Amazon has just announced the rollout of Scout, their autonomous, electric delivery robot thingy. Here's footage of it in "action," to give you an idea of its size and typical pace:
As of yesterday, "these devices will begin delivering packages to customers in a neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington," Amazon writes.
"We're starting with six Amazon Scout devices, delivering packages Monday through Friday, during daylight hours. The devices will autonomously follow their delivery route but will initially be accompanied by an Amazon employee. We developed Amazon Scout at our research and development lab in Seattle, ensuring the devices can safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path."
Why Snohomish County, and not someplace more populated? We have our theories.
San Francisco: It would get stuck on a hill.
New York: It would get tagged.
Boston: Someone would kick it over.
Detroit: Someone would set it on fire.
Philadelphia: Someone would tag it, kick it over and set it on fire.
Los Angeles: It would get hit by a car.
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Amazon Rolls Out Scout, Their Autonomous Delivery Vehicle
Snohomish County? Its going to be shotgun target practice.
How does it ring the door bell???
I'd like to ride on it!
New York would also pee on it.
Philly would just yell at it and tell it 'They're the Superbowl Champs"
I can only imagine these sorts of things being successful in the sort of affluent neighborhoods where there's very nice sidewalks that almost never get used.
I know it has a tracking system, because it is obviously using GPS... but first thing I thought about is people stealing them. I'm sure they will figure out how to disable the tracking.