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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

robot delivery

Kiwi Unveils New Name and a New Robot (That Can Get Food From Vending Machines!)

Words matter. That’s a lesson I hope robot delivery startup learned earlier this week when it sent out an email saying “We want to let you know that we will be ending the Kiwibot delivery service, effective December 15, 2019.“

We weren’t sure exactly what that meant, and after a full day of confusion and multiple explanatory emails from the company, it turns out it wasn’t the END end for Kiwi. It was just stopping service for the winter. (Sidenote: Don’t skimp on a copywriter.)

The company then said it would be announcing its reinvention yesterday, which it did towards the close of business with a corporate blog post. Kiwi had already shared some details from this “reinvention” earlier in the week: the company has changed its name to “Kiwibot,” there’s a new, more rugged robot on the way (see video below), and something called Kiwi Express promises to be the “First end to end robotic Food delivery service.”

Yesterday’s blog post added a few details:

In 2020, we will roll out Kiwibot Cloud Pro. A new generation is coming. Refined hardware design, new operations features, and superior human interactions will transform the logistics landscape and yield better service.

We combine sensors of a custom made stereo camera to get more information about the environment. Our Kiwibots will sense the world more accurately and move more precisely. Our Kiwibots are now resilient to dynamic light conditions on different sidewalks.

Kiwibot v3.2 | Nuestro robot más avanzado

In addition to the new technology, this new Kiwibot is also more rugged, which will make it less likely to get stuck (and need a human’s help).

On Kiwibot’s website, the company says that its robots can now interact with vending machines. At first blush, this might seem like overkill to have a robot pick you up a Snickers bar from the lobby vending machine because you are too lazy to walk down there. But vending machines are changing and turning into something more akin to small restaurants. Companies like Yo-Kai Express serve hot ramen from vending machines, and Cafe X is re-classifying its coffee robot as a vending machine. So being early to integrate its robot with those types of systems now makes a lot of sense for Kiwi.

It’s nice to know that Kiwi isn’t shutting down. While there are still a lot of issues to work out, I’m still a big believer in robot delivery. More players in the space means more competition and more innovation.

Now Kiwi just needs fewer wording mistakes.

Updated: Kiwi “Reinvention” Coming This Week

The original headline for this post was “Developing: Is Robot Delivery Service Kiwi Shutting Down in Berkeley or Altogether?”

SECOND UPDATE: Later last night, Kiwi sent out another email with the following:

Hi there ,
In the last 24 hours, we have received thousands of messages from the community, customers, and partners related to an email we sent today with the subject: ⚰️☠️Kiwi no more.

First of all: KIWIBOT IS NOT SHUTTING DOWN. Our aim was to draw attention to the early ending of deliveries for this semester, but the email was incorrectly worded. We are sorry to cause you worry, but are overwhelmed at the amount of Kiwi Love we have received. We plan to release all information regarding our revolutionized Kiwibot technology on December 5th, but here are some teasers:

With that said, I want to tell you about some of the projects/news we are going to announce this Thursday:

  • Kiwibot 3.2 Check out the video(It’s pretty cool) 
  • Kiwi Express (First end to end robotic Food delivery service) 
  • Kiwibot as our only brand name and new website kiwibot.com, (this is the last email you will receive from @kiwicampus.com) So Kiwi no more… 
  • Our new Lab and updates related to our supervisor’s program in Colombia.
  • Details of the next Kiwibot version, and we want YOU to be involved (Food Coupons available, stay tuned this Thursday 5th)
  • Kiwibot’s return on January 21st

Here’s the video:

Kiwibot v3.2 | Nuestro robot más avanzado

UPDATE: We just got a second email from Kiwi this afternoon. Looks like the company isn’t shutting down entirely. The email said:

Our PR team is working on a special announcement regarding Kiwibot’s reinvention for next semester, please keep an eye out for it this Thursday, December 5th

ORIGINAL POST: We received an email this morning from Kiwi, the robot delivery service, saying that it is ending its service as of December 15, 2019. What we don’t know at this point is whether that means it is shutting down the delivery service just at the University of California Berkeley (which is where I originally signed up for and used the service), or everywhere, or if it is pivoting to something else.

We received the following email this morning from Kiwi:

Hey,

When we started Kiwibot a little over 2 years ago, we had a vision for a service that would allow people to send atoms using delivery robots. Since then, over 20,000 people have signed up for Kiwibot, and more than 80,000 orders have been placed. We gave Berkeley an affordable and accessible way of getting food, and we’re honored to have been the ‘first delivery robot’ for so many people.

We want to let you know that we will be ending the Kiwibot delivery service, effective December 15, 2019. The Kiwibot app will remain accessible until December 15th, 2019. After that date, your points and coupons will no longer work, and you will no longer be able to order.

We want to extend a very special thanks to our entire community. We are truly humbled by your curiosity and innovative spirit. It was a great adventure, and we’re proud of what we built – we sincerely hope you enjoyed using Kiwibot.

Kiwi had been using its cooler-sized rover robots to make food deliveries around UC Berkeley and Westwood in Los Angeles, and was in talks with the city of Sacramento about deploying its service there.

Earlier this year, Kiwi announced expansion plans to fifteen more schools, but there seemed to be a couple of snags along the way. Kiwi said it was expanding to both Purdue and Harvard. But Purdue launched robot delivery with competitor delivery robot company Starship this fall, and Harvard was reportedly in talks to bring Starship robots there as well. Starship works with school administrations, while Kiwi was planning on going through student groups.

As mentioned, I used Kiwi at UC Berkeley and while it had its glitches (and caught fire that one time), the experience also felt like a glimpse into the future of on-demand food. So far Kiwi has raised $2 million in funding.

This story is developing and we have reached out to Kiwi to find out more. We will update this post as we get more information.

Uber CEO: “Some Version” of Autonomous Driving for Simple Tasks Coming in 3 to 5 Years

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s comments on Saudi Arabia are rightly grabbing most of the headlines today, following his televised appearance on Axios on HBO this weekend. But during that interview, Khosrowshahi also said some things about Uber’s autonomous driving future which are worth at least noting.

Axios posted an unaired clip from that interview and in it, Khosrowshahi says that full autonomous ride-hailing is probably five to ten years off. However, he thinks that for very simple routes and tasks, there will be some form of autonomous driving going on in just three to five years.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talks autonomous vehicles

Though he doesn’t mention Uber Eats specifically in the clip, food delivery certainly seems like it could fit the bill when it comes to simple tasks and routes. As Khosrowshahi points out, safety is still a huge issue for autonomous vehicles. On its face, carrying food instead of people is at least a little bit safer, because there is no one inside the self-driving vehicle who can get injured. (Obviously it still needs to be safe for pedestrians and other people out in the world.)

Also carrying food is a much simpler task than carrying a person, who may not be at a pickup point, or might want to get dropped off at a particular spot, or could even barf in the backseat of a car.

Uber could also create simple, autonomous routes for food delivery, similar to the hub and spoke model we talked about with Uber’s upcoming drone delivery. If Uber builds out more centralized ghost kitchens that host a number of different restaurants, food ordered from those restaurants could be bundled together into an autonomous vehicle that drives along a simple route to a drop-off point in a neighborhood where drivers pick it up for last mile delivery. This autonomous middle-mile is something that Walmart is already exploring to move goods between Walmart stores.

Autonomous vehicles also eliminate the cost of human drivers, so they would be cheaper to operate than Uber’s current fleet. This displacement of human labor brings up its own societal issues, and Uber is already in the hot seat for how it classifies its drivers. Uber is going to have to sort all this out because three years is not that far away.

Starship Raises $40M Series A, Rolls Out its Delivery Robots to U. of Pittsburgh and Purdue Campuses

Autonomus robot delivery startup Starship announced today that it has raised a $40 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Morpheus Ventures with participation from prior investors including Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, MetaPlanet Holdings, as well as new investors including TDK Ventures, Qu Ventures and others. This brings the total amount raised by Starship to $85 million.

That news alone would be worthy of a story, but Starship upped the ante by also announcing that its rover bots arrived today at the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana’s Purdue University in order to prepare to make food deliveries on both campuses in September. These new schools join George Mason University and Northern Arizona University, which launched their own robot delivery programs with Starship earlier this year, and are a step in Starship’s plan (also announced today) to be on 100 college campuses over the next two years.

Students, faculty, staff and whomever else on these school campuses are able to get robot delivery by downloading the Starship mobile app. Users choose from the restaurant and food options, order and pay (there’s a $1.99 delivery fee) to have their snacks, meals or groceries dropped off at any location on campus.

Starship’s robots have proven to be such big ‘bots on campus that the company said in today’s press release emailed to The Spoon that both George Mason and Northern Arizona have increased the number of delivery robots (George Mason actually doubled its fleet), as well as their hours of operation.

Serving colleges is a popular go-to market strategy for delivery robot startups. Earlier this summer, Kiwi announced it was expanding its robot delivery to fifteen colleges including Harvard, Stanford and… Purdue.

Obviously that last one is of interest, given Starship’s announcement today. When asked about Kiwi’s potential presence at Purdue, Starship provided us with the following statement: “Starship is looking forward to launching on Purdue University on September 9. The delivery robots are currently mapping the area and can’t wait to start serving students and staff in September. We look forward to sharing more details shortly.”

We’ve reached out to Kiwi to see if Purdue is still indeed on their rollout roadmap, but regardless of whether Purdue doubles up on robots or has quietly dropped Kiwi, the situation highlights how colleges will be a battleground for delivery robot services. Starship’s fresh $40 million certainly gives it a bigger warchest to woo universities than Kiwi, which has only raised $2 million to date.

Starship says it will use the new funding to “rapidly expand its services to more university campuses,” so a delivery battle is definitely brewing. The company already has a good track record: Starship says its robots have traveled more than 350,000 miles, crossed 4M streets, and have completed more than 100,000 autonomous deliveries.

Squishy Tires and Delivery Sweet Spots: More on Refraction AI’s Three-Wheeled Delivery Bot

When Refraction AI came out of stealth a couple weeks back, the company provided a fair amount of detail about its REV-1 autonomous delivery robot. The REV-1 has three wheels, can ride in a bike lane and ditched LIDAR in favor of on-board cameras for its navigation.

But we still had a few questions about Refraction AI’s robot and its approach to autonomous delivery, so I got on the phone with Refraction co-founder and CEO Matthew Johnson-Roberson this week to find out more.

One of the REV-1 launch’s biggest messages was that the robot was built to handle more inclement weather, but early coverage didn’t spell out exactly how. Right now a lot of autonomous vehicle testing happens in sunny places like Phoenix, Houston and the Bay Area. Clear skies and lots of light make it easier for robots to “see” things like lines on the road as they navigate.

Johnson-Roberson said that Refraction AI combines software and hardware to battle bad weather. First is the environmental scanning provided by a 12-camera setup as well as ultrasound and radar sensors on the REV-1. To make the robot less expensive, the REV-1 foregoes the LIDAR systems popular with other autonomous robots. And according to Johnson-Roberson, Refraction AI’s camera rig also allows the robot to track things not on the ground like buildings and cars to navigate even when road lines are not visible. The other way the REV-1 takes on bad weather is rather low tech. “We’re using fat bike tires a low PSI so they are squishy,” said Johnson-Roberson. “They can run in snow and rain.”

While the REV-1 is autonomous, there are still human tele-operators who can take over should the vehicle get stuck at, say, a complex intersection with a mix of cars and pedestrians.

The REV-1 is about the same size and speed as a bike, making its form factor kind of like a Goldilocks. It’s not big, like a full-sized car, and not small, like a rover robot. But that means it is free from the limitations of those other form factors. Full-sized self-driving cars may go faster and farther, but they also require a safety driver on-board, which pushes up the price of operation. Rover bots are cheaper, but they are slower and can’t hold as much food.

So what is the best environment for this in-between vehicle?

“Suburban LA is not a good idea,” said Johnson-Roberson, “We can go half a mile to 2.5 miles. That’s the sweet spot for what we’re trying to do.” So more dense urban areas are better for the REV-1. Refraction AI is eyeing Boston, Madison, WI and Austin, TX as potential rollout cities.

Right now, the company is working with two restaurants in the Ann Arbor, Mich. area. Johnson-Roberson didn’t provide many details about business models, but said that as the company expands, it will work directly with restaurants, providing them REV-1s and charging a per-delivery fee that “Is better than [what] Uber Eats is charging.”

Once a restaurant gets an order, it will use a tablet provided by Refraction to tell the REV-1 where to go. A code is texted to the customer who uses it to unlock the REV-1 when it arrives with the food.

While it’s working directly with restaurants right now, Johnson-Roberson said that his company is open to working with third-party delivery services.

Refraction AI is definitely a company to watch in the emerging delivery space. Self-driving delivery isn’t a zero sum game, but the REV-1’s unique form factor should make it appealing because of its combination of size and speed.

Washington State to Allow Delivery Robots on Sidewalks

If you live in the state of Washington, you could soon be walking alongside delivery robots on the sidewalk, thanks to new legislation signed today by Washington governor Jay Inslee.

House Bill 1325 creates a regulatory framework that personal delivery devices (a.k.a. delivery robots) must follow. The new legislation defines personal delivery devices as:

  • Intended primarily to transport property on sidewalks and crosswalks
  • Weighing less than one hundred twenty pounds
  • Operating at a maximum speed of six miles per hour
  • Equipped with automated driving technology, including software and hardware, enabling the operation of the device with the support and supervision of a remote personal delivery device operator

It also outlines rules for operating delivery robots including:

  • They must follow the existing rules of the road
  • They can only operate on sidewalks and crosswalks
  • There must be an operator who monitors and can take control of the robot
  • The robots themselves must be marked with the owner’s name and contact information
  • The robot must have brakes
  • The robot must have front and back lights for making deliveries from sunset to sunrise

With today’s signing, Washington becomes the eighth state to allow robot deliveries statewide, following Virginia, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Utah and Arizona. Robot delivery company Starship told us of today’s signing and said via email that it had worked with the state legislature to develop the regulations.

These types of robots are the perfect size for delivering meals (which. is. awesome.), but Seattle-ites probably won’t be able to get a burrito by ‘bot unless they’re a student at one of the local colleges. Companies like Starship and Kiwi have started out by deploying delivery bots to college and corporate campuses. Starship has programs running with George Mason University and Northern Arizona University. For its part, Kiwi just expanded to fifteen colleges across the country.

Now that personal delivery device regulations in place, one has to wonder if Amazon will ramp up its own robot ambitions. The company started testing out its Scout robot in the Seattle suburb of Sammamish in January this year, and the company has a patent for a delivery robot that would live at your house. Having a clear set of guidelines could give Amazon the go-ahead to go robot delivery wild in its home state.

Though I live in a suburb of Seattle, my town is pretty rural and hilly and sadly probably won’t get delivery robots anytime soon. All the more reason to make a trip to the big city, I guess.

If you want to know more about Starship and the complexities of building robots that deliver your food, check out this panel I moderated with Ryan Tuohy, Senior VP of Business Development at Starship, during our recent ArticulATE food robotics conference.

ArticulATE 2019: Robots on the Road. Automating Last Mile Delivery

I Used Kiwi’s Robot and it Felt Like the Future of College Food Delivery (Almost)

I live in a rural area, and a lot of the cool food delivery options aren’t available. So I was excited to see Kiwi’s rover bots scurrying around when I attended the TechCrunch Robotics and AI Sessions at UC Berkeley yesterday.

Having these robots on hand came in robot-handy during lunch when all the nearby eateries were choked with conference attendees and hungry students. Rather than waste my limited break standing in a long line, I downloaded the Kiwi mobile app to have a robot fetch me some grub while I did some work. In doing so I glimpsed into the bright future of college food delivery, and it is robots.

Well, almost.

Future college kids won’t know how lucky they’ll have it when campuses all operate fleets of robotic rovers making deliveries day and night. Robot delivery will be easy, fast, convenient and will free up much more time for beer pong studying.

Here’s how it worked.

I downloaded the Kiwi app and set up an account, which was pretty straightforward (though no Apple Pay option yet). After that, Kiwi’s marketplace brings up a list of nearby participating restaurants and alerted me to special offers. I placed two separate orders: a burrito from a local Mexican restaurant, and a boba tea from a different establishment.

On its face, robo-delivery isn’t cheap. There’s a $3.80 fee Kiwi tacks on which brought the total of my burrito to $16 and my boba to a little under $6. Twenty-two bucks for lunch ain’t nothin’, but if you know going into it that you are paying for the convenience of staying in one place and doing what you want (beer pong), while a robot runs across town, goes to two different restaurants and brings all your food back to you, the fee didn’t feel that bad.

I dropped a pin to mark the delivery location and placed my order. The Kiwi app did a good job of keeping me up to date on the robot’s progress:

Your robot is going to get your food!

Your robot has your food!

Your robot is ten minutes away!

Your robot is 3 minutes away!

Your robot is 0 minutes away!

Your robot is 0 minutes away!

Your robot is 0 minutes away!

That’s not a typo, this was when the experience broke down. The app told me the robot was basically at my feet… but there was no robot. The shortcomings of automated service were beginning to come into focus. Because it was stuck on 0 minutes away, there was no action I could take (re-center the map, have it make a ping! sound, etc.) to understand where it was and there was no apparent “Help Me” button I could push.

Thankfully, there was a human Kiwi operative nearby who was able to locate my robot roughly 25 yards away from where the app said it was. A company rep after the fact told me the issue was that there were too many Kiwis in one place (gathered for the conference), and mine got confused/stuck.

Which is too bad. Because the human helped me out, I didn’t really get the full experience, like seeing the live video feed broadcast by the robot, or use my phone to open it up.

Once open, I saw the only other bummer about my delivery (disclaimer: this is THE MOST first world problem in the world): My ice cold boba tea was place on top of the hot burrito. (Wanh-wanh. Please give to my GoFundMe). This is a bit of a nit pick, but robot delivery services are just starting out, they have to show that they can do a just-as-good-if-not-better-job than humans. That means getting restaurants to actually care about how they place food in the robot. There should be a cool side and a warm side.

Minor quibbles aside, it’s easy to see how robots will be a big hit on campuses. Colleges are contained geographic areas with lots of hungry people ordering food from on-campus or nearby establishments well into the night. Robots can easily access dorms and labs much more easily than a human driver needing to find a parking spot and still walk the quad to make a delivery. And if you bundle up multiple orders from a single restaurant, the economics make more sense for students.

All these reasons help explain, as Kiwi said from the stage at our recent ArticulATE summit, why the company is quietly expanding from two colleges to fifteen schools including Purdue, Cornell, NYU, Stanford, and Harvard. Of equal interest is the fact that students will be running the robot programs at these schools, taking care of maintenance and deployments. Kiwi didn’t elaborate on any student payment/financial relationship.

Kiwi isn’t the only rover robot company hip to the college scene. Starship is doing delivery at George Mason University and Northern Arizona University, and Robby is doing mobile commerce at the University of the Pacific.

Robot delivery isn’t perfect yet, but we’re in the first inning of whatever sport college kids will play in the future. Perhaps in ten year’s time my son will be writing me at our rural home to tell me about all the robot deliveries on his campus. He definitely won’t be playing beer pong, right?

Starship Delivery Robots to Roam Around Northern Arizona University

Starship announced today that it is heading off to (another) college.

Starting today, Starship will deploy 30 little delivery robots to Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, AZ. The school’s 25,000 students and faculty can use the Starship app to order meals from campus eateries and set a location for the robot to deliver the food. There’s a $1.99 delivery fee and orders will arrive in a “matter of minutes” according the press release, depending on the food ordered and the drop-off point. Students can pay for their food with their existing campus meal plan.

Today’s announcement follows a similar program Starship launched in January on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia. Both programs are done in conjunction with food service management company, Sodexo.

Starship’s Senior VP, Business Development, Ryan Tuohy is speaking at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics conference next month. In a recent Q&A, we asked Tuohy how students were interacting with the robots. He responded:

The vast majority of people notice the robot on the sidewalk and simply pass by it. Initially, some people take a selfie or a photo of the robot. This effect diminishes over time as people in the particular location become familiar with seeing the robot in the area.

College and corporate campuses are a key go-to market strategy for Starship and other rover bot companies such as Kiwi (UC Berkeley) and Robby (University of the Pacific). Campuses are attractive for robot delivery and mobile commerce because they hold sizeable populations that either live or spend most of their time in one distinct — usually easily walkable (read: robot rollable) geographic locations — and have their own restaurants on-site.

FWIW, Arizona, like Florida, is turning into a hotbed of food robots. Over in Scottsdale, AZ, Kroger has been piloting grocer delivery via self-driving vehicles. If you want to know where the future of robots lies, then you should definitely come to our ArticulATE summit on April 16th in San Francisco to see Tuohy speak and interact robots like Kiwi and Penny up close.

ArticulATE Q&A: Why Starship’s Delivery Robots are as Wide as Your Shoulders

We are a little less than a month away from our food robotics summit, ArticulATE, happening on April 16 in San Francisco. The excitement around Spoon HQ is palpable because we have locked in a fantastic lineup of speakers, including today’s Q&A guest Ryan Tuohy, the Senior VP of Business Development at Starship.

Starship’s autonomous rover bots deliver snacks, groceries and packages to corporate and college campuses and even out to the general public in Milton Keynes in the UK. In advance of Tuohy’s talk on-stage at ArticulATE, we wanted to set the stage and learn a little more about, well, what Starship has learned from making all these deliveries (like how big to make its ‘bot!).

If you want to know how robots are impacting the present and setting up the future of food delivery, get your tickets to ArticulATE today, they are going quickly!

THE SPOON: Starship has been running deliveries for a while now on Intuit’s corporate campus, in Milton Keynes in the UK, and most recently you started at George Mason University. What have you learned about how people use and interact with robot delivery?

TUOHY: One of the things we’re proud of is how happy customers are when the robot arrives with their order – every interaction is overwhelmingly one of delight and we’ve received thank you notes and special drawings of robots from every location where we operate. At GMU specifically, the bots have become famous across social media, with many students posting pictures/videos of their deliveries.

For students at George Mason University, the bots provide a low cost and convenient service to let them spend time doing what they want, rather than waiting in line for food or skipping a meal because they’re too busy, GMU students can have food delivered anywhere on campus and use that extra time to hang out with friends, study or take a break.

In some locations, like Milton Keynes, some of our most popular customers are parents who struggle to leave the house because of their children. It’s a lot easier to get a robot delivery than try and get two young kids in the car, find parking, walk round the grocery store and then drive back. It’s a lot more environmentally friendly as well.

The vast majority of people notice the robot on the sidewalk and simply pass by it. Initially, some people take a selfie or a photo of the robot. This effect diminishes over time as people in the particular location become familiar with seeing the robot in the area.

As you talk with campuses like George Mason, what are the concerns they have about robot delivery and how do you alleviate them?

At George Mason University, some people have asked whether the robots can handle rough weather conditions such as rain and snow. One of the reasons we brought the robots to GMU was for this very reason. The robots have safely traveled over 150,000 miles around the world and completed thousands of deliveries regardless of weather conditions.

Additionally, everyone’s first test when they see the robot on the sidewalk is to check if the robot will stop in time, when [they’re] blocking its path. But each robot travels at 4mph and has a ‘situational awareness bubble’ around it with a range of sensors that can detect obstacles like dogs, pedestrians, bikers, and is able to either maneuver around them or stop at a safe distance.

Is there a sweet spot when designing a rover delivery robot, in terms of size and speed, and have you hit that, or is it more of a moving, evolving target?

Robotic delivery is affordable, convenient and environmentally friendly. Starship’s robots are intelligent and designed to seamlessly co-exist with humans in the community. They are purposefully about as wide as a human shoulder width when walking on the sidewalk and travel at walking pace (4mph max).

Starship has designed and built our robots with a vast amount of advanced proprietary technology, including a combination of computer vision, sensor fusion and machine learning for seamless navigational and situational awareness. The company’s proprietary mapping process enables the robots to understand their exact location to the nearest inch.

What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about robot delivery?

One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding autonomous delivery is around security. Many people believe that robots will be stolen but the reality is very different from this. In tens of thousands of autonomous deliveries, we’ve not had any robots stolen. The robot has many theft prevention measure to stop this from happening, including 10 cameras, sirens (like a car alarm), tracking to the nearest inch and the lid is of course locked at all times. It would be a big effort to steal a robot and get it home without being caught, only to find some milk and eggs in the basket!

What is your favorite fictional robot?

I enjoy the classic R2D2 robots from Star Wars. Who doesn’t enjoy a cute robot that can help you on all your expeditions? We are already at the point where robots can deliver packages and food to your doorstep. It’s amazing to see technology we once imagined has now become a reality.

Will Amazon’s Scout Help Accelerate Robot Delivery?

Amazon unveiled Scout, its own li’l rover delivery robot via a corporate blog post today. Details are scant, but the cooler-sized, six-wheeled bot will make its debut near Amazon’s (original) HQ in Snohomish County, Washington.

The company’s announcement didn’t mention food or groceries, only saying Scout is “designed to safely get packages to customers using autonomous delivery devices.” But it’s not hard to imagine the rover bot transporting snacks, drinks and possibly even restaurant delivery (if sufficiently temperature controlled).

We don’t know exactly where in Snohomish county Scout is available, or how many robots will be in the initial fleet. Customers just place their Amazon order as they normally would, select a delivery range including “fast” (their word) and same day, and the package will arrive either by delivery partner or by Scout.

Though Scout is autonomous and will eventually roam the streets on its own, it will initially only run during daylight hours and will have a human Amazon handler accompanying it.

We’re not even done with January and it’s already shaping up to be a watershed year for delivery robots. In just this month:

And that doesn’t even include the forthcoming Postmates robot, “Serve”, or the Kiwi bots already making deliveries in Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, or Marble’s robot delivery rolling out across Texas.

If Scout’s trial proves successful, Amazon’s involvement in the space will certainly light a fire under the existing competition and accelerate robot delivery . And it looks like Amazon is putting some muscle behind the program. The Seattle Times pointed out, there are 21 job openings at Amazon related to Scout.

What will be exciting to watch with Scout is how this integrates into Amazon’s overall logistical arsenal. The company is obsessed with efficiency (and getting you to buy more stuff). It’s easy to see why Amazon wants in on delivery robots. Robots can (eventually) scurry around 24 hours a day delivering just about any type of package. They don’t take breaks, and if Bezo’s and company is smart, they’ll follow the Woowa Bros. approach and have these delivery bots do double duty and take away any empty amazon boxes from your home.

In addition to Amazon’s logistical genius, the other thing going for Amazon, which in turn could push the entire robot delivery sector forward, is clout. A company of Amazon’s size has a lot more political muscle than a startup in dealing with city and state lawmakers to get robot-friendly regulations passed.

Of course, as with any robot news, there will be questions of what workers are displaced, and what that means for society as a whole. It’s a topic (among many) we’ll actually be tackling at our upcoming Articulate conference in San Francisco on April 16. It’s a one-day summit that will explore what’s happening with food robots and automation, and where it’s all heading. Get your tickets now!

Starship Launches Robot Food Delivery Fleet at George Mason University

Starship Technologies announced that starting today lazy tech-savvy students at George Mason University can get food and drinks delivered via robot anywhere on campus.

A fleet of more than 25 robots will be deployed at launch at the Fairfax, VA school, which, the company says, is “the largest implementation of autonomous robot food delivery services on a university campus.” The program was created in partnership with food facilities management company, Sodexo North America, and allows students and faculty to use the “Starship Deliveries” mobile app to order food and beverages from Blake Pizza, Starbucks and Dunkin’, with more campus eateries to be announced “in the coming weeks.” The new service works with the George Mason’s student meal plans, and charges $1.99 delivery fee to anywhere on campus between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m..

Campuses have been on Starship’s radar screen for a while now. In April of last year the company said that it would be deploying 1,000 robots to corporate and academic campuses by the end of 2018 (Starship has since backed off that number and in an emailed statement said instead they’d been focusing on “new offerings to cater to the needs of our customers and partners including our new package delivery service, and spending more time working with local charities and organizations to ensure every member of the community is confident and comfortable using our technology.”). The company has raised $42.2 million in venture funding and counts Daimler Benz as an investor. Its robots have already been hard at work making deliveries on Intuit’s corporate campus, and roaming the town of Milton Keys, Britain, delivering packages and groceries.

When asked how Starship was making money through this George Mason deal– Was it just through the delivery fee? Was it through leasing the robots or a revenue split?– the company simply replied that it “uses different revenue models depending on location,” and that it “sometimes charge[s] a margin on top of the delivery fee.”

Colleges are becoming a hotbed of robot activity. Kiwi has been making robot deliveries to the University of California Berkeley, and expanded to Los Angeles with an eye towards delivering to UCLA. And more recently, Pepsi enlisted Robby robots for mobile snack commerce at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA.

George Mason and the University of the Pacific programs are a little different however. Starship robots will be making straight point-to-point deliveries of ordered meals and drinks from eateries to anywhere on the GM campus. For its robot run, Pepsi is basically using an autonomous roving mini-mart filled with snacks and drinks that you can pre-order and/or buy on the spot, and will only show up to designated areas on campus.

College and corporate campuses are actually a great place to run autonomous robot delivery pilots. You have a lot of people confined to one general location for an entire day (and they all need to eat). If it’s a private campus, robot companies can sidestep city regulations required to operate on public streets (since, you know, a robot might catch fire). Additionally, for something like a college campus, you can train an entire generation of consumers to use on-demand robot delivery, which they will then presumably still want as they head off into the real world.

We predicted that robots were going to be a big thing this year, and Starship is certainly kicking things off with a robotic bang. If you want to know more about where autonomous delivery is headed, join us at Articulate, our one-day food robot and automation conference on April 16 in San Francisco!

Starship Robots Now Autonomously Deliver Packages

Starship announced today that it’s four-wheeled robots now autonomously deliver packages to people at their home and work, in a move that pushes the company beyond food delivery and more into everyday use.

The new service makes Starship something of a middleman in the delivery process. Users download the Starship app and when ordering something like spatulas from Amazon, has the item shipped to a Starship fulfillment center instead of their house. When it arrives at Starship’s facility, the customer is notified and can then schedule the robot delivery to their doorstep or office.

Right now, Starship’s autonomous delivery is only available in a three-mile radius in the town of Milton Keynes in the U.K.. The company says it will be expanding to the Bay Area by the end of this year.

Starship is pitching the service as a way to thwart package theft off your porch or stoop. It certainly isn’t alone in this endeavor. Amazon offers in-trunk or even in-house delivery while you’re away. Walmart and Phrame also enable deliveries to your fridge or car trunk, respectively.

I spoke with Starship CEO, Lex Bayer, who said that his company has 100 robots that have traveled more than 200,000 km and made more than 20,000 autonomous deliveries to date. One stat he shared that surprised me was that in all their deliveries not one of their robots have been vandalized or stolen or had anything stolen from it. It probably helps that their robots are monitored in a central HQ and humans can take over their driving at any time.

Delivery robots are becoming an actual thing… slowly. While rival robot companies like Kiwi are expanding into LA, and Marble continues its march across Texas, true adoption of this technology will hinge on state and city laws. Starship operates in the Bay Area in places like Intuit’s corporate campus, but just to the north, San Francisco has clamped down on commercial robot use.

There is also the question of what will people and towns prefer when it comes to home delivery. Will they want lots of small robots running around on sidewalks, or bigger autonomous delivery vehicles driving down city streets or drones flying overhead?

While those questions seemed like science fiction a few years back, companies like Starship are making them more of a reality we have to deal with (and, to be fair, enjoy the benefits of) right now.