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Self-Driving Delivery Robots To Hit Sidewalks of London In 2016 (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Estonian start-up Starship Technologies is taking a different approach to automated delivery with a ground-based self-driving robot. Headquartered in London and launched by two ex-Skype founders, the robotics company has unveiled its suburban pavement-strolling bot which can travel at a speedy 4mph. Starship claims that the 40-pound machine could deliver packages in 5 to 30 minutes from local retailers and restaurants. The company argues that a grounded approach to automated delivery will remove some of the safety concerns linked to flying drone systems, as the robot is much less likely to cause harm.
amusing they call themselves 'starship technologies' but maybe it's because the earth is a spaceship.
either way, I welcome our robotic overlords :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
What's to keep these from being carried to the nearest alley and a relieved of their payloads?
To precent mischief future bots will have to deter theft.... one suggested sticker:
DELIVERY BOT CARRIES LESS THAN 2GB OF RAM AT ALL TIMES.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can see a lot of people getting hurt because they run/walk into them (not looking up from their phone), or because they just freak-out, or assume it will move out of their way (will it, or will it just stop and wait for the way to clear?)
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
>> 15 times cheaper than a Mexican on a bicycle?
Considering how many Mexicans there are in London, then yes, the robot might be cheaper.
You know, you all are some lazy-ass motherfuckers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I wonder if these robots need to have breakable encryption ... if the government can't learn about what they're delivering and where to, what's the point?
Dont worry grandpa, these robots will stay off your lawn.
Knowing the streets of London, there are lots of kurbs, sunken manhole covers, uneven paving slabs and just hundreds of road crossings. This thing better have some clever way of keeping moving over quite rough ground without getting stuck. Meanwhile if it's carrying anything worth delivering then someone will try to have it away. Also most Londoners don't live on the ground floor, how does it get the attention of the target person to come and meet it in the street? The project will probably fail and the police will hijack it and use them as camera drones. Maybe even parking enforment.
London has pavements.
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Self-driving delivery robots hit the streets of Verbania in 2010 and it just ended up on the local paper. Couldn't get anyone to invest in it. Why?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Oh for fucks sake. You know why we don't have bombs going off every day. Because there are to first order zero fucking bombers. There are RC cars, plain cars, Quad copters, rc copters going back more than 20 years, taxis, plain old walking around and shit. Yet do you see bombs everywhere. How the fuck is this different from a courier bomb. Fed ex really don't check. Yet we get none.
Because Terrorists are a lie.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Can they be hacked via WiFi/Bluetooth/whatnot? ... :-) :-)
I can imagine some people re-programming these for a detour into somebody garage for looting.
Or simply having them drive around in circles or chug along the highway, sprayed with graffity sprayed all over them.
Countless possibilities.
The first thing my buddy's gonna get when amazon sends out it's delivery drones is a shotgun.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So cheap! That's about 61 US dollars at the moment!
You know what else moves at 4mph on a pavement. The elderly in mobility scooters, potentially we could give them souped up mobility scouters and let them be low speed couriers around London.
For some reason I find that more frightening than a robot doing the deliveries..
Outside the USA, there are very few sidewalks and none in London.
As English is not only our first language but it goes back centuries, we have pavements.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Amused by your outrage of the overperception of terrorism - ignoring the parent posters grotesque use of the word "Muslim" as a synonym for "terrorist".
I was deliberately ignoring that.
But your right. I am outraged. The first thing these stupid people say "OMG a Terrorist could use it!", as if they can't already use the alternative. If it something new. Jumping at every shadow. I remember when it was communists. Seriously you got into real trouble if you didn't say USSR/Communism==evil.
The shadows stay the same. Only the labels change.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
The articles says that the high res cameras and GPS will be a deterrent. One could imagine thieves wearing balaclavas, but still things like gate-analysis or stand-off iris imaging will put the thieves at risk of being spotted by other cameras later and then identified in the future. Perhaps it will also employ something like an electric eel defense.
In any case the economics of this are odd. They state that it will allow deliveries for $1 which they claim is 15 times less than a human driver. Empirically it does not cost $15 to deliver most packages. However that depends on what you are comparing too. A 40 pound package might easily cost over $25 to deliver. And if were talking same day delivery then more. On the otherhand, the last mile is not the only cost and I would assume that for heavy and same day delivery that much of the cost is in the upstream logistics. So perhaps this is meant for same day delivery of relatively heavy items where perhaps $15 makes sense.
An additional cost savings is in the return of items. Being able to return things easily even if it is not free is a major incentive to shop stores like Sierra Trading post, Amazon and others with liberal return policies. Being able to do that return for free would revolutionize the industry.
Thus I would conclude the big deal here is the low cost of returns.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Only a few remaining bugs need to be worked out.
Have gnu, will travel.
> Self-Driving Delivery Robots To Hit Sidewalks of London In 2016
Why can't they have good enough collision avoidance so that they DO NOT hit the sidewalks?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I take it you've never been to London's "Little Mexico".
Two Chihuahuans in a flat doesn't make it an ethnic enclave.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Flying drones will only risk injuring someone if they have a catastrophic failure and just happen to land on someone when they fall to earth.
The land-drones will be in very close proximity to people the entire time they are operating creating numerous opportunity for injury on a constant basis. Way more people will be injured by these things than by flying drones.
Plus, people will just kick them over when they are in their way.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
If these things don't drive along the road, but instead use the sidewalks, it constitutes the UK-equivalent of a private taking of a public good.
Sidewalks are for pedestrians, and sometimes bicycles (depending upon local laws &/or enforcement).
There you go again - letting your rampant fear and xenophobia drag you into besmirching over 1.6 billion people, publicly, with absolutely no thought behind it what so ever. Considering there have been more bombs planted in London by Christians than Muslims, you are simply explaining that you don't know your history or religion, yet are so sure in your intrinsic awesomeness that you don't need silly things like facts to make a disgusting, ignorant assertion.
You really are pathetic. I thought you were getting better, but apparently not - thinking is too difficult, hate is too easy, and ignorance is bliss.
The first thing these stupid people say "OMG a Terrorist could use it!", as if they can't already use the alternative. If it something new. Jumping at every shadow.
Yes, it's silly when people don't consider the dangers of new things with the perspective of existing things... but what i find interesting is that most people are polarised on the subject.... to one of the straw men which can be summed up as: "technology kills people" || "people kill people".
When i think it's reasonable to say that reality is far more grey, and the old saying "With great power comes great responsibility" is the most truthful... and frankly a 18Kg pavement bound self driving box while possibly mildly useful and relieving of mundane tasks - is not "great power" or dangerous by comparison to most things... like a sharp stick.
Yes, the lid is locked, but what stops anyone from following these bots with a van, open the side door, break the antenna off, and then grab that whole thing for disassembly at home? Or what if there are distortions (accidentally or intentionally) in the radio transmission that send that robot into a ditch for easy pickup? What engineers better spend their time on is redesigning living quarters to be walkable with plenty of services offered. That way we do not need dumb ideas like grocery delivery robots and no longer have to worry about widespread obesity.