Shopify Expands One-Click Checkout; Amazon Launches Cashierless System in Full Grocery Store; Twitter Looks at Letting You ‘Unmention’ Yourself; EVs Pass Up Diesels in the UK as Hottest Lease Cars

Shopify has announced they their Shop Pay one-click checkout service can now be used by any merchant that sells via Facebook or Google…whether or not they use Shopify’s software to power their online stores. Techcrunch.com reports that the pay system just expanded Shop Pay to Facebook and Instagram in February. Google announced last month that they would partner with Shopify as well…which now means nearly 2 million merchants will be able to use the one click setup via Google. (There is overlap between Facebook and Google, but neither has revealed that number.) Shopify claims a 70% faster checkout with their Shop Pay one-click system.

As we reported several weeks ago, Amazon was bringing their ‘Just Walk Out’ tech to a full sized grocery store. Now, the company has announced they will open a 25,000 square foot Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue, WA. According to geekwire.com, the store winn not offer the smart carts that automatically detect and log items on a digital display like at some of their stores. The store WILL have traditional check out lines for shoppers that don’t want to use Just Walk Out. They will feature the palm reading ID Amazon One that has recently showed up in Whole Foods stores. Amazon is looking to sell its tech to other grocers now. It remains to be seen whether the big chains like Safeway, Kroger, Walmart, and the like will show interest. 

Twitter is apparently experimenting with a new method to prevent unwanted attention that can frequently turn to harassment. It’s just in the concept stage right now, but the platform may allow users from mentioning them without using block or mute. Engadget.com says the feature would work something like untagging yourself on Facebook. Doing so would prevent that Twitter account from tagging you in future replies. Twitter is even looking at making a temporary version of this available…so you could choose to ‘unmention’ yourself for a period of time, not necessarily forever. 

In what might herald the future in developed countries, EVs have now passed up diesels as the most popular lease cars. Thenextweb.com reports that diesel registrations have dropped off and not amount to 18% market share of leases, while EVs have now hit 21.7%! This may be an indicator that ranges and charge times have improved enough that lessees are no longer having ‘range anxiety,’ and are ready to jump into the new tech.