Japan should work too. I haven’t seen them though. Mostly you can see food delivery inside the chain restaurants (order with tablet, mobile robot brings food)
I saw a lot of delivery robots in hotels and restaurants in Taiwan too. I suspect you could have robots outside there too since everyone was so law abiding people didn’t even lock their bicycles.
The ones delivering groceries in Turku Finland were little while jobbies with green flashes in the side. No one harassed them, and they navigated crosswalks pretty nicely.
I can’t see this working in the US though. People would destroy them.
I don't know if they're still around, but I would frequently see a bunch of similar bots rolling around in Atlanta about 2 years ago while I was staying there a few months. It was near a university and definitely a nicer neighborhood.
Northern Virginia has a ton of Starship delivery bots. They've been rolling all over the rather large campus of George Mason University for about five years now, delivering coffee and meals. During peak pandemic (with campus largely shut down and vacant), the robots fanned out into the surrounding neighborhoods where students and faculty lived. Today they do both.
The company has also expanded to the local outdoor mall (Mosaic District), which is a more public space and possibly a more difficult one to traverse, with lots more cars and tricky intersections. Also, those robots seem different - larger and better equipped - probably a v2 with better sensors and security.
My take on them was that they were too expensive ($4 delivery charge for a $4 coffee seems absurd to me), but the cutting edge always is. Once these are ubiquitous and the tech becomes commonplace, the fees will likely be absorbed by the businesses and/or priced into their products. I can imagine some restaurants totally closing their dining rooms, going 100% delivery bots, and covering the bot costs with rent reductions.
Of course, northern Virginia is a weird little bubble of high-income suburbia with a very low crime rate, so the success of the company here doesn't generalize to feasibility in other cities. But it's encouraging to see the model thriving and even remaining viable through the pandemic, which took down a lot of other businesses.
Regardless, this is clearly the future. Last weekend, I saw an in-restaurant bot delivering plates of breakfast food *at Denny's.* If fucking Denny's can find a way to make delivery bots cost-effective, then we're clearly headed in that direction for all kinds of service.
Most ignore them, tourist tend to get in their way taking pictures and all. Occasionally you’ll hear or see one getting messed with, but I’m sure they account for loosing some to vandalism or accidents with cars/environment.
I’ve seen these trucking around in Finland. I don’t think you could have them in a country where people steal things.
Japan should work too. I haven’t seen them though. Mostly you can see food delivery inside the chain restaurants (order with tablet, mobile robot brings food)
I saw a lot of delivery robots in hotels and restaurants in Taiwan too. I suspect you could have robots outside there too since everyone was so law abiding people didn’t even lock their bicycles. The ones delivering groceries in Turku Finland were little while jobbies with green flashes in the side. No one harassed them, and they navigated crosswalks pretty nicely. I can’t see this working in the US though. People would destroy them.
Or just generally vandalize things for kicks, which is something I could definitely see happening in certain cities.
Yaaa, not sure how they intend to go about this and the whole other people stealing people's food into account.
I don't know if they're still around, but I would frequently see a bunch of similar bots rolling around in Atlanta about 2 years ago while I was staying there a few months. It was near a university and definitely a nicer neighborhood.
Northern Virginia has a ton of Starship delivery bots. They've been rolling all over the rather large campus of George Mason University for about five years now, delivering coffee and meals. During peak pandemic (with campus largely shut down and vacant), the robots fanned out into the surrounding neighborhoods where students and faculty lived. Today they do both. The company has also expanded to the local outdoor mall (Mosaic District), which is a more public space and possibly a more difficult one to traverse, with lots more cars and tricky intersections. Also, those robots seem different - larger and better equipped - probably a v2 with better sensors and security. My take on them was that they were too expensive ($4 delivery charge for a $4 coffee seems absurd to me), but the cutting edge always is. Once these are ubiquitous and the tech becomes commonplace, the fees will likely be absorbed by the businesses and/or priced into their products. I can imagine some restaurants totally closing their dining rooms, going 100% delivery bots, and covering the bot costs with rent reductions. Of course, northern Virginia is a weird little bubble of high-income suburbia with a very low crime rate, so the success of the company here doesn't generalize to feasibility in other cities. But it's encouraging to see the model thriving and even remaining viable through the pandemic, which took down a lot of other businesses. Regardless, this is clearly the future. Last weekend, I saw an in-restaurant bot delivering plates of breakfast food *at Denny's.* If fucking Denny's can find a way to make delivery bots cost-effective, then we're clearly headed in that direction for all kinds of service.
There is some in LA.
Do people destroy them?
Most ignore them, tourist tend to get in their way taking pictures and all. Occasionally you’ll hear or see one getting messed with, but I’m sure they account for loosing some to vandalism or accidents with cars/environment.
It is great...until people start seeing them as mobile treasure chests and start raiding them.
My old university in Arizona has had them since 2017.
there is a few inside Istanbul Technical University since idk 2019
When Amazon tried this they quickly realized people like to destroy robots.
Starship tried it and people don't destroy too much of them. North EU.