By Katherine Anne Long From The Seattle Times Amazon’s long-awaited Fresh grocery store in Bellevue, Wash., opened Thursday to crowds—and a twist. The company revealed in a surprise announcement earlier this week that the store is the company’s first full-size Fresh grocery equipped with cashierless technology, powered by a vast array of motion-aware ceiling cameras and sensors that track which items are removed from shelves and then automatically bill customers’ Amazon accounts when they leave. Nationwide, Amazon operates more than a dozen Fresh stores, where groceries have a lower price point than the more upscale Whole Foods chain acquired by Amazon in 2017. While other Fresh stores have their own share of space-age technology—including smart shopping carts that total up their contents and send customers a digital bill—the new location in Bellevue’s Factoria neighborhood is the first Fresh store to be equipped with Amazon’s cashierless checkout capabilities, which Amazon calls …
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