Technologies

Here’s Why Amazon Wants To Kill the Barcode

Barcodes work well for people, but not robots.

Robots may be the future, but robotic arms are apparently no good at using the good ol’ barcode. Barcodes can be hard to find and can be affixed to oddly shaped products, something robots can’t troubleshoot very well.

As a result, Amazon said Friday that it has a plan to kill the barcode.

Using pictures of items in Amazon warehouses to train a computer model, the e-commerce giant has developed a camera system that can monitor items flowing one-by-one down conveyor belts to make sure they match their images. Eventually, Amazon’s AI experts and roboticists want to combine the technology with robots that identify items while picking them up and turning them around.

«Solving this problem, so robots can pick up items and process them without needing to find and scan a barcode, is fundamental,» said Nontas Antonakos, an applied science manager in Amazon’s computer vision group in Berlin. «It will help us get packages to customers more quickly and accurately.»

The system, called multi-modal identification, isn’t going to fully replace barcodes soon. Products in Amazon warehouses will need to have barcodes as long as outside companies that make and ship them rely on the technology to identify and track stock. Amazon’s new system is currently in use in facilities in Barcelona, Spain, and Hamburg, Germany, the company said, adding that it’s already speeding up the time it takes to process packages there. The technology will be shared across Amazon’s businesses, so it’s possible you could one day see a version of it at a Whole Foods or another Amazon-owned chain with in-person stores.

Amazon has built computer vision into other products. You can ask an Echo Show smart display, «Alexa, what am I holding?» to get help recognizing objects around the house. The feature is called Show and Tell and was designed with vision impaired people in mind. Smart phone makers and social media companies have also included AI features in camera and photo apps, categorizing photos automatically, for example.

The problem that the system eliminates — incorrect items coming down the line to be sent to customers — doesn’t happen too often, Amazon says. But even infrequent mistakes add up to significant slowdowns when considering just how many items a single warehouse processes in one day.

Amazon’s AI experts had to start by building up a library of images of products, something the company hadn’t had a reason to create prior to this project. The images themselves as well as data about the products’ dimensions fed the earliest versions of the algorithm, and the cameras continually capture new images of items to train the model with.

The algorithm’s accuracy rate was between 75% and 80% when first used, which Amazon considered a promising start. The company says the accuracy is now at 99%. The system faced an initial hiccup when it failed to catch color differences. During a Prime Day promotion, the system couldn’t distinguish between two different colors of Echo Dots. The only difference between the packages was a small dot that was either blue or gray. With some retooling, the identification system can now assign confidence scores to its ratings that only flag items it’s very sure are incorrect.

Amazon’s AI team says it will be a challenge to fine-tune the multi-modal identification system to assess products that are being handled by people, which is why the ultimate goal is to have robots handle them instead.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 14, #948

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 14 #948.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough. The blue category, not the purple one today, expects you to find hidden words in four of the words given in the grid. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: That’s not going anywhere.

Green group hint: End user or customer.

Blue group hint: Ask a meteorologist.

Purple group hint: Not noisy.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Fixed.

Green group: Receiver of goods or services.

Blue group: Starting with weather conditions.

Purple group: Silent ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is fixed. The four answers are fast, firm, secure and tight.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is receiver of goods or services. The four answers are account, client, consumer and user.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is starting with weather conditions. The four answers are frosty (frost), mistletoe (mist), rainmaker (rain) and snowman (snow).

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is silent ____. The four answers are auction, movie, partner and treatment.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Jan. 14, #1670

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Jan. 14, No. 1,670.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is a tough one, with a letter that is rarely used and which I just never guess. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has three vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with A.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with D.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can mean to keep away from something or someone.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is AVOID.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Jan. 13, No. 1669 was GUMBO.

Recent Wordle answers

Jan. 9, No. 1665: EIGHT

Jan. 10, No. 1666: MANIC

Jan. 11, No. 1667: QUARK

Jan. 12, No. 1668: TRIAL

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Apple Launches Creator Studio Package as $13 a Month Subscription

Mac users can still buy the apps individually, but subscribers get access to Final Cut Pro and other Studio tools.

Apple is bundling its pro filmmaking and audio tools including Final Cut Pro with its productivity apps Keynote, Pages and Numbers into a subscription software suite called Apple Creator Studio.

The package, which includes apps for Mac, iPad and iPhone, includes Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage and the whiteboard app Freeform. Creator Studio will be available starting Jan. 28 at a cost of $13 per month or $129 per year, or $3 per month or $30 per year for students and educators. Mac users will still have the option to purchase software like Final Cut Pro for a one-time free. The current price for Final Cut Pro in the Mac App Store is $300.

While apps such as Keynote and Pages are already free on Apple platforms, it appears that new versions of those apps will receive access to beta features that will roll out first to Creator Studio subscribers. The announcement by Apple alludes to «new AI features and premium content» in some of the apps it otherwise makes available to use for free.

What the Creator Studio bundle comes with

The star of the show in Creator Studio is Final Cut Pro, the video editing software that will now include Transcript Search on both Mac and iPad. There is also a new Beat Detection feature Apple says uses an AI model to analyze a music track and display a beat grid, making it easier to cut video to music rhythms. The software also will include a new Montage Maker on iPad for quick social video creation.

Motion, the 2D and 3D graphics tool, and Compressor also integrate with Final Cut Pro. Apple touted Motion’s Magnetic Mask feature for isolating objects or people without the need for a green screen.

Logic Pro has new features for musicians, including a Synth Player addition to AI Session Players. Chord ID, a new AI feature, can create chord progressions from audio or MIDI recordings. A new Sound Library will have hundreds of royalty-free clips, samples and loops.

A revamped MainStage app gives subscribers access to instrument, voice-professing and guitar rig tools. Pixelmator Pro arrives with new tools and filters, and there will be an iPad version in addition to the Mac tool.

Freeform in the Creator Studio package will add premium content, including curated photos, graphics and illustrations. It will also get new AI features that include image creation.