WORLD SCHOLAR’S CUP 2024 CURRICULUM

“Reimagining the Present”

STUDY PACKET #1

Introductory Questions
● Would your life be more different if you had been born in the same place
30 years ago, or in another country 3000 kilometers away?

● The “now” is a single moment in time, but the past is very large. Should
we spend more time learning about the parts of the past that affect us
today?

● How should we divide the past into smaller units when we think about it?

● What historical dates are worth remembering in specific detail, and which
ones are best left vague?

● The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin once wrote that “there are decades
where nothing happens; and there are weeks in which decades happen.”
If so, do you think people are aware of the kind of time they are living in—
and what kind of time are we living in now?

● Has the Internet affected how quickly history happens? How about how
quickly the present becomes history?

● Does it matter how the world came to be what it is, or should we focus
more on what it is right now? In other words, does the past matter, or
would we be better off pretending it never happened?

● If you wanted to learn about a time in the past, would you rather read a
book, visit a museum, watch a documentary, chat with an AI
reconstruction of someone alive back then, or explore an old
architectural site?

● How much will global climate change require us to rethink everyday

institutions such as schools and workplaces?
 ● Are there are other developments—other than an alien invasion—that
might have impacts on the same scale?

● The phrase “there's no time like the present” is usually meant as a

counter to procrastination. Do something now, not later. Finish this
outline today, not in 2025. Taking it more literally, however: is the present
really a unique point in history? If so, does it make it harder for us to
understand what the past was like?

● “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it” is a phrase
those who study history like to repeat, but is it possible that those who
do study history are doomed to absorb the things we like least about it?
Put another way: does knowing more about the past limit or enhance our
ability to reimagine the present?

SECTION 1 - Lost and Font

● If you walked out of your home without knowing you’d accidentally time
traveled into the past, how long would it take you to realize what had
happened? What if they had sent you back ten years, or thirty, or a
hundred? Discuss with your team: how far into the past would you need
to be to realize instantly that you were in a different era?

● One clue to your whenabouts might be the text around you: not just the
headlines on newspapers and store signs, but the fonts they’re printed in.
Consider some of the history of typography [1], then discuss with your
team: how different would the world look today if Microsoft had chosen
Comic Sans instead of Calibri as its default typeface in the early 2000s—
or as its successor [2] 20 years later. The London Underground also
decided to update its font [3] in 2016 for a more modern look—did it
succeed? Be sure to learn the difference between serif and sans serif
fonts, and then see which ones are used more widely. Does the same
distinction apply in non-Western alphabets?

● Recently, the United States Department of State changed its own

default font [4] from Times New Roman to Calibri—20 years after first
switching from Courier to Times New Roman. Each move sparked at least
36 points of controversy. Discuss with your team: should governments
even have standardized fonts? If so, how should they pick them, and
when should they change them?
 ● If all these fonts confuse you—or you just want to check whether a
document (such as an alternative World Scholar’s Cup outline) is a
forgery—you could always hire a forensic font expert [5]. Read about
the kind of work such experts do, then discuss with your team: should
some fonts be reserved for exclusive use by AIs and others for humans?

● Time travelers often struggle to pay for things; their currency has a
cancelled Marvel actor’s face on it, or they don’t know what money is, or
they can’t make the self-checkout machines work. (Then again, can
anyone? [6]) If you found yourself at a supermarket in 1963, you
wouldn’t have been able to pay for anything at all until the clerk typed in
the price of every item you wanted to buy, one at a time. Doing so quickly
was a coveted skill: there was even a competition with prizes like free
trips to Hawaii. The adoption of the barcode [7] in the 1960s was a
buzzkill for such price-inputting savants. Discuss with your team: what
other technologies do we take for granted when we’re at stores or
shopping online? And do you support efforts to reimagine in-person
shopping without any form of checkout at all [8]?

● Just as barcodes transformed checkout, QR codes have changed many

other everyday experiences, from debate tree distribution (sometimes) to
accessing restaurant menus. But a change that seemed inevitable during
the pandemic has run into resistance [9] since. Discuss with your team:
is this pushback a classic example of society resisting technological
progress, only to eventually succumb? Are there any technologies that
were supposed to change the world which were rejected and stayed
rejected?

Key Concepts:

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written

language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of
type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter
spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also
applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers,
and symbols created by the process.

Typography with movable type was invented during the eleventh-century Song
dynasty in China by Bi Sheng (990–1051). His movable type system was
manufactured from ceramic materials, and clay type printing continued to be
practiced in China until the Qing dynasty.
Wang Zhen was one of the pioneers of wooden movable type. Metal movable
type was first invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, approximately 1230.
The diffusion of both movable-type systems was limited and the technology did
not spread beyond East and Central Asia, however.

Modern lead-based movable type, along with the mechanical printing press, is
most often attributed to the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg in 1439. Gutenberg
developed specialized techniques for casting and combining cheap copies of
letter punches in the vast quantities required to print multiple copies of texts.
This technical breakthrough was instrumental in starting the Printing Revolution
and the first book printed with lead-based movable type was the Gutenberg
Bible.

Rapidly advancing technology revolutionized typography in the latter twentieth

century. During the mid-1980s personal computers allowed type designers to
create typefaces digitally using commercial graphic design software such as
Fontographer. Designs for typefaces could be created faster with the new
technology, and for more specific functions. The cost for developing typefaces
was drastically lowered, becoming widely available to the masses. The change has
been called the "democratization of type" and has given new designers more
opportunities to enter the field.

Three fundamental aspects of typography are legibility, readability, and

aesthetics. Legibility describes how easily individual characters can be
distinguished from one another. Readability refers to how easy it is to read the
text as a whole, as opposed to the individual character recognition described by
legibility.

Typography has long been a vital part of promotional material and advertising.
Designers often use typefaces to set a theme and mood in an advertisement.
Today, typography in advertising often reflects a company's brand.

Serif vs. Sans-Serif

In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a

larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts.

A sans-serif is a letter or symbol that does not have extending features called
"serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces are often used to convey
simplicity and modernity or minimalism. Sans-serif typefaces have become
the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens.
Letters without serifs have been common in writing across history. However,
Roman square capitals, the inspiration for much Latin-alphabet lettering
throughout history, had prominent serifs. While simple sans-serif letters have
always been common in "uncultured" writing such as basic handwriting, most
artistically-authored letters in the Latin alphabet, both sculpted and printed,
since the Middle Ages have been inspired by fine calligraphy, blackletter writing
and Roman square capitals. As a result, printing done in the Latin alphabet for
the first 350 years of printing was "serif" in style.

In the Chinese and Japanese writing systems, there are common type styles
based on the regular script for Chinese characters akin to serif and sans serif
fonts in the West. In Mainland China, the most popular category of serifed-like
typefaces for body text is called Song; in Japan, the most popular serif style is
called Minchō; and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it is called Ming. The names of
these lettering styles come from the Song and Ming dynasties, when block
printing flourished in China.
Barcodes

A barcode is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form.

Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of
parallel lines. These barcodes can be scanned by special optical scanners,
called barcode readers.

Later, two-dimensional (2D) variants were developed, using rectangles, dots,

hexagons and other patterns, called 2D barcodes or matrix codes, although
they do not use bars as such. Matrix codes can also be read by a digital camera
connected to a microcomputer running software that takes a photographic image
of the barcode and analyzes the image to deconstruct and decode the code. A
mobile device with a built-in camera, such as a smartphone, can function as the
latter type of barcode reader .

The barcode was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and
patented in the US in 1952. The invention was based on Morse code that was
extended to thin and thick bars. Barcodes became commercially successful
when they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems.

QR Codes

A QR code (quick-response code) is a type of two-dimensional matrix

barcode, invented in 1994, by Japanese company Denso Wave for labelling
automobile parts. A QR code consists of black squares arranged in a square grid
on a white background, which can be read by an imaging device, such as a
camera.
Whereas a barcode is a machine-readable optical image that contains
information specific to the labelled item, the QR code contains the data for a
locator, an identifier, and for web-tracking. Compared to standard UPC barcodes,
the QR labelling system was applied beyond the automobile industry because of
faster reading of the optical image and greater data-storage capacity

Technophobia

Technophobia is the fear or dislike of advanced technology or complex

devices, especially personal computers, smartphones, and tablet computers.
First receiving widespread notice during the Industrial Revolution, technophobia
has been observed to affect various societies and communities throughout the
world. This has caused some groups to take stances against some modern
technological developments in order to preserve their ideologies.

Technophobia began to gain attention as a movement in England with the dawn

of the Industrial Revolution. With the development of new machines able to do
the work of skilled craftsmen using unskilled, low-wage labor, those who worked
a trade began to fear for their livelihoods. In 1675, a group of weavers destroyed
machines that replaced their jobs. By 1727, the destruction had become so
prevalent that Parliament made the demolition of machines a capital offense. This
action, however, did not stop the tide of violence. The Luddites, a group of anti-
technology workers, were removing key components from knitting frames,
raiding houses for supplies, and petitioning for trade rights while threatening
greater violence.

After World War II, a fear of technology continued to grow, catalyzed by the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With nuclear proliferation and the Cold
War, people began to wonder what would become of the world now that humanity
had the power to manipulate it to the point of destruction. Corporate production
of war technologies such as napalm, explosives, and gases during the
Vietnam War further undermined public confidence in technology's worth and
purpose.

Supporting articles:

[1] History of typography

Lines of Communication: A Typeface History (With Infographic)

Typeface evolution has been slower than other areas of design but looking back
over the past 500+ years shows staggering advancements, from the invention of
the printing press to variable web fonts.

It’s easy to take books and other printed material for granted. However, before the
invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century,
books were written by hand. They were generally reserved for the elite, though
growing literacy among the middle class increased their demand.

Typeface history has largely been influenced by the availability of technology

throughout the centuries, starting with Gutenberg’s press and continuing through
digital typography advancements by designers in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Typography History: Books for the Masses

Gutenberg recognized that being able to mass-produce books quickly and cheaply
was a lucrative prospect. He drew on movable type used in East Asia and screw-
type presses being used by farmers in Europe to devise the idea for the first
printing press.

Because Gutenberg was a goldsmith, he was able to create durable letter blocks
that could be used over and over again. While arranging the letters for each page
could take an entire day, the page could then be printed as many times as
necessary from that single day’s work.

Gutenberg’s letterforms were based on the Blackletter calligraphy that was used
to write manuscripts. The downside was that it limited the amount of text that
could fit on a single page, creating longer books that required more time to set up.

Space-saving Typefaces

Blackletter typefaces were the original standard for printing, mainly because they
mimicked the handwriting style of the time. But as mentioned above, the downside
was that they took up considerable space on the page.

In 1470, Nicolas Jenson recognized that simpler letterforms would result in being
able to fit more text on a single page, resulting in shorter books with faster setup
times. He created the first Roman typeface, based on Blackletter and Italian
Humanist lettering.

Jenson’s typeface was the first to be created based on typographic principles

rather than manuscript models. His Roman type is the basis for multiple modern
fonts, including Centaur, created by Bruce Rogers in 1914, and Adobe Jenson,
created by Robert Slimbach in 1996.

While Jenson’s Roman type saved space on the printed page, others were trying to
save even more space to improve the efficiency of book printing. In 1501, Aldus
Manutius and Francesco Griffo created the first italic typeface, which allowed even
more text to fit onto the page. While initially invented as a space-saving measure,
italics are still used to emphasize text.

Improving Readability

Efficiency was not the only typographic challenge tackled by the first type
designers. Readability of early typefaces wasn’t ideal, especially the italic
typefaces favored for saving space.

In 1734, William Caslon created a new typeface style that included more contrast
between strokes in each letterform. Now referred to as “Old Style” type, these
typefaces made letterforms more distinguishable from one another at a glance,
improving readability.

Next in the timeline of typefaces, in 1757, John Baskerville created Transitional

typefaces with more distinct letterforms. While he made improvements to type,
ink, and printing presses, his typeface was blacker than that of his
contemporaries. Baskerville’s design was criticized due to the thickness of the
strokes. One of his critics even went so far as to say that his typeface would be
“responsible for blinding the nation.” His typeface was a commercial failure but
was revived in the 20th century, and he has since been hailed as “the greatest
printer England ever produced.”

The Appearance of Modern Serifs

In the 1780s, two type designers—Firmin Didot in France and Giambattista Bodoni
in Italy—created modern serifs with extreme contrast between strokes. At first
glance, the typefaces are very similar in appearance and showcased the quality of
the metal-casting work done by the respective companies, as thinner strokes
required much better craftsmanship.

There are some distinct differences between the two fonts, mostly in the
appearance and placement of particular letterforms. For example, the uppercase J
in Bodoni extends below the baseline, while in Didot it sits on the baseline. The
strokes on the “3” in Bodoni are both terminated with balls, while only the upper
stroke is terminated with a ball in Didot.

Because of the extent of contrast between thin and thick strokes in modern serifs
like Didot and Bodoni, they’re not the most readable typefaces at smaller sizes.
They’re best suited for headlines and display uses, though at high resolutions,
they can be suitable for body copy.
The First Slab Serif Typeface

The first commercially available slab serif, or Egyptian, typeface—called “Antique”

—appeared in 1815 and was designed by Vincent Figgins. They were more
attention-grabbing than more traditional serifs. The primary characteristic of slab
serif fonts is the lack of curvature on the serifs.

After the first slab serif typeface was released, they quickly grew in popularity
early in the 19th century, alongside the rise in printed advertising. Some slab serifs
were developed specifically to be used at larger sizes for printed matter like
posters. This was a departure from earlier large-scale type designs, which
adapted existing forms of book type.

Large-scale advertising design also brought about the first sans serif typeface.

Sans Serif Type Makes Its First Appearance

Around the same time as the first slab serif typeface became available, the first
sans serif type became commercially available. William Caslon IV developed “Two
Lines English Egyptian”—also known as “Caslon Egyptian”—in 1816. It caught on
quickly, and advertisements and other printed material from the early 19th century
stood out because of its use.

Sans serif type was influenced by block lettering that was commonly used in
classical antiquity, in which serifs were minimal or missing entirely. During the
early 1800s, Egyptomania took much of the Western world by storm, and both
typography and design took cues from Ancient Egyptian art and its blocky
lettering style.

The next significant development in sans serif type came 100 years later when
Edward Johnston designed the iconic typeface for the London Underground—still
in use today.

20th Century Modern Typeface History

The 20th century brought still more important developments in typeface history.
The first full-time type designer was Frederic Goudy, who got his start in the
1920s. He created iconic fonts that are still in use, including Copperplate Gothic
and Goudy Old Style (based on Jenson’s Old Style typefaces).

In 1957, Max Miedinger designed Helvetica, arguably the most iconic typeface of
the 20th century. Other minimalist typefaces were developed in the 20th century,
including Futura (developed by Paul Renner) and Optima (developed by Hermann
Zapf).

Digital Typography

The first digital typeface—Digi Grotesk—was designed by Rudolf Hell in 1968.

Early digital fonts were bitmaps, which resulted in less-than-ideal readability at
small sizes. In 1974, the first outline (vector) fonts were developed, which resulted
in better readability at the same time as reducing file sizes.

By the late 1980s, TrueType fonts were created, which allowed for both computer
displays and output devices like printers to use a single file. In 1997, OpenType
fonts were invented, which allowed both Mac and PC platforms to use a single font
file.

In the same year, CSS incorporated the first-ever font styling rules, and the
following year, the first support for web fonts was added to Internet Explorer 4
(though they weren’t widely adopted at that time).

Typeface Evolution on the Web

The 21st century brought considerable advances in web fonts. In 2009, the Web
Open Font Format (WOFF) was developed and added to the W3C open web
standard. This development paved the way for widespread adoption of web fonts
in 2011 when all major browsers finally adopted support for WOFF.

Widespread support for web fonts revolutionized digital design, allowing designers
practically unlimited options in web typography and ushering in trends, including
big typography and the use of outline fonts.

The introduction of variable fonts within the OpenType standard in 2016

strengthened the web typography revolution. Variable fonts can change size and
weight based on where they’re used in a design, within a single font file. This
flexibility means using fewer font files, resulting in faster page load times.

Evolution of Typography: What the Future Holds

Variable fonts have had a significant impact on digital type design, but there’s still
room for new trends and technologies to emerge in the future. One area where
many typefaces are still lacking is global language coverage. While many
typefaces focus on Latin character sets, there are other Western languages (such
as Greek and Cyrillic) that should be more widely included as standard in font files.

Some areas of design change and evolve quickly, but typography has been slower
to evolve over the centuries. One emerging technology to watch is the
development of color fonts, within the OpenType-SVG format. These fonts allow
designers to use multiple colors within a single glyph. While the technology to do
this has been around for a few years, it hasn’t been widely adopted—yet. Then
again, web fonts were technically possible for more than a decade before they
were widely adopted.

If typeface history has demonstrated anything, it’s that typography will continue to
evolve to meet the needs of designers, new formats, and readers.

[2] Its successor

Here’s the new default font for Microsoft Outlook and Word: Aptos

KEY POINTS
● After considering user feedback on five options, Microsoft has picked the
next default font for its productivity apps such as Word and Outlook.
● The new default, replacing Calibri, is called Aptos. For the past two years,
it’s been available under the name Bierstadt.
● But Microsoft wanted to change the name because people didn’t take it
seriously, said the font’s creator, Steve Matteson.

Goodbye, Calibri.

Microsoft has named the next default font for its productivity applications, such as
Word and Outlook, after testing five candidates it introduced in 2021. Since then,
it’s been called Bierstadt. Now it’s getting a new name: Aptos.

The move amounts to a subtle refinement for some of the most popular software
in the world. Microsoft doesn’t take such steps lightly, because its Office products
fetch almost 24% of its revenue. They’re growing faster than other parts of the
business, such as video game content and search advertising, as Microsoft seeks
to line up more end users and get existing clients to spend more.

If the core applications look fresh, Microsoft can make a better argument when the
time comes to renew subscriptions to Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office
365. The company is now ready to do that, after accepting input from end users
about the five new fonts.

“Today we begin the final phase of this major change where Aptos will start
appearing as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for
hundreds of millions of users,” Si Daniels, principal program manager for Office
design at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post published Thursday. “And, over the next
few months it will roll out to be the default for all our customers.”
Aptos will remain available in the font list under the old Bierstadt name for people
who are accustomed to it. Users can also choose to set any other font as the
default. That includes older standards, such as Times New Roman, Arial or even
Calibri, which has been the default since 2007, before the launch of Office 365 in
2011. Many people perceive Microsoft as a friendlier place since Satya Nadella
replaced Steve Ballmer as its CEO in 2014, but that updated identity isn’t
necessarily reflected when someone starts writing an email in Outlook with a font
that predates Nadella.

In 2019, Microsoft asked font designer Steve Matteson to develop a font in the
grotesque sans-serif style that includes the classic Helvetica. The company didn’t
let on that it was considering it as a possible successor for Calibri, Matteson said
in an interview with CNBC this week.

At the time, Matteson was still working for the font company Monotype, and he
and his colleagues gave Microsoft four or five proposals to look at, without
including the names of the contributors. That’s important because the designers
didn’t want his connection to Microsoft to influence the software maker’s decision,
he said.

Matteson’s work with Microsoft goes back to the 1990s. He helped with
Microsoft’s TrueType fonts for Windows 3.1 and created the Segoe font Microsoft
uses for its current logo and marketing materials. He also contributed to the aptly
named font Curlz. That was not his proudest moment, he said.

Of the bunch that Matteson and his colleagues sent to Microsoft, they picked his,
which at that point was dubbed simply Grotesque No. 2. Then Microsoft gave it a
codename, Koyuk. Then he came up with the name Bierstadt, taking the name of a
mountain in Colorado, where he lives. In German, Bierstadt means “beer city.”

Some people didn’t take the name seriously and Microsoft decided to come up
with a new one for the font, Matteson said. Aptos, an unincorporated town in Santa
Cruz County, California, came to his mind.

“Aptos has this unique coastal climate, where it’s a beach, and all the way up to
the redwoods,” he said. “It’s what I loved about California is the diversity, and it
kind of told me that there’s all these different moods and experiences you can
have. Similarly, with Aptos, you have all these different voices you can speak in
without distorting the message.”

Matteson came up with a serif version of the font, along with a monospace version
that can work for typing out code. He’s worked on monetary symbols and support
for Greek and Cyrillic languages. He collaborated with Microsoft to ensure it will
work well in different scenarios. If one were to convert cells in an Excel
spreadsheet from Calibri to Aptos, it’s unlikely that numbers in a cell will overflow
into the one next to it, he said.

He hasn’t seen every response to the font. But he has observed people saying that
in Bierstadt, a lowercase L and a capital I can’t be mistaken for each other.

Still, Matteson has nothing but respect for Calibri and its creator, Lucas de Groot.

“I can understand Microsoft wanting to, you know, make a change, but I don’t think
there’s ever been anything wrong with Calibri,” he said.

[3] update its font

London Underground's typeface to change 'for digital age'

The familiar typeface used for all London transport is changing, although travellers
may have to look hard to spot the difference.

The original font, introduced in 1916 by calligrapher Edward Johnston, has been
adapted to create "Johnston100".

Transport for London (Tfl) said it "contains subtle changes to make it fit for
purpose in the 21st century".

But only the slightest adjustments are to be made, and will appear on maps and in
stations later this year.

So subtle are the changes that, at first glance, a casual observer might miss them.
But a closer inspection reveals minor differences to the shape of the lettering,
which have been revealed in images comparing the two fonts.
Tfl said the new style retains the "soul" of the original lettering.
As well as new symbols such as the hashtag and "at" sign, extra-thin weights of
the typeface have been created so that the same lettering can be used for mobiles
as in stations.

Jon Hunter, head of TfL design, said updating the typeface was "an important step
forward" in an an age of social media and apps.

"As social media has become more important, hashtags and at signs are more
important. Johnston never designed those because they were never needed," he
said.
When Edward Johnston's original lettering was unveiled a century ago it was
considered revolutionary.
"Johnston Sans combined readability, beauty, simplicity," Donna Steel, the curator
of an exhibition about Edward Johnston at the Ditchling Museum of Arts and
Crafts said.

Monotype, the firm who have adapted the lettering, said designers had studied old
posters to "maintain the soul of the typeface" and bring back some of its
"idiosyncrasies".
In a blog, type director Malou Verlomme said letters like the lowercase "g" had
become "a little bit uniform" over the years.
"We hope this version of the 'lettering of London' for the digital age will last for
another 100 years and beyond," Mr Hunter said.

The history of London Underground's typeface

● In 1913 London Transport's managing director Frank Pick commissioned

Edward Johnston to create a typeface to bring visual uniformity to the
transport network.

● Johnston's new typeface, known as Johnston Sans, was introduced in

1916 and became the basis for the text used today.

● Designer Eicchi Kono updated the typeface in the 1970s to adapt it to

new printing technology, making changes like turning full stops into
diamonds.

● In 2016 Johnston100 is introduced to make a digital friendly font and

includes new # and @ symbols.

[4] changed its own default font

New Font Mandate Creates Frenzy at State Department

The U.S. State Department is changing the decades-old tradition of using the
Times New Roman font for internal documents.

The font style used in the U.S. State Department is changing, prompting
complaints from employees who find the change to be an inconvenience.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent an email to the state department, headlined
“The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,” ala Bob Dylan, saying they will be
changing the font for high-level internal documents to the larger sans-serif font,
Calibri, from Times New Roman, which has been used for more than two decades.

Blinken said the department’s domestic and international offices have until
February 6 to “adopt Calibri as the standard font for all requested papers,” the
email said according to the Washington Post.

The change comes as a means to help employees who are visually impaired and
was recommended by the secretary’s office of diversity and inclusion. However,
the announcement has received criticism and complaints that the Calibri font is
not aesthetically pleasing.

One Foreign Service officer told The Post that a water cooler discussion about the
font change “took up, like, half the day,” and ranged on both ends of the approval
spectrum, while another said, “I’m anticipating an internal revolt.”

Although the change is facing pushback, this is not the first time the State
Department has implemented a font change to internal documents. The font was
exchanged for Times New Roman in 2004, but at that time had received criticism
because it was changed from the Courier New 12 font, otherwise known as the
typewriter font.

At the time, the change was instated because Courier New 12 was considered
outdated and was swapped for Times New Roman because it “takes up almost
exactly the same area on the page as Courier New 12 while offering a crisper,
cleaner, more modern look,” the State Department told Slate at the time.

Times are once again changing, as Calibri takes over as the standard font within
the State Department, but this time it is the “wings” and “feet” of the font that is
prompting the change.

In the email obtained by The Post, Blinken said the “decorative, angular features”
of Times New Roman and other serifs “can introduce accessibility issues for
individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition Technology or
screen readers.” He added, “It can also cause visual recognition for individuals
with learning disabilities.”

A senior State Department official told The Post Blinken’s decision was purely
focused on the accessibility issues of employees, and not the aesthetics of the
font itself. However, regardless of the State Department’s reason for the change, a
Foreign Service officer told the outlet, “A colleague of mine called it sacrilege. I
don’t mind the decision because I hate serifs, but I don’t love Calibri.”

[5] forensic font expert

The Font Detective

Thomas Phinney, MBA 03, uncovers forgeries and solves modern-day crimes
Thomas Phinney was working as the product manager in Adobe Systems’ fonts
group when his team received a request from an attorney about a suspected will
forgery. The lawyer wondered whether the fonts in which the disputed document
was typed might provide a clue. “I was the only one in the group to say, ‘Hey, that
sounds cool!’” says Phinney.

Using a digital microscope and counting individual pixels, Phinney noticed

speckles of stray ink around each letter and “wicking,” or bleeding, of ink along the
paper fibers. He deduced that the document had been printed on an early inkjet
printer at 300 dots per inch (dpi). “There was one small problem,” says Phinney.
“That type of printer didn’t exist in 1983,” the year the document was purportedly
written. The Case of the Wicked Will, as Phinney calls it—he affectionately names
all of his investigations—was cracked.

Phinney’s fascination with all things fonts and typography have led him to become
the world’s foremost forensic font expert, capable of dating and identifying fonts
and the technology used to print them. He’s been an expert witness for numerous
court cases and evaluated questioned documents for the U.S. Treasury, The
Washington Post, the BBC, the PBS television show History Detectives, and more.
He also consults for the likes of Microsoft and Google. Whether uncovering
forgeries, verifying font sizes against mandated legal requirements, or a host of
related typography conundrums, Font Detective Phinney relishes his work at the
intersection of art, commerce, history, and technology.

WHY TYPOGRAPHY MATTERS

For a field with roots in Gutenberg’s printing press, fonts remain at the bleeding
edge of our digital world. Digital typography underpins virtually every page with
which we interact online. And yet, Phinney often finds himself defending why it all
matters. Branding, for one thing, he says. “The selection of typefaces and the
arrangement of them can be as important as the use of color, images, or abstract
graphics in creating a brand,” Phinney wrote in Communication Arts magazine.

Psychological research has also shown that even subtle differences in typography,
such as using small caps and old-style figures, can affect a reader’s mood (as
indicated by use of the corrugator muscle in the forehead to frown) as well as
one’s performance on creative cognitive tasks after reading.

Type design, a craft that blends art and science, is like fashion or furniture, says
Phinney, himself a type designer. “While true innovation is rare, people
consistently come up with variations on existing themes or combine existing
elements in new ways.”
He points to the ScienceGothic.com site, which displays an open-source, dynamic
typeface he’s been working on with funding from Google. Users can quickly
change the weight, width, contrast, and slant of the font to achieve different-
looking results, all while still staying within the Science Gothic family—something
that would require 200+ fonts to achieve using traditional methods. “It’s proof that
there’s still so much new you can do with fonts,” says Phinney.

TURNING UP THE ‘INTELLECTUAL SIMMER’

Phinney earned undergraduate degrees in psychology and political science at the

University of Alberta in Canada, where he grew up, then a master’s in graphic arts
publishing with a specialization in design and typography at the Rochester
Institute of Technology. He then began an 11-year career with Adobe Systems in
Silicon Valley.

It was during his Adobe stint that he decided to pursue his Berkeley MBA via the
evening and weekend program. Phinney was attracted to the school’s reputation
and quality. “The level of intellectual simmer at Haas was really lovely,” he says.
“People’s brains were always working to come up with new ideas and to challenge
each other, and I liked being in an academic environment operating on that level.”

Earning an MBA might not have been the most obvious career path, Phinney says,
but he used his Haas training to move up the product management chain at Adobe
and later at font management software company Extensis in Portland, Oregon,
where he currently lives. In 2014, Phinney joined FontLab, a creator of apps for
type design and font creation, as VP, later becoming CEO.

While crediting a Haas course in negotiation as being particularly helpful in

progressing through the management ranks, it was a class in managing
technology-related businesses taught by Professor Emeritus Hal Varian that
Phinney recalls as a game changer for his career.

“That one class gave me fundamental tools and new ways of thinking about
interconnected ideas that all played into my day job, like substitutability of goods
and zero marginal cost for digital goods—including fonts,” says Phinney. “They’re
essentially a weird form of mass-produced software.”

DRIVING DEMAND FOR DETECTIVE WORK

But even as his day jobs kept him busy, Phinney continued getting called to the
work that had long fascinated him: unlocking the mysteries held by fonts and
typography. Throughout his corporate work years, “Cases just kept popping up,”
he says, with word of mouth driving font forensic questions to his personal inbox.
One such case involved a rabbi who had faked his credentials to land a job. A
family in his congregation turned to Phinney to validate details of the man’s
graduation certificate, or smichah. The rabbi had taken steps to make it harder to
detect, degrading the quality of the document by providing only a faxed copy, not
the original. But the deception couldn’t elude the font detective. “The document
was dated 1968, but the font in which his name was printed didn’t exist until 1992,”
Phinney says. And so ended The Case of the Reprehensible Rabbi.

By 2018, Phinney decided to make his side gig official. “I was having so much fun
with this work,” he says. “I also realized that it wasn’t a trivial amount of money I
could earn through these cases, especially if I took the time to publicize it in a
formal way.” Just two years after hanging out his virtual shingle as The Font
Detective, Phinney earns as much as half his revenue from font forensics; the
remainder comes from designing fonts for clients like Google.

THE BAD, THE INADVERTENT, AND THE ILLEGIBLY SMALL

Phinney says that most forensic cases fall into one of two categories. The
“nefarious” cases are those like the man who sought to prevent his wife from
getting her fair share of assets in their divorce by forging debt documents, to
bamboozle her into accepting a lower valuation of their communal property.
Unfortunately for the soon-to-be ex-husband in Phinney’s Case of the Dastardly
Divorce, those faked documents were not only printed on a 600 dpi printer that
didn’t exist at the time they were dated but were created in a font that wouldn’t
have been available either. “That case was slam-dunk easy,” says Phinney.

The other type of case Phinney commonly handles involves determining if

documents meet typographical legal requirements, like whether what Phinney
terms “the stupidly tiny” 5-point typography on Justin Timberlake’s CD liner notes
were sufficient to stand as public notification of others’ copyrights on the album.
(Phinney suggested not. The case was settled out of court.)

Even for organizations trying to be good font citizens, it can be challenging. “I feel
for corporations, because legal typography requirements can differ in every state,”
Phinney says. California, for instance, requires information on prescription labels
to be printed in at least a 12-point font, while that may not be the case in other
jurisdictions. In New York, legal requirements for both font point size and height
work a bit differently than those of any other state. “Which is just another reason a
lawyer might need to consult an expert,” notes Phinney.

THE PERFECT CASE

Phinney’s dream case is “one that has major implications of some sort and
exposes malfeasance that affects a lot of people.” He had a close brush back in
2004, when he was asked by journalists to examine memos related to President
George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard that seemed to prove
that Bush had disobeyed orders and received outside help in cleaning up his
military record. “Based on my research I could not support a conclusion that they
were authentic—quite the contrary,” says Phinney, speaking of the high-profile
case that ended with a public repudiation of the journalists who ran with the story
without authenticating the forged documents first. So the hunt for the perfect
case continues.

Reflecting on his career, Phinney has a message for anyone thinking of making a
mid-career switch to a vocation that has been tugging at them.

“I could have been embarrassed or ashamed to switch paths out of my corporate

management career to something that, on the surface, wouldn’t draw so broadly
on my MBA training,” he says. “But I’m really glad I didn’t let those feelings deter
me from doing what I wanted to do. Because I’m still making money but having
way more fun!”

[6] can anyone?

Walmart, Costco and other companies rethink self-checkout

The backlash against self-checkout is growing, and stores are starting to dial back
on the technology after it exploded over the past few years.

Booths, a British supermarket chain, said it’s removing self-checkout stations in all
but two of its 28 stores. In the United States, Walmart, Costco, Wegmans and
other chains have also revised their self-checkout strategies.

“Our customers have told us this over time — that the self-scan machines that
we’ve got in our stores … can be slow, they can be unreliable (and) they’re
obviously impersonal,” Booths managing director Nigel Murray told the BBC.

Customers at Booths also frequently misidentified which fruits and vegetables

they were buying when prompted by self-checkout machines. Alcohol purchases
also were not smooth transactions through self-checkout because employees had
to verify customers’ ages.

“Some customers don’t know one different apple versus another, for example,”
Murray said. “There’s all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you
put any alcohol in your basket somebody’s got to come and check that you’re of
the right age.”
A spokesperson for Booths told CNN that employees checking out shoppers was a
better customer experience.

Self-checkout woes
Self-service machines were first introduced during the 1980s to lower labor
expenses. They shifted the work of paid employees to unpaid customers.

Self-checkout expanded at supermarkets in the early 2000s as stores looked to

cut costs, and during the pandemic, many shoppers used self-checkout for the
first time to minimize close interaction with employees and other customers.

But now, retailers are rethinking self-checkout. They have found that self-checkout
leads to higher merchandise losses from customer errors and intentional
shoplifting — known as “shrink” — than human cashiers ringing up customers.

Shrink has been a growing problem for retailers, who have blamed shoplifting for
the increase and called for tougher penalties. But retailers’ self-checkout
strategies have also contributed to their shrink problems.

One study of retailers in the United States, Britain and other European countries
found that companies with self-checkout lanes and apps had a loss rate of about
4%, more than double the industry average.

Some products have multiple barcodes or barcodes that don’t scan properly with
self-checkout technology. Produce, including fruit and meat, typically needs to be
weighed and manually entered into the system using a code. Customers may type
in the wrong code by accident. Other times shoppers won’t hear the “beep”
confirming an item has been scanned properly.

Other customers take advantage of the lax oversight at self-checkout aisles and
have developed techniques for stealing. Common tactics include not scanning an
item, swapping a cheaper item (bananas) for a more expensive one (steak),
scanning counterfeit barcodes attached to their wrists or properly scanning
everything and then walking out without paying.

Stores have tried to limit losses by tightening self-checkout security features,

such as adding weight sensors. But additional anti-theft measures also lead to
more frustrating “unexpected item in the bagging area” errors, requiring
employees to intervene.

Walmart removed self-checkout machines at some stores in New Mexico earlier

this year. ShopRite pulled them at a Delaware store after customer complaints.
Wegmans last year ended a mobile app that allowed customers to scan, bag and
pay for groceries while they shopped after reporting losses. Costco said it’s
adding more staff in self-checkout areas after it found that non-members were
sneaking in to use membership cards that didn’t belong to them at self-checkout.

Costco management said this year that shrink increased “in part we believe due to
the rollout of self-checkout.”

Five Below, the discount toy retailer, said that shrink at stores with more self-
checkout lanes was higher. The company plans to increase the number of staffed
cash registers in new locations.

[7] adoption of the barcode

The History of the Bar Code

Inventor Joe Woodland drew the first bar code in sand in Miami Beach, decades
before technology could bring his vision to life

Every few years, the small town of Troy in Miami County, Ohio celebrates an
historic occasion that for a few giddy weeks puts it on the world map of the
grocery trade. At the time, National Cash Register, which provided the checkout
equipment, was based in Ohio and Troy was also the headquarters of the Hobart
Corporation, which developed the weighing and pricing machines for loose items
such as meat. It was here, at just after 8 a.m. on June 26, 1974, that the first item
marked with the Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned at the checkout of
Troy’s Marsh Supermarket.

It was treated ceremonial occasion and involved a little bit of ritual. The night
before, a team of Marsh staff had moved in to put bar codes on hundreds of items
in the store while National Cash Register installed their scanners and computers.
The first "shopper" was Clyde Dawson, who was head of research and
development for Marsh Supermarket; the pioneer cashier who "served" him,
Sharon Buchanan. Legend has it that Dawson dipped into his shopping basket and
pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Dawson explained
later that this was not a lucky dip: he chose it because nobody had been sure that
a bar code could be printed on something as small as a pack of chewing gum, and
Wrigley had found a solution to the problem. Their ample reward was a place in
American history.

Joe Woodland said himself it sounded like a fairy tale: he had gotten the
inspiration for what became the bar code while sitting on Miami Beach. He drew it
with his fingers in the sand. What he was after was a code of some sort that could
be printed on groceries and scanned so that supermarket checkout queues would
move more quickly and stocktaking would be simplified. That such a technology
was needed was not his idea: it came from a distraught supermarket manager who
had pleaded with a dean at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia to come
up with some way of getting shoppers through his store more quickly. The delays
and the regular stocktaking were costing him his profits. The dean shrugged him
off, but a junior postgraduate, Bernard "Bob" Silver, overheard and was intrigued.
He mentioned it to Woodland, who had graduated from Drexel in 1947. Woodland
was already an inventor, and he decided to take on the challenge.

So confident was he that he would come up with a solution to the supermarket

dilemma that Woodland left graduate school in the winter of 1948 to live in an
apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. He had cashed in some
stocks to tide him over. It was in January 1949 that Woodland had his epiphany,
though the brilliance of its simplicity and its far-reaching consequences for
modern existence were not recognized until many years later.

It was Morse Code that gave him the idea. Woodland had learned it when he was in
the Boy Scouts. As he was sitting in a beach chair and pondering the checkout
dilemma, Morse came into his head:

I remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I poked my four fingers
into the sand and, for whatever reason—I didn’t know—I pulled my hand toward
me and I had four lines. I said ‘Golly! Now I have four lines and they could be wide
lines and narrow lines, instead of dots and dashes. Now I have a better chance of
finding the doggone thing.’ Then, only seconds later, I took my four fingers—they
were still in the sand—and I swept them round into a circle.

Back in Philadelphia, Woodland and Silver decided to see if they could get a
working system going with the technology to hand. They first filed a patent in
1949, which was finally granted in 1952. Although the patent illustrates the basic
concept, there is only a smattering of anecdotal evidence about what Woodland
and Silver actually built. A crude prototype in Woodland’s own home used a
powerful 500-watt incandescent bulb. An oscilloscope was used to "read" the
code; the whole thing was the size of a desk. Allegedly, it worked, up to a point.
But an objective evaluation judged it to be 20 years ahead of its time. Woodland
and Silver had the right idea, but they lacked the minicomputer and, critically, a
very bright light with which to "read" the black and white bar code.

***

On July 16, 1960, when he first saw the laser, the head of public relations at
Hughes Aircraft Company of Culver City, California, Carl Byoir, declared they were
in big trouble: "It looks like something a plumber made." But the next day, at a
press conference held in the Delmonico Hotel in New York, the company made one
of the most sensational announcements in the history of science. One of their
research scientists, Theodore Maiman, had made an "atomic radio light brighter
than the center of the sun." Maiman produced for the newsmen his "laser," an
acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Most of the reporters were eager to learn what the laser was for, and what it could
do. It was like science fiction. Maiman said the laser beam was so concentrated,
so "coherent," that if it were beamed from Los Angeles to San Francisco it would
spread only 100 feet. The tiny beam was hot and sharp enough to cut through
materials. Could it be used as a weapon? That was not the intention, Maiman
assured reporters. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles Herald headlined its story: "LA
Man Discovers Science Fiction Death Ray." This became a popular theme in the
newspapers.

Maiman had won the race to build the very first laser, beating fierce competition
from around the world. It is possible to imagine the extreme excitement that he
and his associate Irnee D’Haenens experienced when they produced that first
fickle beam. They did not know then what it might be used for, but they imagined it
would have many applications in science and communications, in industry for
cutting and welding, and in medicine for delicate surgery. But, as Maiman wrote, "I
did not foresee the supermarket check-out scanner or the printer."

***

A booklet produced in 1966 by the Kroger Company, which ran one of the largest
supermarket chains in North America, signed off with a despairing wish for a
better future: "Just dreaming a little . . . could an optical scanner read the price
and total the sale. . . . Faster service, more productive service is needed
desperately. We solicit your help." Kroger’s business was groceries, not
electronics, so the company went looking for a partner with the necessary
expertise.

A small research team at the powerful Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was
looking at a few new projects, including the possibility of an automatic bank cash
machine, which they decided would not go because "the customer would not buy
the concept." Finally, they lighted on the bar code. A search of the history turned
up some apparently hare-brained schemes: in one, customers picked out punch
cards that identified what they wanted to buy and presented them to a cashier,
who retrieved the goods from a store. This did not survive long in the grocery
business. Then there was the patent for a system in which the supermarket
shopper threw everything into a basket, which was pushed under a scanner that
identified each item and printed out a bill.

They soon found the Woodland and Silver patent. This was not the rectangular bar
code that Woodland had first envisaged on Miami Beach but the "bull's-eye" of
concentric circles he thought would be a better design. When he and Silver
worked on it, they decided the bull's-eye was the better symbol because it could
be read accurately from any angle.

Printing the bull's-eye bar code proved to be one of the greatest difficulties,
because any imperfections would make the whole system unworkable. A rotating
turret of ballpoint pens, and a pen designed for astronauts that could write upside
down, solved some of the problems. All this technical development, involving
several companies commissioned by RCA, was to lead up to the first real-life test
at the Kroger Kenwood Plaza store in Cincinnati. On July 3, 1972, the first
automated checkstands were installed (One of RCA’s pioneer checkstands is in the
Smithsonian collection.) More checkstands were installed and a comparison with
other Kroger stores told an undeniable and very promising story: the bull's-eye bar
code hit the target, with superior sales figures. But this was just one store in a
nationwide grocery and supermarket business worth billions. If the laser and bar
code were to revolutionize the checkout counter, they would have to be near
universal.

***

The goal of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Universal Product Identification Code
could be stated very simply. The representatives of the grocery trade were
charged with finding a way to introduce a Universal Product Code, a bar code of
some description that would be common to all goods sold in supermarkets and
imprinted by the manufacturers and retailers. The code would carry information
about the nature of the product, the company that made it, and so on. In-store
computers would "read" this information with scanners and introduce their own
variations, which might involve special offers and reductions. The vision was there
but the difficulties in the way of its realization were daunting.

Manufacturers were often resistant to the idea of a universal code. They had
existing methods of identification of products, which would have to be discarded
or adapted. Cardboard manufacturers worried that a printed code might spoil their
product. Canners did not want to be obliged to put bar codes on the base of cans.
It took four years to arrive at a workable proposition to put to the whole industry.

In the end, seven companies, all of them based in the United States, submitted
systems to the Symbol Committee, a technical offshoot of the Ad Hoc Committee.
RCA, having demonstrated to the committee its system in Cincinnati, took the
view, not unreasonably, that it was the only real contender.

However, at the last minute, International Business Machines (IBM) made a

surprise bid. It had no technology at all to demonstrate to the committee, and the
decision to enter the competition appears to have been an afterthought, despite
the fact that it had in its employ none other than Joe Woodland. As it turned out,
although he was involved in IBM’s submission, he was not the creator of its version
of the Universal Bar Code. That fell to George Laurer, who, in his own view, had an
advantage over his rivals because neither he nor IBM had given supermarket
checkout systems or bar codes much thought and his company had no ready-
made technology. Starting from scratch, Laurer had no prejudices about the
appearance of the bar code, though his bosses had assumed it would be some
version of the circular bull's-eye in Woodland’s patent and RCA’s pioneer system in
Cincinnati.

Laurer was handed the specifications for a bar code that had been determined by
the Symbol Selection Committee: it had to be small and neat, maximum 1.5 square
inches; to save money it had to be printable with existing technology used for
standard labels; it had been calculated that only ten digits were needed; the bar
code had to be readable from any direction and at speed; there must be fewer
than one in 20,000 undetected errors.

Although there was skepticism in IBM, Laurer was convincing enough to be given
the go-head with a rectangular bar code. A division of IBM built a prototype
scanner, and Laurer’s Universal Product Code was tested. "There were many
skeptics in IBM," Laurer recalled, "not the least of whom was [his boss] B.O. Evans
himself. However at the end of a flawless demonstration for Mr. Evans, we had our
ace softball pitcher pitch beanbag ash trays, with symbols on the bottom, as fast
as he could over the scanner. When each one read correctly, Mr. Evans was
convinced."

It was another matter to convince the Symbol Selection Committee, which was
under huge pressure to accept RCA’s already functioning bull's-eye symbol and
technology that had done much to inspire confidence that a universal product
code could work. After asking for an appraisal of the rival symbologies from
scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on March 30, 1973, in a
New York hotel close to Grand Central Station, the committee met to make its final
and fateful decision. The committee’s chair Alan Haberman asked them first to
declare how sure they were that the symbol they had chosen was the correct one.
There was a very high level of confidence—about 90 percent all round—and the
winner was Laurer’s rectangular code.

For Woodland, who died in 2012 at the age of 91, it must have been a strange
experience to witness the reincarnation in sophisticated form of the elongated
lines of Morse Code he had drawn in the sand in 1949. There was now a modestly
priced laser scanner to register with a concentrated beam of light the coded
vertical lines of alternating black and blank and a microcomputer to decipher the
information.
***

Like so many inventions, the UPC was not an immediate success. It was when the
mass merchandisers adopted the UPC that it took off, Kmart being the first. In
fact, bar code technology was almost made for companies like Walmart, which
deal in thousands of goods that need to be catalogued and tracked. The bar code
took off in the grocery and retail business in the 1980s, and at the same time
began to transform manufacturing and to appear like a rash on anything that
benefited from instant identification. In 2004, Fortune magazine estimated that the
bar code was used by 80 to 90 percent of the top 500 companies in the United
States.

Though the inspiration for the bar code was the plea by supermarkets for
technology that would speed up the checkout, its greatest value to business and
industry is that it has provided hard, statistical evidence for what sells and what
does not. It has transformed market research, providing a rich picture of people’s
tastes, and it has made production lines more efficient. The once-dreaded "death
ray" laser beam now comes in handy gun-sized scanners that instantly read and
log anything from hospital drugs to newborn babies.

***

After many years of anonymity, the man whose knowledge of Morse Code inspired
the familiar black and white stripes finally got some recognition. In February 1992,
President George H.W. Bush was photographed at a national grocery convention
looking intently at a supermarket scanner and having a go at swiping a can with a
bar code over it. The New York Times correspondent wrote this up as evidence
that it was the first time Bush had seen a supermarket checkout. In other words,
he was out of touch with everyday American life. His aides insisted that he was not
struck by the novelty of the technology but by the fact that it could read a
damaged bar code. Apocryphal or not, the story stuck and was regarded as
damaging to Bush. However, as Woodland’s local newspaper put it: "George Bush
isn’t one to hold a grudge. No Sir." A few months after the checkout incident, Bush
presented Woodland with a National Medal of Technology.

[8] without any form of checkout at all

Amazon Go stores: How the 'Just walk out' cashierless tech works

Amazon has been opening physical Amazon Go convenience stores. Here's

everything you need to know about their cashierless shopping experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
 ● Amazon Go stores offer a "just walk out" shopping experience with no
traditional checkouts or cashiers.
● These stores utilize advanced technologies like computer vision and
deep learning to track products and charge customers automatically.
● Amazon is committed to expanding its Go and Fresh store concepts
globally, with plans to open thousands of grocery and convenience stores
in the future.

Amazon Go convenience stores have been in operation for several years now, with
multiple locations across the US and in London.

While Amazon has reduced its focus on physical pop-up stores, it remains
committed to expanding its Go and Fresh store concepts worldwide. What sets
these stores apart is their unique "just walk out" shopping experience. Unlike
traditional shops, there are no registers or cashiers to be found. Shoppers simply
enter, select their desired items, and exit the store, making for a seamless and
futuristic shopping process.

Amazon offers a range of retail experiences, including Amazon Fresh (a grocery

delivery and pickup service for a wide range of groceries) and Amazon pop-up
stores (temporary retail locations that showcase Amazon devices such as Echo
and Kindle). But in this guide, we'll provide you with all the essential information
about Amazon Go and how exactly they provide a "just walk out" shopping
experience that lacks traditional registers or cashiers.

What are Amazon Go stores?

Amazon Go is a revolutionary shopping experience that eliminates the need for

traditional checkouts and cashiers.

Just Walk Out technology

Customers can enter the store, pick out items they want, and simply walk out.
Their Amazon account is automatically charged for the items they take.
Meanwhile, 'Just Walk Out' is the technology employed by Amazon Go stores that
allows customers to shop without the need for traditional checkouts or cashiers.
This technology combines computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning,
similar to the technologies used in self-driving cars.

Cameras and sensors within the store track items as customers pick them up or
return them to shelves. Each customer has a virtual cart that keeps track of
selected items. When customers leave the store, their Amazon account is charged
accordingly.
How does Amazon Go work?

To use Amazon Go, you need the Amazon Go app (available for iOS and Android),
an Amazon account, and a supported smartphone. Upon entering the store, you
scan the app at the entry gate, and then you can start shopping. There's no need
to scan each item; just pick up what you want and put it in your basket or bag.

When you leave, you're automatically charged for the items you take.

Requirements

To use Amazon Go, you'll need the Amazon Go app, which is available for both iOS
and Android smartphones. Before entering the Amazon Go store, open the
Amazon Go app on your smartphone. Use your phone with the activated app to
scan a code or QR code at the entry gate. This code serves as your virtual "entry
ticket."

Start shopping

Once you've passed through the entry gate, you can start shopping immediately.
There's no need to scan individual items or interact with traditional checkout
registers.

Simply pick up the products you want to purchase and place them in your
shopping basket or bag. Amazon Go stores are equipped with advanced
technologies, including computer vision and sensors. These technologies track
your movements and the products you select in real time.

Items you pick up are automatically added to your virtual cart within the app.

No checkout required

As you shop, you are not required to check out in the traditional sense. There's no
need to scan barcodes or wait in line to pay for your items.

When you've finished shopping and have all the items you need, simply exit the
store. You can "just walk out" without interacting with any cashiers or registers.
The technology in the store calculates the total cost of the items in your virtual
cart. Your Amazon account is automatically charged for the items you've taken.

Receipt and order history

You can view your order history and digital receipts within the Amazon Go app.
This allows you to keep track of your purchases and review your charges.

What types of Amazon Go stores are there?

In the US, there are two types of Amazon Go stores:

Amazon Go: Offers breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

Amazon Go Grocery: Provides produce, ready-made dinners, and household
essentials. (In the UK, similar stores are known as Amazon Fresh.)

What does Amazon sell in Amazon Go stores?

Amazon Go stores offer a variety of products, including:

Ready-to-eat meals: These stores provide a selection of breakfast, lunch, and

snack options that are ready to be consumed.
Grocery essentials: Customers can find a range of grocery items, including fresh
produce and household essentials.
Local favorites: Some Amazon Go stores also stock local and regional favorite
products to cater to the preferences of the community.
Amazon-branded items: You can discover Amazon-branded grocery items and
other products.

Where can I find Amazon Go stores?

You can find Amazon Go stores in various locations, with over 25 in the US,
including larger Amazon Go Grocery stores. Additionally, Amazon operates 19
Fresh stores in London, UK. To locate a store near you, check the latest list of
Amazon Go locations.

What technology powers Amazon Go?

Amazon Go stores utilize advanced technologies such as computer vision, sensor

fusion, and deep learning, similar to those used in self-driving cars. These
technologies, called Just Walk Out, track products and maintain a virtual cart for
each customer, ensuring a seamless shopping experience. You can even replace
items at any time while shopping in an Amazon Go store. The technology keeps
track of changes to your virtual cart, ensuring accurate billing.

You need a supported smartphone with the Amazon Go app installed to use Just
Walk Out technology. The app is linked to your Amazon account and serves as
your entry ticket to the store.

Is Amazon expanding Just Walk Out to more locations?

Yes, Amazon is committed to expanding Just Walk Out technology to more
locations worldwide. While the company has scaled back some physical pop-up
stores, it is actively investing in the growth of Amazon Go and Fresh stores.
Amazon has ambitious plans to open thousands of grocery and convenience
stores in the future.

[9] run into resistance

Please Don’t Make Me Use Another QR Code Restaurant Menu

I RECENTLY TRAVELLED to Italy, and the first pleasure of every meal there was
reading the menu. Phrases like “risotto al nero di seppia, burrata e ricci di mare”—
risotto with cuttlefish ink, burrata, and sea urchins—and “paccheri pestati cunzati
con gamberi, pistacchi e bisque”—paccheri pasta with crushed seasonings and
with shrimp, pistachio, and bisque—felt like a rich prelude to the food itself. On a
rooftop patio in Florence, I was handed both the regular menu and a
supplementary sheet of paper. I happened to be there during white truffle season,
and the sheet of paper listed all of the dishes they made with the delicacy. I sat
there, literally under the Tuscan sun, feeling like a character in a book—one that
was very unlike my everyday self.

One of the chief pleasures I get from reading is in poring over the descriptions of
food. Give me a banquet scene or a dinner party where the wine pairs perfectly
with both the entrée and whatever dramatic revelation is about to come, and I am
rapt. Battle scenes bore me, but reading a character’s grocery list enchants me.
Maybe that’s why I love restaurant menus so much—a well-written one can feel like
a piece of literature in and of itself.

Part of the magic of those Italian meals was not just in reading the menus but in
encountering them as physical objects, feeling their weight in my hands and
touching the grain of their paper. There was a world of difference from the last
menu I’d encountered in North America, which had to be accessed via QR code.
That meal had been at a nice restaurant, with flowers on every table and friendly
service, but having to begin my meal by squinting at a smudgy screen did
somewhat take away from the experience.

QR codes, or quick response codes, aren’t new—they’ve been around since 1994,
though they weren’t initially widely adopted outside of Asia. During the pandemic,
their ability to offer contact-free interactions led to a rise in their use in the rest of
the world, including at restaurants. But even as more and more restrictions were
dropped, many of the QR code menus stayed. Hospitality Technology’s 2022
Restaurant Technology Study reported that 66 percent of restaurants in the US
used QR code menus, and 19 percent of restaurants planned on adding them. The
stats for Canadian restaurants are similar, according to the Toronto Star, which
pointed to a Dalhousie University survey that indicated three out of every five
Canadians used QR codes at restaurants or grocery stores in August 2021.

My complaints with QR code menus are minor but many. I love the communal
aspect of dining out with friends or family, and I hate the way that QR code menus
take me out of the shared moment and force me to look at my phone (which, of
course, leads me down the rabbit hole of checking my various notifications). I hate
the way QR code menus mean scrolling, pinching to adjust size, and sometimes
juggling between multiple tabs instead of just having to glance over a page or two.

There are larger issues too: websites with menus on them can track consumer
behaviour, one more tiny erosion of our everyday privacy. QR code menus also
mean that people need access to a smart phone or some other kind of device and,
if they do have one, that they possess a certain level of tech savviness, which
excludes some potential patrons. And as Bloomberg reported in 2021, technology
that promotes contactless dining has already been linked to job losses in the
service industry.

I’m not alone in my dislike of QR codes. In 2022, Conor Friedersdorf wrote an

impassioned polemic against them for The Atlantic, and in 2023, the New York
Times published an article on their alleged demise, full of quotes from people who
loathe them. Even a brief search for the term “QR code menu” on X (formerly
known as Twitter) will show you how deeply unpopular they are—one of my
favourites, from user @mlokeshceo, simply says, “Menu > QR code.” Succinct and
true!

Physical menus are more than just aesthetically pleasing; they can also serve as
important historical documents. The New York Public Library has approximately
45,000 menus dating from the 1840s, a collection that they’re in the process of
digitizing through their “What’s on the menu?” project, and it’s amazing how much
can be gleaned from those documents. The first and most obvious piece of
information is what people were eating in a particular time and place—along with
how much (or little) they paid for it. One of the menus in the NYPL’s collection is
from Mart Ackerman’s Saloon in Toronto, where, back in 1856, diners could get a
porterhouse steak with a choice of sides for $0.50—about $12 in today’s terms—
accompanied by a glass of Siberian cobbler, ladies’ fancy punch, or a cocktail
simply called the eye opener, all priced $0.13—$1.50 today—or under. But there’s
so much more that can be learned from these menus beyond just items and prices.

“I think the menus are really important because they’re archival traces of what
people are eating, or what people are purchasing, or have the opportunity to
purchase,” says writer and cultural historian L. Sasha Gora. “They tell so many
different histories. These can be environmental histories—so, really thinking about
how certain ingredients disappear, or reappear, or appear to begin with.”

Gora leads a research group at the University of Augsburg dedicated to the

culinary environmental humanities. Among other themes, the group has explored
the idea of culinary extinction—namely, what happens when the animals and plants
used for a popular food go extinct because we have eaten them out of existence?
Take the passenger pigeon, for example, which died out in the early twentieth
century thanks to overhunting. As it was going nearly extinct, you would think it
would be disappearing from restaurant menus too. And yet, as passenger pigeon
numbers rapidly declined, passenger pigeon pie was still on the menu, according
to Gora, at the storied Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City. Gora says it’s
possible that the pie really did contain passenger pigeon meat, but it’s also
possible that it was the meat of some other, more common pigeon. Either way, the
menu gave customers a perception of abundance even as their appetites
decimated the ecology around them.

Menus can also give us insight into attitudes toward gender. One fascinating
example from history is the so-called “ladies’ menu”—a menu printed without
prices so that women wouldn’t know how much their dates were spending on them
(the practice mostly disappeared after a California woman threatened a restaurant
with a discrimination lawsuit). Gora has an example relating to gender and menus
from her own life too. In an essay titled “Today’s Special: Reading Menus as
Cultural Texts,” she recalls working as a cook at a restaurant that served two
versions of the same meal: “The Dirty Brunch” and “The Clean Brunch.” “The
Dirty” came with bacon and sausages and, her boss told her, tended to be ordered
by men; “The Clean,” by contrast, came with hummus and salad and tended to be
ordered by women.

But most of all, menus tell us about things that are ephemeral: foods, yes, but also
often the places that serve that food as well. “A restaurant opens, and then it can
run for a while, and then it closes, and then there are very few traces left,” says
Gora. “So you don’t know what foods were being served, you don’t know how they
were being contextualized. But if you have a menu, it actualizes the food, it
preserves what was happening in the restaurant.”

I can’t imagine that lunch in Florence would have been quite as thrilling if, instead
of holding the leatherbound wine list in my hands and running my finger down the
(extensive) inventory of options, the server had directed me toward the QR code
for a digital menu. That meal was a moment—with perfect weather, a view of the
Ponte Vecchio, and the strongest negroni I’ve ever had the good fortune to come
across—and I’m glad that I was able to be fully in it, no screens involved. And if any
future historians are wondering, the ravioli with fresh white truffles was worth
every penny.