Courtesy of Mish.
It’s difficult keeping up with all the advances in robotic technology.
On Mach 20, I reported on “DRU” Domino’s Unmanned Pizza Delivery Robot. DRU is on trial in 7 countries.
What I did not know was “DRU” has a twin sister about to roam the streets of Washington D.C.
In addition, robotic pet cats for the elderly, Hilton’s “Concierge Connie”, and “Sophia”, your medical robot specialist are all in the news.
Driverless Robots to Hit D.C. Sidewalks
The Washington Post reports Driverless Delivery Robots Could be Hitting D.C. Sidewalks Soon.
A brood of sidewalk drones could be rolling around the nation’s capital within a year, if a D.C. Council member has her way.
Executives from Starship Technologies, with roots in Estonia and London, say their goal is to unleash a platoon of “smart, friendly robots” that will ply sidewalks along with pedestrians to make local deliveries of groceries or small packages “almost free.”
Councilwoman Mary Cheh and company officials sought to make a splash by promising one of the squat vehicles on Wednesday would deliver legislation to the council authorizing self-driving delivery robots. The little white device, which looks like an ice chest rolling on six wagon wheels, did indeed scoot its way into Council Secretary Nyasha Smith’s office with the three-page bill in its compartment and reporters on its tail.
Allan Martinson, Starship’s chief operating officer, who saw some 6,000 firms as a venture capitalist before deciding to join the robotic delivery startup. This is no phantom product that will have fizzled in a year, he said.
As for run-of-the-mill thieves and vandals, Martinson said he’s not worried. A hitchhiking robot was destroyed in Philadelphia last year, bumming out the Canadian researchers who built it. But Starship’s machines have 9 cameras, stream live video back to their base, and can easily call for police, or other, backup, Martinson said.
“We can send other robots in the area. They would come to help the robot in distress,” Martinson said.
Robots Helping Robots in Distress?
Color me skeptical on that one, especially at the speed of these things. Down the road, who knows?
