Uber Eats Launches Robot Delivery Service in Miami 34
The next time you order a meal from Uber Eats, it may be delivered by a robot -- at least if you live in Miami. From a report: Starting on Thursday, some Miami residents can order their Uber Eats takeout to be delivered via autonomous, sidewalk-trotting robots thanks to a new partnership between the ride-hailing company and robotics firm Cartken. With the new service, customers will be alerted when their food is on the way and then be instructed to meet the remotely-supervised robot on the sidewalk, according to in-app screenshots shared with CNN by Uber.
Customers can then unlock the vehicle using their phone and grab their order from a secure compartment. (Customers can also opt-out if they prefer to have their items delivered by a courier.) Cartken's six-wheeled robots are equipped with multiple sensors and cameras to help them avoid collisions and choose routes which have the fewest hazards, according to its website. The delivery robots can operate indoors as well as outdoors.
Customers can then unlock the vehicle using their phone and grab their order from a secure compartment. (Customers can also opt-out if they prefer to have their items delivered by a courier.) Cartken's six-wheeled robots are equipped with multiple sensors and cameras to help them avoid collisions and choose routes which have the fewest hazards, according to its website. The delivery robots can operate indoors as well as outdoors.
Consumers can... (Score:1)
Unlock the vehicle with their phone, grab their food, while someone else grabs the vehicle.
Might be a nice bit of kit to hack ;)
Ah, yes (Score:2)
Your choice:
- human delivery which you don't know if the driver touched or ate (some of) your food
- robot delivery with a compartment that's been touched by dozens of clients before you but you can't be sure wether or not they clean it between each order.
Re: (Score:2)
- human delivery which you don't know if the driver touched or ate (some of) your food
A lot of places are now placing seals on the bags, such that any attempt at food removal would visibly damage the seal.
Of course, anyone who prepared the food can still spit in it (or worse).
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Reminds me of the Freakonamics story about the guy who did not provide delivery for his pizza restaurant, eat-in or take-out only. Did not want customers getting cold pizzas, etc. Turns out Uber Eats (or the other indistinguishable competitor) did deliveries anyway. The cost with delivery from the service was actually less than the restaurant charged for the pizzas. The guy then figures he can just buy his own pizzas for less than the cost to make them, which he did. This went on for some time before the
Re:Ah, yes (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, no human delivery...no tip, right?
Re: (Score:3)
More choices:
- move yourself with your legs, machinery, mass transit, or other ambulatory means to get to the grocery store or restaurant; saving money and increasing exercise.
- if the world is too dangerous to go outside, then it is also too dangerous for humans who earn less money than you to go outside, so robots would be the correct and fair solution to a shut-in society.
- Go watch WALL-E again.
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- move yourself with your legs, machinery, mass transit, or other ambulatory means to get to the grocery store or restaurant; saving money and increasing exercise.
Some of us are disabled to the point where we can't travel or shop for food. (I mean, if someone were to come get me and drive me to the store, and walk around and shop with me, telling me what is on the shelves, I would be happy to say, "Yes, get that.")
And then when we got home, maybe they could cook it, too, since I can't do that, either. Too blind to see what's in the fridge, the stove, utensils, flames, food, what's happening on the range or oven, etc.
These services have been a great help to me. I wish
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, it's a great service for those who need it. I suspect most customers don't need it. I have a friend who just says "it's dangerous to go outside with covid", ignoring the fact that he's asking someone else to go outside instead of him.
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guess the hypochondriacs will have to cook their own food.
P.S. jarred baby food is sterilized, dated, and hermetically sealed with a tamper evident cap.
How sad is that (Score:3)
Dude's alone at home, orders food delivered at home. Cook prepares food, loads the robot. Robot delivers to dude alone at home. Total human interaction: zero. Humanity factor: zero. Sad life factor for everybody involved in that transation: 100%
This is quite a miserable world we'll all soon live in. Like a parody of what life is about.
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This is quite a miserable world we'll all soon live in.
You sound unrealistically optimistic about the viability of these services.
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This is quite a miserable world we'll all soon live in.
You sound unrealistically optimistic about the viability of these services.
And you act like we're not already there when it comes to human laziness driven by emotionless robotic transactions.
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Dude's alone at home, orders food delivered at home. Cook prepares food, loads the robot. Robot delivers to dude alone at home. Total human interaction: zero. Humanity factor: zero. Sad life factor for everybody involved in that transation: 100%
Dude's alone at home, orders food delivered at home. Cook prepares food, hands it to the Uber driver. Driver blows off dude because of lousy tip and eats food. Total human interaction: 10%. Humanity factor: maybe 25%. Sad life factor for everybody involved in that transaction: 100% except for the driver who got a "free" meal.
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Someone on slashdot is reading this description and thinking what a utopia that would be.
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"Total human interaction: zero"
The maximum interaction time that would come from the alternatives in your scenario, even going to a restaurant and eating there, is maybe five minutes. Meanwhile, I've expended enough of my free time traveling to be worth what the cook makes all day and with *less* interaction during that time than would otherwise have happened.
NE Minneapolis Has These (Score:3)
There's a local startup with similar in NE Minneapolis. They hire people to drive them remotely via VR headsets. Right now, a local ice cream place is using them, and soon a local pizza spot is going to start utilizing them too. They're called Carbon Origins and are housed in a startup space called Twin Ignition Startup Garage.
GMU in VA, too (Score:2)
George Mason University in Fairfax VA has these rolling all over the campus, theirs are fully autonomous. A college campus that's fairly isolated from the main roads is an ideal use case. Lots of sidewalks, no so much traffic. They also let them loose in the city during the height of the pandemic to do restaurant deliveries. It's pretty amusing to 5 or 6 of them lined up at an intersection waiting their turn to cross.
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I've seen the social media videos of them stuck or tipped over. People love messing with them.
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I've seen the social media videos of them stuck or tipped over. People love messing with them.
I bet they're flipping over and crashing and getting stuck all by themselves.
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George Mason University in Fairfax VA has these rolling all over the campus, theirs are fully autonomous. A college campus that's fairly isolated from the main roads is an ideal use case. Lots of sidewalks, no so much traffic. They also let them loose in the city during the height of the pandemic to do restaurant deliveries. It's pretty amusing to 5 or 6 of them lined up at an intersection waiting their turn to cross.
I don't totally understand where these robots go. Are they coming all the way from some restaurant miles away, to someone's house? Fairfax County (and surrounding areas) and even Fairfax City does not generally have contiguous sidewalks everywhere. And what happens when there is a sidewalk, but it's busted up so bad that a person has trouble walking on that part?
I can see this working on a campus, delivering food from the on-campus fast food joints to dorms. But in a real city? Or a suburb?
I order from thes
I'll just start my own robot delivery service (Score:2)
With blackjack, and hookers!
Not the first time (Score:3)
Over the last 10 years or so I've seen dozens of these press releases touting the beginning of robotic delivery in some area. Invariably, if you were to check in a year, there would be no trace of it left. But they never put out press releases about that.
Miami is a curious choice. Local homeless are pretty aggressive (check the news). A slowly moving unprotected box full of food would, no doubt, present an attractive target.
Unfortunately it is easier to send a robot (Score:2)
Robot's invincible enemies are paint, coffee, cigarettes, and cola.
Re: (Score:2)
And stairs.
Humanitarian efforts! (Score:2)
How long before... (Score:2)
Free food for the homeless? (Score:2)
So how do they prevent these robots from being robbed by hungry homeless people?
Having an unmanned food delivery bot moving pass someone starving is basically asking to be robbed.
Am I th eonly one? (Score:2)
My first scan of the summary title had the first three words as "Uber Eats Lunches". Now the next time I read or hear "Uber Eats" I'll be asking "Uber eats what?"
English language (Score:1)
Ah, the boring reality, it could have been so much more exciting with a slightly different reading of the headline: Uber launches a service of delivering robots...
Behind the times (Score:1)
We've had them here in the UK, in Milton Keynes, since 2018. There is a fleet of about 200 and you regularly see them trundling about. As far as I know, there is no real problem with people 'interfering' with them.
https://www.buckinghamshireliv... [buckinghamshirelive.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because that's the UK. Have you ever been to the USA? People vandalize shit all the time, that country is full of assholes who don't care for the property of others.
Robot delivery service (Score:2)
All very nice, but I don't currently need any robots delivered.