It's actually from the 90s [1]. So much so that I thought it was one of the AT&T "You Will" commercials [2].

[1] http://digest.dx3canada.com/2015/05/12/retrofuture-ibms-1999...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo

Glad to know I wasn't alone in thinking it was an AT&T one...that's what I searched for first. Those were the 80s though, right?

1993. I had to look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Will

And David Fincher? Wow. No idea.

Came here to post this, as I immediately thought of IBM's ad while I was reading Amazon's bumf. I think I would trust IBM's RFID tags vastly more than Amazon's visual tracking.

I've been expecting that for years. RFID tags capable of being read without collisions were expensive back then and needed a battery. There were problems with reading many tags at once. Those problems have apparently been solved.[1]

I suspect that Amazon has RFID tags on everything in addition to the vision systems. There are existing backup vision systems for retail checkouts, such as LaneHawk. Most of the components for this already exist. Now it's here.

[1] http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/8475.pdf

"Sensor fusion" could very well imply that RFID could be within the picture.

Or even just a strain gauge weight detection on the shelf combined with computer vision.

I saw a fully working demo of this at IBM in 2010. It was fully RFID, plus E-Ink pricing labels on shelves so that prices/offers could be updated remotely.

I saw an article on the BBC this week, strange timing but maybe someone knew about the Amazon announcement: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38174011