Driverless cars are here to stay!

I have always owned a manual transmission car, until recently.  I switched to an automatic recently and have not looked back.  Once a while I do get the itch to drive a manual transmission, and that is when I switch to the manual mode in my Steptronic transmission and hit the winding mountainous roads of Pacific North West.

The Steptronic is incredibly quick and smooth in shifting (thanks to the paddle shifters) as well as forgiving on inexperienced drivers.  Even with this clutchless manual transmission experience I cannot shift at the right RPMs as does the automatic transmission.  I know the main reason to shift to manual is to rev up the engine before shifts so you can feel the power and have complete control over it.  After some fun time, I get back into the Auto mode so I don't have to think anymore. 

That is when I realized how dependent we are on the automatic transmissions.  In the early days of the auto transmission, it was still clunky in shifting and you could feel the jerk and it did not always shift at the right RPM.  But, with technological advances the awkwardness is gone and nobody ever realizes that gears are shifting underneath (unless if you keep any eye on the tachometer).  Today's auto transmissions are so smooth, quick and efficient that it is better than a human shifting gears.  Some times during my travel to Europe I rent manual transmissions for the fun of it.  Even for an experienced driver, the modern cars instruct when to up or down shift if there is a slight delay in shifting. 

Similar to the early auto transmissions, the driverless car is going through its growth period.  Soon, the time will come when we realize that they are much more efficient than us and we will accept them as the better drivers.  I know the driverless cars are much more complex than a transmission, but the journey to maturity is still similar.  With technological advances and inexpensive compute power, the day will arrive sooner than later.

Amazon Go Store experience

Living in Seattle, I had to go and experience the Amazon Go store.  It is an awesome concept.  When everyone was thinking of self scanning shopping carts and RFID tags and such, Amazon went for the moonshot of completely getting rid of the checkout process and they have nailed it.

You enter through the turnstile by scanning your QR code in the Amazon Go app.  This code identifies you and the store lets you in.

Once inside, you can freely pick up anything and stuff it in your shopping bag.  Cameras in the ceiling (there are a ton of them.  Look at the picture below) are used to recognize you and your activity.

Every item had a large bar code that is read by the camera (I assume) when the item is picked up by the user.  The system is smart enough to recognize if you put something back.  I tried to take a few items and put some back, and take them out again, and it worked flawlessly.

Once you are done with your shopping, you just walk out of the store through the turnstile you entered through.  It is as simple as that.

On a subsequent visit I noticed another nuance that is purely Seattle.  I had enthusiastically bought a lot of stuff in my previous visit and wanted to return a few items.  I walked into the store and asked the employee at the front door.  BTW, this employee is positioned at the front door to help new comers use the app to get into the store, or allow visitors (without the app) into the store.  To my surprise, he said that the Amazon Go store does not accept returns.

What?  I was flabbergasted.

Then, he corrected himself and told me that I could "return" anything on the app and I get money back instantaneously, BUT, the store does not take back any items.  He told me that if I didn't want the items, I could give it away to a friend or someone.  The store is completely trust based.  This seemed weird since the items I was returning were fully sealed packages.  Still, I left the store with a good feeling, looking for a homeless person to give the packages to.  All in all, a great experience.

The store is small and carries a few categories of groceries, lots of packaged meals and drinks.  They have an onsite kitchen to make the packaged meals.  But, the same concept could be extended to all kinds of stores.

The future of grocery shopping has arrived!