Amazon kills the barcode and lets robots do your shopping for you

NEW developments from Amazon may result in the removal of the barcode when shipping products worldwide.

according to a press release by Amazon on December 9th, they have consistently had trouble with their robots and robotic arms that find barcodes on packages.

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There are several reasons for this, but it is most common with unusually shaped products or when the barcode on a package is simply difficult to find.

For this reason, the company has decided to pursue a plan to eliminate the barcode in order to get products to customers faster and more efficiently, per CNET.

Amazon is reportedly planning to do this via a camera system instead.

Instead of barcodes, they will use images of products in their warehouses and teach a computer model to use a camera system that can monitor the items on conveyors.

The system then ensures that the items match their images.

Amazon’s artificial intelligence experts and robot specialists will then combine the technology with robots to identify and reorder items for shipment.

According to Nontas Antonakos, applied science manager in Amazon’s computer vision group in Berlin, it’s about a faster process for the robots.

“Solving this problem so that robots can pick and process items without having to find and scan a barcode is fundamental,” noted Antonakos.

“It will help us deliver packages to customers faster and more accurately.”

Amazon has dubbed it multimodal identification, but it’s not going to completely replace barcodes anytime soon.

However, according to Amazon, it has been implemented in Barcelona, ​​​​Spain and Hamburg, Germany.

Amazon plans to spread the method across all of its businesses.

The most tedious part of the process of building the system for Amazon’s AI experts was creating a photo library with as many products as possible.

This library helped the earliest versions of the algorithm, and cameras are constantly taking new photos of items.

After the system launched with an accuracy of 75 to 80 percent, Amazon has claimed it’s now up to 99 percent.

The initial problem was that the system couldn’t distinguish certain colors, but Amazon’s experts quickly found a solution.

Going forward, Amazon said the next big problem will be adapting the camera system to detect products that are also handled by people in the company’s warehouses.

For related content, The US Sun has reported on a new breakthrough setting for Amazon’s Ring Doorbell.

The US Sun also has the story of an alert Amazon issued about a nasty text scam this holiday season.

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