enough testing.
Brick & mortar retail is trying its very hardest to kill itself.
The bigger a tremendous fucking hassle it is to go to the store instead of ordering online, the fewer people are going to come in.
Supermarket window: "we now use anti-shoplifting face and license plate tracking" [e.g. auror.co ]
Supermarket aisle: can't see any products, have to open every door to look at actual products instead of TV ads
Supermarket aisle: e-ink price labels; can no longer flip up to see how much the thing cost before it was on "sale".
Supermarket aisle: e-ink label is down, no idea how much product costs
Supermarket checkout: always scans shit at the wrong price
Plus we've got covid, drive time, smaller selection, unknown stock levels [sold out].
Any old man could tell you giving a shit about your customers' experience is going to benefit you in the long run. But no. It'll be too late by the time they realize what they've done.
Seriously though, how does someone even come up with something this dumb? How does one go about thinking of and actually implementing this? How did the development process go through without someone interjecting "why the fuck are we spending $1000s on 6ft LEDs when we can just use glass?"
Most people are incredibly dumb. This includes the rich and powerful; most of them just happened to be lucky enough to be born in the right place, at the right time.
Some bean counter came up with the idea that they have a captive audience which they can force to watch ads.
I think this is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen. But to be honest, I won’t be surprised if this actually increases revenue since people are going to buy what they buy and it’s not like they will go to another store due to this.
I thought the idea was that these would allow more insulation in the doors than glass, and that the energy use from the screen was less than the energy saved from cooling losses (but what is the payback from the manufacturing, shipping, install, recycling, repair etc?). I'm skeptical, but it is conceivably possible that it works out if the screens are very efficient, using off the shelf parts. Maybe.
This is so exciting. I have to say, as soon as this pandemic is over, the first thing I'm going to do is attend a brand activation campaign or event and just... witness a brand generate awareness and build lasting connections with its target audience.
I think part of the reasoning behind this is also that people are less likely to buy from a half-empty shelf. That's why markets put so much effort into constant restocking.
This way, the shelf can always look full while needing less restocking.
I’m lost in these comments. It’s been years that opaque vending machines representing pictures of the content at eye level are out in the world [0] and there’s so many people reacting as if that is the rubicon that should never be crossed.
I’m not in favor of more animated shinny ads shoved into our eyeballs, but we already had the screens everywhere and there already seemed to be no way to go back without town regulation.
If having them in front of a vending machine makes people go berserk, it might be a good thing, but it still blows my mind it’s the straw that would break the camel’s back.
My gas station has installed video on the pumps and while pumping, I must listen to whatever dreck is being sold. It irritates me that I have no choice but to listen.
Is there anyone, anywhere, who believes this is helping consumers make their choices?
I fully expect an updated movie script where some lunatic sticks his head out the window at 2am and shouts, "I'm mad as hell and I don't want to listen to it anymore."
Whenever I see these I just open the door and let all the cold air out while I look and encourage anyone I'm with to do the same. The prices are still on the inside so we just comparison shop with the door open. Eventually they will realize they're losing money through cooling cost and replace these monstrosities.
Its pretty stupid with sports drinks, but I could see this being perhaps practical in a frozen food aisle. I often open the freezer, take out a product to read its nutritional facts, then put it back. I guess now I could just tap?
Just wait until the door can recognize your face. After you buy some milk, the screen will recommend you go down to isle 4 and grab some cereal and get 50cents off, only valid during that store visit.
[+] [-] burnt_toast|4 years ago|reply
Not wanting an overtly fancy contraption you pick a no frills unit that includes a touch screen along the side. A few hours later it arrives. Setting it up was almost as easy as your old one. Plug it in, enter your wi-fi password, and a credit card to start your free pro trial of the monthly subscription service that tweets at you when the toast is done. It says you can cancel at anytime but it requires a 5 day waiting period. It also requires access to your contacts.
Tired and just wanting your toast you agree. You insert two slices of white bread and press the big red GO button on the touch screen. An electrical motor whines from inside the toaster at it begins to retract the toast into itself. There's a few seconds of silence as the toaster slowly heat ups. While awkwardly standing there you notice the touch screen flickers and begins to display a buffering icon. An ad for I Can't Believe it's Not Butter begins to play. To make matters worse you can't even ignore it by looking away due to a small tinny sounding speaker playing the company's jingle.
This is your new morning routine.
Welcome to the future.
[+] [-] bcrosby95|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readams|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonhansel|4 years ago|reply
Then they let you customize the alarm noise, so that you can choose how to be alerted of the future house fire. Soon, companies get rich selling $3 "toaster fire ringtones."
Eventually, even after fire-less toasters are "invented," people prefer the old, "still catching on fire" ones, since "toasters have always worked that way."
[+] [-] apsurd|4 years ago|reply
All the while I couldn't help but want to share how good pan-fried/toasted bread is. It's the butter of course, just generously butter up a pan, spread the bread so it soaks up the butter. Takes a little longer, but you also get to feel like a cook.
and no ads
[+] [-] rapind|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biofox|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mLuby|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackay|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hedora|4 years ago|reply
Samsung fridges have machine vision systems to catalog their contents, then combine the data with data from samsung smart TVs. That way, they can be joined against your tv watching habits. This is all to better target ads.
If you disable it, then it breaks the demand response function on the fridge, indirectly killing polar bears and other living things.
They cost as much (or more) than non-connected versions.
[+] [-] 3np|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeformed|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enchiridion|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abakker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clan|4 years ago|reply
The obligatory Technology Connections link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
[+] [-] jchw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foxfired|4 years ago|reply
If this is any of the big chain groceries, the manager doesn't even have the authority to put a sticker on the glass door. This was vetted by hundreds of people and none of them thought... glass?
Business class tickets were purchased, hotels were booked, months of back and forth, daily meetings. Hundreds of thousands were spent on pilot programs like this one. Still no one thought... glass?
In my opinion, it's a silly idea. But I applaud the person who had this silly idea, built a company around it, got deals with screens, door, glass, and cameras manufacturing companies, and then convinced a grocery chain to buy this for their store.
I would really, really love to have been in that sales pitch meeting.
Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad.
[+] [-] nkrisc|4 years ago|reply
When the company that made these was analyzing their market, I have no doubt they were targeting this exact scenario knowing that even the stupidest products have a place to make a boring brick and mortar retailer think they’re doing technology.
[+] [-] lamp_book|4 years ago|reply
One day someone will be hunched over on a sidewalk, dying of thirst, and a patrolling Nestle®-branded drone senses (using state-of-the-art machine learning "customer needs" technology) his predicament. The drone hovers there projecting a holo-ad about Nestles hot product "Nectar of Life" which is just water from the region's last remaining aquifer cut with brackish water from the coast. The ad ends with a map to the nearest vending machine and buzzes off for it's next engagement. The man, too weak to move, just sits there, nothing he can do except wait for another ad drone to come by.
[+] [-] martincmartin|4 years ago|reply
Another student said: "You mean, a radio?"
[+] [-] fpgaminer|4 years ago|reply
If someone had taken this and put it in a museum as an art installation, I would love it. Thinking about it like that ... it tickles something in my brain. Using those absolutely huge, gorgeous screens, using our most sophisticated technology ... just to display a flat, bland, skeuomorphic representation of a completely mundane part of the human experience: the convenience store fridge section. I dunno, I'm finding it hard to describe what I feel thinking about this as a piece of "art". It would definitely make quite the statement. The size and scale of it is what takes it to another level.
But yeah, instead this is reality...
[+] [-] profmonocle|4 years ago|reply
It's a bit sad to think how wasteful these are. Not just the waste produced by producing the screens and powering them all day, but the fact that you can't reliably see what's in there by looking means people will just learn to open it and browse with the door open, letting the cold air out.
Edit: Also, does anyone know what the cameras are for, if not facial recognition or CCTV? I'm guessing it's eye tracking for market research. I suppose that could be anonymized and aggregated on-device in a privacy-preserving way, but you'd have to take their word for it.
[+] [-] tootie|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windmark|4 years ago|reply
* the second one is supposed to show the next stations and connections, except for when it doesn't and shows ads.. for many minutes at a time.
[+] [-] makeworld|4 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408566439833788423
[+] [-] Izkata|4 years ago|reply
Now that I know these exist, I kinda feel like being contrary and opening every single one to "look for" whatever it was I wanted.
[+] [-] robocat|4 years ago|reply
It's possible the whole display is specifically for market research. Play with product placement and see what increases sales for the most profitable items.
[+] [-] jordemort|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindslight|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 63|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PostOnce|4 years ago|reply
The bigger a tremendous fucking hassle it is to go to the store instead of ordering online, the fewer people are going to come in.
Supermarket window: "we now use anti-shoplifting face and license plate tracking" [e.g. auror.co ]
Supermarket aisle: can't see any products, have to open every door to look at actual products instead of TV ads
Supermarket aisle: e-ink price labels; can no longer flip up to see how much the thing cost before it was on "sale".
Supermarket aisle: e-ink label is down, no idea how much product costs
Supermarket checkout: always scans shit at the wrong price
Plus we've got covid, drive time, smaller selection, unknown stock levels [sold out].
Any old man could tell you giving a shit about your customers' experience is going to benefit you in the long run. But no. It'll be too late by the time they realize what they've done.
[+] [-] armchairhacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pydry|4 years ago|reply
What else would you do?
[+] [-] ergot_vacation|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yumraj|4 years ago|reply
I think this is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen. But to be honest, I won’t be surprised if this actually increases revenue since people are going to buy what they buy and it’s not like they will go to another store due to this.
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orbital-decay|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BrissyCoder|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedrogpimenta|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canadianfella|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] quicklime|4 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/RunDaltonRun/status/1408578486046887939
This thing is for tracking what you look at, and is supposed to help the store figure out how to "optimize" their shelf.
[+] [-] abakker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CPLX|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcstl|4 years ago|reply
This way, the shelf can always look full while needing less restocking.
[+] [-] makeitdouble|4 years ago|reply
I’m not in favor of more animated shinny ads shoved into our eyeballs, but we already had the screens everywhere and there already seemed to be no way to go back without town regulation.
If having them in front of a vending machine makes people go berserk, it might be a good thing, but it still blows my mind it’s the straw that would break the camel’s back.
[0] https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/177821885259694953/
[+] [-] cheese_van|4 years ago|reply
Is there anyone, anywhere, who believes this is helping consumers make their choices?
I fully expect an updated movie script where some lunatic sticks his head out the window at 2am and shouts, "I'm mad as hell and I don't want to listen to it anymore."
[+] [-] Larrikin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobquestion81|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryan0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfung|4 years ago|reply
^^^ the real play