Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
 
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"Applied Complexity" at its best? http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/18/amazon-pre-ships/?ncid=tcdaily TJ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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Machine Learning- I do have to wonder what safty nets they have- For example find something cheeper, or don't need it.On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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In reply to this post by Tom Johnson
On 1/18/14, 11:07 AM, Tom Johnson
wrote:
I can think of various analogues to this in computer science. One is profile guided optimization, where instrumentation is added to a code so that it records where it has been. Then those records are used to guide refinement of the compilation of the code so that it anticipates where it is likely to go. For example, prefetching data, or setting branch probability hints in the code. This is in some sense Amazon prefetching their deliveries so that they will be in cache (near the likely buyer) should the buyer actually ask for them. Some advanced database systems (or just database administrators) do the same thing for large systems -- looking at who tends to use certain tables, and making sure those users are near their data. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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This looks awfully like the traditional model of shipping from a
warehouse to a local store/cache with it's own delivery service.
The local store/cache carries oft purchased items in its market
while less common orders will be back ordered. May be I'm missing
something. Patent denied!
Robert C On 1/18/14 11:51 AM, Marcus G. Daniels
wrote:
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Re: Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
What really burns my ass is that I had
a series of e-mail convos with Bezos in the earliest days that
could have lead them near here nearly 20 years ago? He engaged
enough to convince me he took me seriously, but in the end... not
so much.
At the time, I was trying to rescue an independent bookstore from the inevitable demise of the times and suggested (while Amazon was still *mostly* books) that if he could get in bed with existing *indies* (books or otherwise), they could act as a *cache* for AMZ... that instead of saying "ship it overnight for $8.99", or more to the point, in complement to that offer... "Or for the same $8.99, drop in at XYZ store at 123 ABC street and pick up your copy right now!" The indies were scared (and rightly so) of online shopping, and too many locked their brakes and went into a four wheel skid over the cliff when some *very* judicious application of brake, gas, steering might have let more stay upright. Sure, the indies would have to depend more on impulse buys, people coming in to pick up their heavily discounted copy of "whatever", but then that cup of coffee, that greeting card, that photo calendar, that fancy box of paper clips... *that* is what they'd have stayed alive with, and the *rest* of us would still have places to go in and browse, maybe see things juxtaposed we never knew we wanted to read. Netflix got an early handle on things with their USPS deal to get notified when a DVD was mailed back... and then have caches in nearby cities (ABQ for us?) so that when I send something you are waiting for back, it never goes further than ABQ to get to you. I am also left thinking of "memoisation" in CS.. though it is not a perfect fit. When at Powells in Portland, they had a Print and Bind on Demand system, I think they were mainly offering works from Project Gutenberg (Copyright free, cost of printing only) but maybe some others. It is an idea that would have been powerful 20 years ago... but... I'm afraid with eBooks today it may be no more than an eclectic Anachronism.
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Re: Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch
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No, that's silly. A certain [large] subset of people nowadays are *always* saying how they often prefer physical books because of the feel, the smell, the weight. Often it is the same people who use ebooks, suggesting they serve different use cases.
As the digital world encompasses more of our life, it is important we be able to easily transition back and forth between physical to semantic objects - in the case of books, that includes not only quickly and nondestructively digitizing them, but also taking volume printing from the purview of publishers strictly, to individuals (as has been the case for small-volume prints).
The Espresso Book Machine has caused a lot of discussion, but it is limited by a proprietary library (although if you want to work at hand-formatting, you can use public domain texts), a high cost, and low book quality (it is just intended so that university libraries and such can have copies of out-of-print books, after all).
It is hard to put lots of well-formatted words on lots of well-bound sheets of paper quickly, a nontrivial problem. However, if individual presses become the next big thing like 3D printers are now, I think innovation could find a way. Already high speed scanning is being worked on by hobbyists: DIY. And it is not like small presses have not existed for hundreds of years (there is one in the Eldorado library), they are just not automated.
-Arlo James Barnes
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