Quote: Original post by benryves
How are those self-checkout machines viewed in Australia? They don't seem especially popular over here; I find them irritating, erratic and far slower than just queuing up to be served by a human being.

See, I really like them.
Local supermarket got them installed recently and I can get throught them faster and with less hastle than waiting for someone else to scan the items for me.

In fact the reason I much prefer them is because unlike the monkeys who are paid to do the work I have a basic grasp of how to pack a bag; so instead of them scanning items in such a way that I have to wait for certain items to be scanned before I can start bagging them.

For example; a basket containing 2 pizzas, some milk, some bread, a pre-made salad, some meat (in a flat packet), some cheese and a box with some kind of cream cake in it.

Now, bags are taller and wider than they are deep, therefore logically the first item which should be scanned and passed across as the pizza boxes as they provide a strong 'back point' for everything to be packed against. But no, the till monkey doesn't even consider it for a moment and starts with the soft bread, often followed up by the cream cake box and then by the milk...

So, yeah, I for one am glad that I can scan and pack my own bags in my own order because those being paid todo it have no clue at all.

Grocery store self-checkout machines? Man, the ultimate killer of low wage jobs. We don't have that here, thank goodness. Did they sell that change to you with promises of improvement and/or progress? Self-check out machines empower you!

Some grocery stores over here allow you to bag your own groceries. Some will still bag them for you. None of them allow you to scan the items you've selected. The stores don't trust their customers that much.

At any rate, as far as "magic key cards" go, we're not at "Minority Report" just yet, but we're getting there. I came across this last week: Why Minority Report was spot on.

We've got the scan and bag your own with the 15 items or less line in Indiana. There are typically about 6 stations, with a single employee keeping a watchful eye.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Grocery store self-checkout machines? Man, the ultimate killer of low wage jobs. We don't have that here

I don't know if you meant the USA when you said "here", but we've got these in the Chicago area.

The "I'm faster than the regular human clerk and bagger" advantage (who can actually sometimes be quite fast) can be offset by waiting in line behind self-checkout shoppers who are at least as slow as the pros.

They have them in Southern California (Albertsons and KMart are examples) but it seems rare. Berwyn, I've encountered the reverse as well, with people who are intimidated or don't yet want to try the self-checkout machines often leaving it open to those who would rather not wait in line for the cashier. Though if the line is roughly equal, I still prefer the latter as I've had the machines give me minor trouble before.

Quote: Original post by BerwynIrish
I don't know if you meant the USA when you said "here", but we've got these in the Chicago area.

The "I'm faster than the regular human clerk and bagger" advantage (who can actually sometimes be quite fast) can be offset by waiting in line behind self-checkout shoppers who are at least as slow as the pros.

I find the major benefit is that the majority of people usually use the human clerks. As most self-checkout lanes are restricted to 20 items or less, and stores seem to be employing less and less human clerks, I would much rather scan my 5 items and leave than wait for the 3 people with a 4 person family's worth of food for the next month.

They're also pretty fast if you know what you're doing. One or two times through and you can go quite quickly.

They've got the self-checkout lines on the East Coast and Greater Midwest-South Region. I'm surprised they don't have them in California of all places. Don't worry. They're buggy enough (I figure on purpose) to not replace all human cashiers.

The Cloud is becoming a scary place. Especially when places like Google are getting hacked!

Quote: Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
The Cloud is becoming a scary place. Especially when places like Google are getting hacked!

A few weeks ago, I was buying something online. One of the offered payment options was Google Checkout. "Hmm" I thought, "never used that, let's give it a try". So I enter my gmail account and sweet monkey jesus, it already knows my credit card details!

How does google know this? I'm 99.99% sure I've never entered those details in any google service and I don't even use my gmail account as my primary email. Did Apple/Valve/Amazon/Paypal tell them? Several of my friends had the same experience. It really is a little unnerving.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
So I enter my gmail account and sweet monkey jesus, it already knows my credit card details!

How does google know this? I'm 99.99% sure I've never entered those details in any google service and I don't even use my gmail account as my primary email. Did Apple/Valve/Amazon/Paypal tell them? Several of my friends had the same experience. It really is a little unnerving.

If NZ has only remotely similar laws as EU, you can write a letter to Google NZ and challenge them where they have that data from and who they passed it on to. And, if your laws are only remotely similar, passing on personal data without explicit consent is against the law.

Quote: Original post by alnite
Man. I was expecting a story of how some abominous wormhole opened up right before your eyes and a hand - preferably the hand of a cyborg - reached out, slapped you in the face, stole your wallet, and vanished into thin air. Then you came here to assemble an army of nerds to build a time machine in order to reclaim the stolen wallet from the future.

I am disappointed.

Me too. We should make a comunitary story writting on this... "My wallet is in the future" lol