You mean like "Sneak past the Ring doorbell, behind the car, dump the package behind the bins and then Leg it!"

More like what's happening here. "Instructions say the porch is white and you're leaving it at a black door. Err...." (electric shock follows) ... Amazon drivers seem incapable of delivering to the correct address around here.

Like I want amazon to video me opening my door when a delivery arrives.

Normally I'll always thank someone making delivery, but I might struggle to keep this for amazon ones if they get turned into glassholes.

This application of "smart glasses" is one of those that *could* be done well, and be extremely useful for everyone involved, including you, the customer. For example, a clear indication of whether the camera is on or not, and then only operating when it is needed, would both remove your loose dressing gown from being recorded and also improve battery life for the driver (and reduce the battery to the driver, given the worryingly large number of comments, including here, that claim "glassholes" would/should be met with immediate and direct violence).

On the other hand, of course, this - as with every corporate project - could be done badly and be extremely damaging to everyone involved. For example, continuous nagging to hurry up, directly into the driver's line of sight whilst they are negotiating the queue of cars and reckless pedestrians outside the local infants school.

I am pretty sure that I know which of those two El Reg readers believe is the more likely scenario. But I'd really, really *like* to be optimistic that sensible and useful applications of tech can actually occur.[1]

[1] if only because then there is the chance that practical versions of the hardware, without bling and frippery, may then actually be manufactured and I could then get hold of a pair. I've been waiting for, what, three decades now for sensible AR glasses, whilst I could still actually use them.

"only operating when it is needed, would both remove your loose dressing gown from being recorded"

Remove it from being recorded? Like you can remove somnething from having been seen?

"But I'd really, really *like* to be optimistic that sensible and useful applications of tech can actually occur."

It wuld be interesting to have a hint about what corporate actions have led to people being optimistic in recent times.

But you'll have a video of it going to the wrong house.

We've had parcels left in our porch (we're on the village High Street) for our next door neighbour three times in two weeks, despite having our house number clearly displayed.

Our local delivery drivers (strangely other than the lady who delivers for Evri) are known as "dumpit and scarper".

Quite often they don't even bother to knock.

The courier apps used to direct drivers to the next drop-off are often poorly implemented. This leads to drivers backtracking or driving past delivery locations, only to return hours later to drop off a single parcel, wasting time, fuel, and polluting the environment. Experienced couriers who recognise the addresses of regular customers navigate the poor-performing apps. Still, new drivers or those covering another patch can be put under undue pressure by the apps used for deliveries. There are significant improvements to be made to the current routings before addressing the van-to-porch issue, which will require much better data, as drop-off locations are often incorrect.

I once came across two loose horses (after dark in the winter) on a single track country road and spent some time encouraging them back towards the field they had come from - approx 600yds - along the mile long road.

An Amazon driver (liveried van) drove down the road in the opposite direction blowing his horn at the horses in the road. I had to run past them and speak to the Amazon driver - inform him that what he was doing was incredibly dangerous and of the very short detour he had to make to get to the next village on another road. Now, I was on the wrong side of the horses, but the same side as my car and I suggested that he could follow me to the far end of the road, on the route I just described to him, from where he could carry on and I could get the horses going in the correct direction again.

He seemed to sit still for a while, so I set off on my own to the other end of the road (panicked horses are approaching a ton in weight and move at up to 30mph).

I approach the other end of the road to see the two horses at full gallop emerge onto an A road, pursued by the driver still blowing his horn. They then ran along it for a while between sparse cars (who stopped) and then departed on another lane.

I reported the driver to Amazon, and asked that I be informed of the action taken so that I could inform the horses owner.

I heard nothing back and have to assume that they ignored the report. The local NFU also asked Amazon and received a blank.

I asked the next Amazon driver I saw and he said that they could not deviate from their assigned route. I asked what he would do if a road was closed or a bridge was out and he just shrugged.

No common sense - driver or company!

I live in a horsey village.

My deepest thanks for your attempts and - well, even here I can't type what I'm thinking about the driver!

The sheer stupidity of it is that the only way a system like Amazon's, where he would be dunned for "disobeying" simply because he, oooh, obeyed the law (let alone common sense), can be challenged (and, in a world of miracles, changed) is for that driver to do the right thing, be backed up by your testimony (with pictures/video, as with two of you co-operating to corral the horses...) and that of the NFU and so forth. And what ought to be the driver's union backing him.

IME it's not Amazon drivers who have the worst problems finding the front door. It's another company whose name is a TLA that insists the GPS coordinates are at the centre of the postcode about 100 metres away round he corner, refused to update them when supplied and consequently has delivered to a house there.. It also seems to dictate - and possibly monitor - that divers park there, in the narrowest part of the lane so the alternative has been a driver leaving his van there to walk the rest of the way.

Amazon's problem is dropping off only part of the delivery or possibly none at all and then getting thoroughly confused as to how to deal with it. I don't suppose AI would help with the first part of that but would certainly heap on more confusion.

The problem there is not the drivers', it's the company itself using the Post-Office database for deliveries, which (if memory serves) does indeed not go down any closer geo-spatially than post-code centreoid lat/longs. Or perhaps they're just still using an old version of the db they pinched 10 years ago.... There are other, better, (more expensive to access) data sources for postal address geo-locations.

Of course it does help when your address is actually contained within those databases.... Mine doesn't seem to be in a rather large number of them (next door is though!)

Actually, the post office database is highly granular and updated by posties. The snag here is it's aimed at giving you the best access while on foot , which sometimes differs considerably to the closest you can get a van.

My favourite cockup though came from a company who decided to address the problem by moving to What Three Words and capturing the location themselves. It turned out that customers were not in the habit of booking a delivery while standing in the best place to park a van...

"The problem there is not the drivers', it's the company itself using the Post-Office database for deliveries, which (if memory serves) does indeed not go down any closer geo-spatially than post-code centroid lat/longs."

Absolutely this. It's the company that refuses to accept correct coordinates.

In our case it's complicated by the fact that few houses in the lane have numbers and that the sequence of numbers is not entirely rational - 1 to 4 are a row on one side, half way alone, 1A & 1B are on the other side, back at the start. The rest have names, usually conspicuously displayed. One neighbour, by some reckoning system decided his must be no 19 so renamed his house "Nineteen".

If offered the choice I specify Royal Mail. The posties not only know where we live, they also know where our daughter lives and have delivered something of ours there for some good reason I can't now recall. They probably know about SWMBO's sister as well.

the Post-Office database for deliveries, which (if memory serves) does indeed not go down any closer geo-spatially than post-code centreoid lat/longs.

Postcodes originally identified locations down to posties' rounds. Today, postcode + house name/number will uniquely identify your front door.

> Amazon's problem is dropping off only part of the delivery or possibly none at all and then getting thoroughly confused as to how to deal with it. I don't suppose AI would help with the first part of that

>> helping them with everything from finding the right parcel in the van

If the camera spots the QR codes and the display highlights the correct ones, with a simple count of "2 out of 4 boxes found so far"...

Not that any of that requires "AI", of course (ML vision helps with the QR codes, especially for picking out partials and prompting for realignment - i.e. "joggle that around a bit, mate" - but we all know that isn't what is being referred to).

Whoops, silly me, vibe coding, how could I forget. And probably faked imagery in the proposal meetings, AI summarised Requirement Specs (ho, ho, good joke there, Mostin) etc.

They must be scanning the codes already in order to email confirmation of delivery.

It would be very possible for a simple count of "2 out of 4 boxes found so far" to be displayed already. If it is the driver ignores it.

Currently they have no appropriate error handling to cover an expected code being missed. The consequence is that very strange things happen when the expected doesn't. I very much doubt that another scan will make any difference whatsoever except throwing a few AI hallucinations into the mix alongside the existing ones.

They could provide the driver with the destinations one at a time and only provide the next after the delivery has been completed. That would prevent the driver ignoring a warning. Of course there will be occasions when, for one reason or another, the delivery can't be completed and that would only provide them with more opportunities for bizarre failure modes.

I live in a rural area, just outside the village proper.

My postcode covers an area of perhaps 0.7 miles by 0.4 miles. The centroid (depending on which map service you use) will either put you in the village to the west (which is not in this postcode at all) or close to 0.5 mile to the east as I am on the western edge of the postcode.

Many have the times been where a delivery driver cannot find my location (it is also not visible from the country lane until you are on top of it).

Even the energy company was sending my initial bills to the wrong postcode when I moved in.

As far as I can discern, postcodes are based on a number of dwellings.

Despite getting things delivered to my place of work, a hospital, I had delivery failures because i gave a non-existent address. Once or twice, because we were "closed"! They had started to ignore the delivery address when they gave us a set of lockers.

How does one ignore a delivery address? Either walk into the hospital and give it to a random uniformed person or make a trip hazard by leaving it in the front doorway.

I think the lockers got one failure because they pretended we were closed.

It's a hospital! We never close! There are big road signs with an H for us.

Just retired so we'll see how it goes...

Now, I'm not hopeful for Amazon's use of this tech, but I can see some serious benefits of this tech - in the right hands.

Okay, mine are such a pair, but only when I'm on duty as a volunteer first responder. And even then, we might not need them that often. Flip side: They could help save lives.

Yes, I've been looking into VR glasses - been trying to find any that I can confirm work with navigation software / GPS, and the camera would be helpful for instances where we need additional support from a more senior medic/HCP. I can also see this kind of tech helping ambulance and fire fighters, but mostly it's where we've a map to work from that doesn't always match to reality (let alone what we can actually see). The number of times organisers move stuff and forget to update the map... erg.

The new Meta (kill me now) ones look to be more HUD than actual AR, but might be useful in the scenarios you envision. Accidentally useful is something at least.

A few days ago I was walking to the pub when I saw an Amazon branded van pull up to a door, driver gets out, delivers parcel, gets back in and driver about 2 feet before getting back out and delivering to the door next to it.

It gets worse. I'd walked past it by now but heard it start up again, and stop, after about 2 seconds.

Madness...

Computer says "must drive to next delivery location before you can pick parcel"

Operations Research says "did we make all those salesmen die travelling for no reason?"

Computer could say "Must not drive to next destination until all items have been delivered" but Amazon would only cock tat up as well.

Not how they generally work round here. I usually see them park down the strteet then send a teenage girl round the houses with all the parcels while they sit having fag in the van.

Assuming it is a van and not a car, which I have also seen.

Oh and whats this "delivery vest" mentioned in the article? Round here Amazon drivers don't wear the uniform.

In Canada, without photographic proof of delivery, Amazon had to pay CAD$20k in fees and refund for a non delivery.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-fine-delivery-9.6949078

Yes, it is a somewhat paranoid thought, but... Hoover up all the video for physically getting from a vehicle to the doorstep for a year or two, then train an AI robot to do it.