Your days of scanning avocados through the self-serve checkout as onions are number, folks, thanks to some new technology developed right here in Australia.
Created by a startup called Tiliter Technology, the automated product recognition system could well put an end to your petty theft. Rather than allowing customers to select the fruit or vegetable they’re purchasing, the system picks it up itself.
“It’s based on machine learning and artificial intelligence which has been taught to recognise different types of fruit and other products,” co-founder Chris Sampson told News.com.au. “The big value for supermarkets is removing the significant loss seen from people entering the wrong information when using self-service checkouts.”
“However, customers will also benefit by not needing to search through menus trying to identify the items they are purchasing.”
And it’s apparently pretty good at differentiating between products, even if they’re different variations of the same thing, like, say, red and green apples. The new checkouts could even mean the end for barcodes.
“Our tech is different from some of the stuff we have seen struggle in the past because it can tell the difference between a red delicious and royal gala apple for example,” Sampson said.
The tech’s already being tested in a number of independent grocers, with it expected to move into the big-name grocers as well. In fact, Tiliter is already in talks with Coles and Woolworths.
Given that this kind of theft costs retailers billions of dollars every year, it was only a matter of time before they clamped down on the issue. Now that computers have gotten really fucking good at recognising shit, it seems like a fitting solution.
Looks like you’ll be paying full price for everything pretty soon, pals.
