Cash register-free Amazon supermarket still not open

Amazon’s cash register-free supermarket, Amazon Go, still has not opened to the general public and now one of its directors will leave Amazon.

Planned launch in March

Director Bali Raghaven, who has worked for Amazon for twelve years, will head to real estate start-up Opendoor, to take up a position as vice-president engineering. He was apparently head of the team that had to integrate Amazon Go’s sensors and artificial intelligence.

Amazon Go was revealed late last year and Amazon said it would “trial the formula with its own employees for several months”, to fix any problem that appeared. The goal was to open the store to the general public late March, but the company was forced to delay the launch. The store could not handle customers placing items on the wrong shelves and also struggled when a lot of customers were present in the store.

Ever since, Amazon Go slipped into the background and the company also refuses to communicate about its possible launch date. It seems the technology is not ready for a large-scale launch and that the people working for recent acquisition Whole Foods will not be out of a job just yet.