Amazon Abandons Home Delivery Robot Tests in Latest Cost Cuts (bloomberg.com) 25
Amazon is shutting down tests of its home delivery robot, the latest sign that the e-commerce giant is starting to wind down experimental projects amid slowing sales growth. From a report: Work on Scout, an autonomous machine launched about three years ago, has already been halted, according to a person familiar with the situation. Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said the Scout team was being disbanded and would be offered new jobs in the organization. About 400 people were working on the project globally, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter. A skeleton crew will continue to consider the idea of an autonomous robot, but the current iteration isn't working.
[...] The Seattle-based company began testing the cooler-sized bots on suburban sidewalks outside Seattle in 2019, before expanding the trials to Southern California, Georgia and Tennessee. The slow-moving devices, accompanied by human minders during tests, were designed to stop at a front door and pop open their lids so a customer could pick up a package. Amazon said the battery-powered robots were part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its delivery operations.
[...] The Seattle-based company began testing the cooler-sized bots on suburban sidewalks outside Seattle in 2019, before expanding the trials to Southern California, Georgia and Tennessee. The slow-moving devices, accompanied by human minders during tests, were designed to stop at a front door and pop open their lids so a customer could pick up a package. Amazon said the battery-powered robots were part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its delivery operations.
Somebody had to try it first. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some folks need to try and fail before anything transformative will succeed and become common. Look at the dot com bubble - absolutely chock full of failures as the world figured out how to move to business in the connected age. A more contemporary example is self-driving vehicles. Fits and starts... lots of failures... but it'll get here.
Amazon might not be the first success, but when it arrives, they'll probably be early adopters.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Even "failures" are success... For some value of success.
If the experiment "failed" do you understand why?
Did you collect that data.
Success!
Edison was once asked what it felt like to fail hundred of time when he "invented" the light bulb
His response was that he hadn't failed hundreds of times. He now knew hundreds of ways that didn't work.
I'm betting Amazon knows exqactly why this doesn't work for them... Now.
Re:Somebody had to try it first. (Score:5, Insightful)
"but when it arrives"
Who says it'll arrive? Some things fail not because of technological limitations but because they're a stupid idea. This is one of them. It would only take 1 drone falling out of the sky and killing someone instead of blacking out a district (as happened the other day in australia) before it was outlawed as unlike air transport its not a necessity. And ground based drone setups just like street bike schemes would soon find their equipment vanishing along with whatever was inside. Much easier to steal than a car.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The first auto accident didn't kill the future of automobiles. Chernobyl didn't kill the nuclear industry. Thalidomide didn't kill nausea medication research.
The first drone falling out of the sky and killing someone will not kill the future of drones. Nor will people stealing equipment. These things will be handled eventually.
Re: (Score:1)
You're right. What will kill drone delivery is the fact that it's annoying while adding no actual value. It COSTS MORE than ground vehicles and is not better in any way.
Re: (Score:2)
Now, sure. But very seldom does something arrive that's transformative that doesn't involve a step backward before a leap forward.
So drone deliveries of time-sensitive medical substances within university/hospital campuses are a great use case. You know it will take X minutes to get from A to B through air transit, but you don't know if mass transit cockups might bugger up a road-based delivery.
So make it work in the best cases and expand it outward over time. Declaring there to be "no value" is just thinki
Re: (Score:2)
"The first auto accident didn't kill the future of automobiles"
The car was an improvement to the horse. A drone delivery isn't an improvement on anything and drones are far more likely to crash than a vehicle.
Re: (Score:3)
"The car was an improvement to the horse."
Really? No it wasn't, until it was. Out of the gate it needed fuels extracted from difficult resources, constant maintenance, hard stop refueling, flat, smooth roads, and 100% attention by the drivers. Contrast that to horses, where everything was in place to make it work.
One sitting at that moment in history might wonder why these automobiles - clearly inferior - need working on at all.
The use cases for drone will absolutely appear. Some already have.
Re: (Score:2)
The 'use case' for cars was pretty obvious from the start. Were their problems to overcome? Certainly. But you just gloss over the problems with horses. Cars need 'constant maintenance'? What about horses - they need to be fed every day whether they were 'in use' or not. And what goes in one end comes out the other - in the 1880s NYC was faced with approx 2.5 millions of manure EVERY DAY. And when they die or become lame you don't just get a mechanic to fix them.
The initial problem with acceptance of
Re: (Score:2)
I guess a time-appropriate anecdote is as good a reply as any.
https://www.saturdayeveningpos... [saturdayeveningpost.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Horses were and still are constant maintenance. There are plenty of horseshoeing videos on YouTube. Then ask a large animal veterinarian about their medical needs.
Hard stop refueling? As in several hours a day eating? Horses being worked hard can't live off of just grass, they need supplementation with grain, often time oats.
And horses would spook and take off wildly, or buck and dump the rider, or just be ornery and bite or kick. Or flop over and roll over you.
Cars were vastly better than horses.
Re: (Score:2)
Some folks need to try and fail before anything transformative will succeed and become common. Amazon might not be the first success, but when it arrives, they'll probably be early adopters.
Meanwhile, an article yesterday on Ars Technica described a company "starship" that is having great success with its delivery robots, is profitable, and is scaling out. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2... [arstechnica.com]
Oh so green... (Score:4, Insightful)
reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its delivery operations.
Yep, it's totally about green and not reducing labor costs.
Reducing labor costs is fine, I just am put off by the disingenuous rationale.
To this particular project, they were working on it for 3 years and seemingly no where near viability. Even in 'good times', that seems like plenty of a time window to give a project before winding it down as infeasible.
suburban with an slow sidewalk robot is not fast (Score:2)
suburban with an slow sidewalk robot is not fast or very green (unless they want the driver to sit with the heat / AC off) while the robot does it's block wide Delivery
Re: (Score:1)
Actual reason (Score:5, Funny)
A sane approach (Score:2)
The past few years everyone has thought delivery bots are around the corner, though after a few years of solid work Amazon is apparently now more skeptical.
Contrast this with Zuckerberg who decided that whatever the "metaverse" is it must be so awesome as to rename his company after it.
Or Musk who seemed to have woken up and decided that humanoid robots are awesome, and Telsa would be awesome at making them, so that's now apparently their new thing. (not to mention, how FSD has been a few months away for ye
Re: A sane approach (Score:2)
Re:A sane approach (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure it is infeasible.
I think you meant "I'm not sure it is feasible"?
I think reality is losses are going to be a huge problem. If the drugstores are locking down stuff like candy, what drone is going to have a chance unless it is armed?
This part might actually be the one part that's somewhat feasible.
Considering that you've already got a pile of sensors, ML, and remote communications equipment.
First, plaster it with cameras. Far from sufficient on its own but at least a minor deterrent.
Second, have internal speakers that freak out big time if someone starts mucking around with it. Really loud alarms are a decent deterrent.
Three, you can armour the battery and speakers so you need time and sp
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry double negative. I think the robot delivery problem is feasible. However, I think theft will be rampant, making it infeasible. If people don't care about car alarms going off in a crowded parking lot to saw off a cat converter,
The car alarm doesn't exact what it's supposed to, attract attention. The prospect of car alarms doesn't deter catalytic converter theft, but once the alarm starts going off you really think the thief is going to stick around and keep sawing?
do you really think some bells and lights are going to stop anyone? And if people are stealing candy from drug stores to the point it is locked up, do you really think that a battery pack that is worth 5 grand on the black market isn't going to be one heck of a prize? Who cares if it has a camera. Drug stores have them everywhere. And no one even bothers to wear a mask.
The problem with drug stores is the merchandise needs to be easy to pick up for shoppers.
But the delivery robots can be made into miniature lock boxes. Heck, you can even give them a bunch of airbags so they can puff up like a blowfish so you can't fit them in a car.
I t
Or maybe... (Score:2)
... they just realised it was a cretinous idea to start with. Whether flying drones that could fall out of the sky onto cables and short out a district (or on a person and kill them) or a ground based buggy that once the novelty value wore off would become a target for just about every thief and vandal on its route.
New jobs (Score:2)
"...the Scout team was being disbanded and would be offered new jobs in the organization."
Sorry folks, your job working on the delivery robot is over, but we can offer you a job as a delivery person.
Man bites dog! Humans replace robots.