
New food delivery service Kiwi brings robots to UC Berkeley campus - heinrichf
http://www.dailycal.org/2017/05/15/new-food-delivery-service-kiwi-brings-robots-campus/
======
anon4this1
This reminds me of hearing Reed Hastings of netflix talking about starting the
DVD mail-rental business as preparation for when streaming became
technologically viable. They knew that internet delivery would eventually
work, but to be the big first mover they needed to establish a customer base.
As soon as broadband reached a level where streaming video is viable, they
convert the customer base over to it.

Likewise, robot street delivery is going to be huge. The marginal cost of
delivery will tend towards zero, and its really useful. If a company spends
years and zillions of dollars messing around with AI and machine learning
bullshit to power these, they will miss the boat. The goal of a successful
company should be:

\- Get as much VC as possible

\- Spend it on low cost chinese built bareboned GSM controlled bots

\- Hire warehouses full of vietnamese computer gamers to control them

\- Get more VC

Once you have a market cap of billions, THEN you get a lab of engineers
together to make them increasingly autonomous

~~~
wand3r
So compete at a high burnrate in an extremely crowded space with a huge
workforce faking your technology until you can pivot your product and market
down the road?

I get what you're saying as a general heuristic; but this is not that in my
opinion.

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afchavez40
Hi, Im the cofounder of kiwicampus.com, thanks a lot for the feedback, we are
actually using monocular computer vision to navigate in the sidewalks and in
some robots LIDARS for collision avoidance, we are also testing with SLAM
detection in the smartphone we have in our kiwibots. We have made a great
progress in automation and self driving, also in network software for take
control of the robot if we need it (last 3 minutes of every delivery we
control the car to make sure we deliver in the correct address, also for
crossing streets and crowded sidewalks. Still in a semiautonomous phase but
really excited about the future, let me know if you are interested in know
more about us.

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heinrichf
Website: [http://www.kiwicampus.com/home](http://www.kiwicampus.com/home)

From [https://angel.co/kiwicampus](https://angel.co/kiwicampus): "Current self
driving algorithms require huge amounts of data to be trained with, so our
robots are initially being controlled from Colombia."

(not affiliated, I just found these DIY-like robots very fun)

~~~
gene-h
" so our robots are initially being controlled from Colombia." There was a
sci-fi movie about that[0]. In short a wall gets built between the US and
Mexico, and telerobots controlled by workers in Mexico start being used for
the jobs normally performed by migrant workers.

That being said there are some interesting legal issues with telerobots.
Currently, most laws we have presume the person performing the crime is
physically present. For example, in the unlikely event that one of these
robots injures someone or causes property damage who exactly is held liable?

Another interesting case is if an evil set of Berkeley engineering students in
desperate need of robot parts for a project, pays the driver of one of these
robots to disable tracking and drive it to a secret robot chop-shop.
Supposedly, the penalties for the evil Berkely engineering students can be
less than if they went out and kidnapped the robot, because the company
allowed and trusted the worker with access to the robot.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer)

~~~
famil
Sci-Fi Short about telerobots controlled by gamers:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXX0TRtg5Vk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXX0TRtg5Vk)

------
jedberg
I almost tripped over one of these last week! Then I stared at it as it rolled
away, wondering if they were being remote controlled or had some basic AI and
pathfinding. Sounds like a little of both.

I think it's a great start, but the clearly have a lot of work to do. They
should start by adding a pole and flag so you can see it coming. :)

~~~
pvnick
Completely unrelated, but thank you for posting the chicken papricash recipe
on your website. Sounds really good. Just printed it out, am planning to try
it.

~~~
jedberg
You're welcome. :) Not sure I wrote it on there, but you can substitute plain
yogurt for the sour cream for a smoother taste. Also, my brother sometimes
adds a little powered sugar right before blending for extra sweetness.

~~~
pvnick
Good to know, thanks

------
mattpavelle
This is interesting, but these robots move slowly - or at least not as fast as
a car.

I don't see food from outside a mile or 2 km range being deliverable in any
reasonable amount of time.

Is this the food-delivery equivalent of the last mile (kilometer) problem?
Because with delivery the rest of the miles are also important...

~~~
plorkyeran
I live in Berkeley in one of the areas that they're testing these and there's
20+ restaurants that do take-out within a mile of me, so that part isn't a big
issue. Even a mile could be a 30 minute round trip though, as they run on
sidewalks and so inherently can't really go much faster than walking speed,
and that's not very many deliveries per hour per robot.

~~~
dheera
Autonomous robots are far cheaper than humans to operate and could more easily
parallelize the task of doing multiple deliveries per hour. In addition, the
markets will expand significantly when the price of food delivery comes down
to $1-2. Also, car-driven food deliveries also only average about 2 per hour,
in part because of parking issues on both restaurant and customer end.

(disclaimer: I am a co-founder of one of their competitors -- robby.io --
we're based in Palo Alto/Stanford)

------
scjody
How do they plan on dealing with vandalism and theft? Those robots look pretty
defenseless.

~~~
plorkyeran
Other than the video camera that's presumably recording everything around them
and the real-time location reporting? If you just want to damage it you can
chuck a brick at it from its blind spot, but that's true of everything.

------
infecto
I hate to be so negative but this looks terrible. I remember seeing that other
food delivery within San Francisco that uses a robot but at least it looks
like there was real engineering put into it.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/12/marble-and-yelp-
eat24-star...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/12/marble-and-yelp-eat24-start-
robot-food-delivery-in-san-francisco/)

This is just a glorified rc car with a basket on top being controlled by
outsourced workers. Not even a MVP prototype imo.

~~~
afchavez40
We are actually using monocular computer vision to navigate in the sidewalks
and in some robots LIDARS for collision avoidance, we are also testing with
SLAM detection in the smartphone we have in our kiwibots. We have made a great
progress in automation and self driving, also in network software for take
control of the robot if we need it (last 3 minutes of every delivery we
control the car to make sure we deliver in the correct address, also for
crossing streets and crowded sidewalks. Still in a semiautonomous phase but
really excited about the future, any feedback to improve our product?

------
wand3r
I hate to be negative; so I won't. I can't see this being scaleable,
profitable or useful at a meaningfully higher level than people.

~~~
2845197541
And imagine if it did scale. What an eyesore that would be. Would we count
them in the census?

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
What if they were drones though? Would that be more palatable to the eyes?

------
hecontreraso
I saw one of this the last week. I felt like one of this "wow" moments that
you can only get in the bay area (:

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giarc
Wow - that site is terrible. On initial load I have 3 ads (left side, right
side and bottom) that take up 10% of screen each, cover the content and other
ads, and scroll with me.

[http://imgur.com/a/TKJNC](http://imgur.com/a/TKJNC)

~~~
vecplane
I definitely recommend uBlock Origin -
[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

~~~
paulgb
I recently switched to JavaScript by whitelist only and now I won't go back. I
always thought disabling JavaScript was just for tinfoil-hat luddites, but now
I realize how often JavaScript detracts from the experience and how little it
enhances it. Speed-wise, it reminds me of going from 56k to DSL back in the
day.

~~~
tmccrmck
Are there any browser addons which selectively block Javascript? Something a
little more curated than NoScript would be good.

------
Animats
Redwood City has Starship Technologies robots doing Doordash deliveries in the
downtown area. Those look more like a finished product. They're mostly
autonomous but can be controlled over a cell phone link if necessary.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y3-AmqVg5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y3-AmqVg5E)

~~~
jonahx
There is something unsettling about the prospect of fleets of bomb-defusing
robots wheeling around pedestrian sidewalks on their unknown delivery
missions.

If these become ubiquitous, they'd also provide a ready cloak for anyone
wishing to detonate a bomb without any link to the crime or chance of harming
themselves.

