Amazon Developing Driver Eyeglasses To Shave Seconds Off Deliveries (reuters.com) 62
Amazon is developing smart eyeglasses for delivery drivers to improve efficiency by offering turn-by-turn navigation. "Such directions could shave valuable seconds off each delivery by providing left or right directions off elevators and around obstacles such as gates or aggressive dogs," reports Reuters. "With millions of packages delivered daily, seconds add up. The glasses would also free drivers from using handheld Global Positioning System devices, allowing them to carry more packages." From the report: Amazon's delivery glasses, the people warned, could be shelved or delayed indefinitely if they do not work as envisioned, or for financial or other reasons. The sources said they may take years to perfect. "We are continuously innovating to create an even safer and better delivery experience for drivers," an Amazon spokesperson said, when asked about the driver eyeglasses. "We otherwise don't comment on our product roadmap." [...]
The delivery glasses in development build on Amazon's Echo Frames smart glasses, which allow users to listen to audio and use voice commands from Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, the people said. Known by the internal code name Amelia, the delivery glasses would rely on a small display on one of the lenses and could take photos of delivered packages as proof for customers, the sources said. Amazon released in September an unrelated chatbot for third-party sellers that is also known as Amelia. But the technology is still in development and Amazon has had trouble making a battery that can last a full eight-hour shift, and still be light enough to wear all day without causing fatigue, the people said. As well, gathering complete data on each house, sidewalk, street, curb and driveway could take years, they said.
Delivery drivers visit more than 100 customers per shift, Amazon has said. With increased efficiency, Amazon could ask drivers to ferry more packages and visit more homes. The Seattle company could face other obstacles, including convincing its thousands of drivers to use the eyeglasses, which may be uncomfortable, distracting or unsightly, the people said, not to mention the fact some drivers already wear corrective glasses. However, much of Amazon's delivery force consists of outside companies, meaning Amazon could make wearing the glasses a contractual requirement, the people said. [...] The embedded screen in development is also slated for a future generation of the Echo Frames that could be released as soon as 2026's second quarter, two of the people said.
The delivery glasses in development build on Amazon's Echo Frames smart glasses, which allow users to listen to audio and use voice commands from Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, the people said. Known by the internal code name Amelia, the delivery glasses would rely on a small display on one of the lenses and could take photos of delivered packages as proof for customers, the sources said. Amazon released in September an unrelated chatbot for third-party sellers that is also known as Amelia. But the technology is still in development and Amazon has had trouble making a battery that can last a full eight-hour shift, and still be light enough to wear all day without causing fatigue, the people said. As well, gathering complete data on each house, sidewalk, street, curb and driveway could take years, they said.
Delivery drivers visit more than 100 customers per shift, Amazon has said. With increased efficiency, Amazon could ask drivers to ferry more packages and visit more homes. The Seattle company could face other obstacles, including convincing its thousands of drivers to use the eyeglasses, which may be uncomfortable, distracting or unsightly, the people said, not to mention the fact some drivers already wear corrective glasses. However, much of Amazon's delivery force consists of outside companies, meaning Amazon could make wearing the glasses a contractual requirement, the people said. [...] The embedded screen in development is also slated for a future generation of the Echo Frames that could be released as soon as 2026's second quarter, two of the people said.
Manna (Score:5, Interesting)
The cart-mounted system that orders Amazon warehouse workers around was already the closest thing to Manna in real life, and now with AR glasses giving instructions to drivers this will be even closer:
https://marshallbrain.com/mann... [marshallbrain.com]
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It should be noted that
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Saving seconds could mean longer breaks (Score:3, Funny)
If enough time is saved it could mean longer breaks which would be valuable for workers and boost morale.
Re:Saving seconds could mean longer breaks (Score:4, Insightful)
If enough time is saved it could mean longer breaks
Do workers want longer breaks?
Or would they prefer to finish early so they can go home?
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>proles can leave early
lol, lmao even
the serfs will be squeezed to the maximum limit, if another drop of productivity blood came out all well and good but they get none of it
i say maximum but they're tuned even beyond than that, the "disposable" class is meant to burn out like an engine with no lube, why bother when there's more hungry plebs lined up to take their spot
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Re: Saving seconds could mean longer breaks (Score:2)
you missed the tag
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If enough time is saved it could mean longer breaks which would be valuable for workers and boost morale.
I'd mod that funny but my points just expired.
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You don't actually think that Amazon will give the drivers longer breaks, do you?
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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Time for the federal government to step in for workers' rights.
Won't fly...privacy concerns + probably illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
I honestly think they have the best of intentions. This sounds like a very useful technology were they able to get it right...a real-time flow of relevant contextual information helping the worker do their job and protecting them from accusations of misdelivered packages, property damage, or give evidence were a crime be committed against them.
However, you coming up to my porch recording every second?...I am normally chill about these things, but that creeps my out. You get an extra good view from the window next to my front door of my children playing...it's hard to see from the street, but super easy to see from my front door.
From a quick Google, this is very illegal in my state unless I give my full consent for you to come on my property and record...which...I won't....nor will many in my state.
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And how much is it going to cost the drivers? I can't see them giving the away for free.
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OK, so you want a perpetually recording camera being worn by Amazon delivery drivers as they walk onto people's property and ring their front doorbell or drop off a package? I don't even think that's legal.
In the US, it's totally legal. You can record anything you can see, even looking into windows from a place you are allowed to be. You are allowed to be in people's yards and on their doorsteps, unless there is a no-trespassing sign (and for ordinary yards, you may need a fence to go along with that). You can still record from the sidewalk though.
The only way to prevent this, and the suggested legal option, is to surround your property with a 7 foot tall solid wooden fence*, and put NO TRESPASSING signs on i
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Try taking a GoPro into any public bathroom and see what happens..
Expectation of privacy
Stand in my front yard with camera, filming my family without permission and see what the cops say when they arrive. Different states have vastly different laws about recording individuals without consent.
Depends on where you stand. If you stand in the right of way there is a good chance that the police cannot stop you.
You are allowed to be in people's yards and on their doorsteps, unless there is a no-trespassing sign.
Not everywhere. Stand in my front yard after I've asked you to leave and you risk being cited for trespassing. Delivering a package I've requested to be delivered? Allowed. Filming through my windows where I expect a reasonable level of privacy, and using that video for business purposes? Time to check with your lawyers.
True, but if someone is in the right of way they can legally film anything that is visible from there (see Google's Street view cars)
https://www.acludc.org/en/know... [acludc.org]
When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police.
Aaron Z
Re:Won't fly...privacy concerns + probably illegal (Score:4, Informative)
unless I give my full consent for you to come on my property and record...which...I won't....nor will many in my state.
Sure you will, it'll be in the EULA right next to "sell your information to marketers and buglers" and "give us your firstborn".
Re:Won't fly...privacy concerns + probably illegal (Score:4, Funny)
What would "buglers" do with this information? Early morning wake up call?
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I don't even think that's legal.
If it was Facebook and the like would be far different entities than they are today.
I honestly think they have the best of intentions.
They don't. If they did they would have stopped when the picker's list made it so they couldn't get a restroom break without being at risk of loosing their jobs. (And making every package and item they touch a biohazard in the process. Because if John Oliver got one thing right, it's that when faced with limited time in the restroom, people don't cut out the toilet part, they cut out the hand washing part.) Or when their d
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Easy fix. Don't order anything from Amazon.
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Hard to do when half of what I buy new on eBay comes with an Amazon gift receipt. Though at least I get Prime shipping for free.
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Once the Surveillance State gets wind of this, you can expect it to be mandatory for all delivery drivers... regardless of local laws.
maybe it'll whisper in their ear... (Score:1)
"time to get a union folks"
Seems like small potatoes (Score:5, Interesting)
Having turn-by-turn directions is nice, but you can get 90% of that same benefit simply by mounting an iPhone on the dashboard like every Uber driver already does.
If Amazon really wants to speed things up, they ought to come up with a mechanism by which the driver doesn't have to actually stop the truck and carry packages out of it. e.g. the driver drives down the street and bots spill out of the back carrying packages to each house. Once the driver has gone around the block, he circles back once and they all pile back in. The truck never even comes to a complete stop :)
Re: Seems like small potatoes (Score:2)
Driving directions from public roads is a solved problem, mostly covered by public roadmaps and crowdsourcing.
But last-twenty-feet directions for door delivery, avoiding common obstacles and delays like the examples they gave - this is the gate to get to the right apt, walk across street from aggressive dog... that's not solved and its not going to be solved with public data / crowdsourcing.
You could solve it by having employees with a predictable route and incentives to cover it more efficiently over time
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Just FYI, but Amazon already has turn-by-turn directions in their driver's app. Adding "last-mile" directions isn't going to help because the ultimate source of most complaints is either drivers ignoring customer instructions because Amazon overloaded them with stops and they have to take shortcuts to complete their route, or the customer gave impossible instructions which the driver tried to resolve in the best way possible but the customer was still pissed. There are few cases where turn-by-turn direction
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Having turn-by-turn directions is nice, but you can get 90% of that same benefit simply by mounting an iPhone on the dashboard like every Uber driver already does.
The article is not about driving directions, but the directions after they leave the car: "Such directions could shave valuable seconds off each delivery by providing left or right directions off elevators and around obstacles such as gates or aggressive dogs,"
Anyways, your idea - even if a bit futuristic - is very nice. But I think the truck would have to stop by the curb, or the bots would be a risk to the rest of the traffic. Just imagine driving behind one of this and suddenly swarms of bots spilling ou
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It would be cheaper and save even more time if Amazon simply told their drivers they had to run up to the door instead of walk. A basic health tracker can record that and would be good advertising: "Become a delivery driver and get a free health tracker!" and "Get paid to work out!"
so they makes them amazon employees even more (Score:2)
so they makes them amazon employees even more? With the rights to go union?
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Will the glasses offer direction on when and how to use the restroom, I wonder?
That's great, but do you know what I would prefer? (Score:2, Interesting)
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And are you just complaining about that online or did you actually file a complaint with your local government?
Why not catheters and colostomy bags? (Score:2)
Imagine how many seconds they could save if drivers were plugged into a system which would eliminate the need for bathroom breaks - both number one and two?
As a bonus, Jeff could harvest valuable trace minerals from drivers' shit and piss. Waste none want none.
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Amazon vs UPS et al (Score:5, Interesting)
On my street, it is easy to observe the delivery trucks and drivers. Your experience or observations may differ from mine, but in my neighborhood, this is what I see:
When UPS comes, the driver stops at the curb, gets up, turns around to look inside the truck, grabs a package, gets off the truck and takes it to the house front door, then gets back in truck and drives off. It seems about as efficient and free of time-waste as one could make it. (Discounting new technologies, such as the clever idea suggested by Jeremi in post, "Seems like small potatoes".)
FedEx - they seem to make their rounds at times of the day I am usually not home, so I see them less, but when I do, they seem to operate same as UPS - quick, no fuss, know what they are doing.
In contrast - Amazon - not so much.
If I am tracking the truck route on their web page, I always wonder why it seems to take so long to get to my place once they are in my neighborhood. Then, when they get to my place, I can watch their operation, and it just seems wrong. The driver sits in the vehicle for awhile, seemingly looking up or entering data. Then he/she goes into the truck, and often I see them rummaging around, not sure where the package is, or having to pull aside others in front of it. Then, after making the drop, they seem to sit and enter more data. All of this from the high-tech computer data company.
Maybe things are different in your neighborhood. Maybe there is a difference between Amazon employees and contract drivers (and no, I do not fully understand how their system works in that regard or who is driving). What I do understand is that their deliveries, last mile or last 50 feet, seem much less efficient on the truck than UPS and others.
Throwing more tech at the problem isn't going to fix those problems. Throwing less tech and more brains would fix those inefficiencies.
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I can watch their operation, and it just seems wrong. The driver sits in the vehicle for awhile, seemingly looking up or entering data. Then he/she goes into the truck [...] Then, after making the drop, they seem to sit and enter more data.
They are ordering on the McDonalds app, and after that long walk back 50 feet from your door, they are adding a baked apple pie. (The other thing is: McDonalds is where most gig drivers use the restroom.)
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If they're sitting there looking at their phone, it's one of two things: Either they're goofing off, or they're in a neighborhood with next to no reception and hence when they hit "I've arrived" on their app it pauses and churns endlessly while trying to communicate this fact, blocking them from moving on to the next screen where they can see and scan what packages they need.
When they're rummaging about that can be one of two things: Either they're grossly overloaded with packages so everything is out of
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Maybe things are different in your neighborhood.
To be fair, UPS and FedEx often deliver to homes on my block much as you say. The Amazon guy however is more like the mail guy, he goes to another nearby house then comes to me then goes to my neighbor then drives a couple hundred feet and gets out to do a few more houses. Some days I don't see UPS or FedEx but Amazon goes down this street every.single.day.
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When I lived in a neighborhood with single family homes on one side of the street, and townhouse and apartment blocks on the other, near Christmas time, UPS would have a second handler on the truck alongside the driver. They would park the truck on the street, load hand trucks with a number of packages, and walk these from the truck into the multifamily blocks.
I also have observed the mysterious Amazon van dwell times. Some cases, looking at the live page, might be in congested multifamily blocks, of whic
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Also, observationally, the most beaten up delivery vans in my area are the Amazon ones. Those guys drive into a lot of shit.
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I used to deliver for UPS. Their efficiencies are mostly gained through pre-load arrangement. The people loading the truck know where the address breaks are on a driver's route and will load the packages accordingly within the truck so the driver sweeps the shelves in a continuous direction per side. Around the time that I left UPS they were automating this function with QR code labels (early 2000s).
The efficiencies these glasses are squeezing out are much less, but that isn't to say that UPS doesn't care a
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Throwing less tech and more brains would fix those inefficiencies.
LOL. You expect nepo-babies to think? Nah, they will try to tech their way out of this.
Meanwhile... (Score:1)
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Amazon will contimue to raise the price of Prime
They have, they can, and they will. After all, they own The Rings Of Power. And they have to pay for it somehow.
Resistance is futile (Score:2)
The common delivery problem is them dropping the package at the wrong address. They do this everywhere I have lived (in suburbs), especially at multi-unit townhouse places. They will drop packages randomly at the wrong houses, even though the house number is in big numbers above the door, lit up. Often on the wrong nearby (intersecting) street.
I assume it's because the driver's GPS took them to the wrong house. But rather than noticing the house number is incorrect, they toss the package on the porch and ru
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You can really see the skill gap between institutional training structures like UPS drivers and 1099 freelance drivers. Especially in multi-tenant buildings in metro locations. The 1099 driver apparently doesn't have access to the institutional knowledge about where or how to use loading docks or who receives packages for what orgs.
We have had Amazon drivers take a picture of our package in the weirdest places and we are left trying to contextualize the location based on clues in the blurry image background
Drone based Delivery? (Score:1)
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Call me silly... (Score:2)
I think the best thing Amazon could do is to realize their employees are humans and not robots and treat them to, I don't know, stupid things like bathroom breaks and protection from the heat. Or go whole hawg, eliminate humans from their workforce, go all robotic. Sure seems to be working at the post office and driverless cars, right? (sarcasm tag for thems as needs it.)
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That was more or less my thought. This idea seems to come right out of MBA-itis. Humans are not robots. Squeezing every last drop of hysteresis out of the system regardless of what it does to the human in that system is dystopian. Maybe we could have a similar system for MBAs. I would monitor their every movement and thought so that it all must be devoted to coming up with new brain-dead ideas.
Legal? (Score:1)
Redistributable Time Savings? (Score:2)
They'll finally find the right house? (Score:3)
Now if the glasses would make them actually READ the instructions ON the parcel on WHERE to deposit it instead of the doorstep, that would be great.
"Contractual Requirement" (Score:2)
meaning Amazon could make wearing the glasses a contractual requirement
So, in other words, I have to fire anyone who wears corrective lenses, or not be able to get this contract?