Around here there are a variety of supermarket solutions. Morrisson’s for example near me has about a dozen cashier lines, usually 3 or so open unless there’s a rush. They have a self-checkout section like people are describing, with the small bagging area (about big enough to cage a toddler), maybe 10 of these. They also have a trolley self-checkout area, which is the same but has a bagging area big enough to cage a lioness.

M&S have cashiers, basket self-checkout, and a third scan-as-you-shop section, where you put things in your basket and scan them, and on your way out you put the scanner back and tap your phone and bag stuff, or if you’re using a trolley, just push it out to your car, whatever.

If I worked for a self-checkout manufacturing company I’d record myself saying “beep” as the beep. And “Ruh-roh” if it didn’t scan.

That’s not where it goes!

To be fair, this is how most things work. It’s amazing how many science stories get published in popular titles like “New Scientist” and sound believable, yet every time one’s appeared that’s on a subject I know well, it’s been terribly misrepresentative…

most firmware releases will be to fix something with the online service anyway. If it displays stuff coming down a wire from your PC when you buy it, it probably never needs an update.

If we ban people from “earning” over a certain amount, they’ll get round it through “gifts” or exchange in-kind or something, right? Same with ads. If we ban them, then product placement with plausible deniability will be rife, paid through essentially money-laundering methods, worse than it is now.

it’s not talking about tracking emotions from looking at the viewer, it’s tracking the emotions in the script of the thing they’re watching, so it knows what they like.

It’s just the addition of “AI”. We’ve been doing the same thing for a long time. I used to work for an advertising data company over a decade ago, and they filtered all the ads for one of the big channels’ streaming services in exactly the same way just with regular algorithms rather than AI. It’s what would make ads for men’s razors appear in the middle of a soap opera at 11PM because it knew the user was a man getting home from the pub.

Be civil, please. And ditch the body-shaming.

The big reveal comes when you realise the paths are in fact, relative.