New food delivery service Kiwi brings robots to UC Berkeley campus

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.<p>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:<p>- Get as much VC as possible<p>- Spend it on low cost chinese built bareboned GSM controlled bots<p>- Hire warehouses full of vietnamese computer gamers to control them<p>- Get more VC<p>Once you have a market cap of billions, THEN you get a lab of engineers together to make them increasingly autonomous

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.

Website: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kiwicampus.com&#x2F;home" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kiwicampus.com&#x2F;home</a><p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;angel.co&#x2F;kiwicampus" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;angel.co&#x2F;kiwicampus</a>: &quot;Current self driving algorithms require huge amounts of data to be trained with, so our robots are initially being controlled from Colombia.&quot;<p>(not affiliated, I just found these DIY-like robots very fun)

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.<p>I think it&#x27;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. :)

This is interesting, but these robots move slowly - or at least not as fast as a car.<p>I don&#x27;t see food from outside a mile or 2 km range being deliverable in any reasonable amount of time.<p>Is this the food-delivery equivalent of the last mile (kilometer) problem? Because with delivery the rest of the miles are also important...

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

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.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;04&#x2F;12&#x2F;marble-and-yelp-eat24-start-robot-food-delivery-in-san-francisco&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;04&#x2F;12&#x2F;marble-and-yelp-eat24-star...</a><p>This is just a glorified rc car with a basket on top being controlled by outsourced workers. Not even a MVP prototype imo.

I hate to be negative; so I won&#x27;t. I can&#x27;t see this being scaleable, profitable or useful at a meaningfully higher level than people.

I saw one of this the last week. I felt like one of this &quot;wow&quot; moments that you can only get in the bay area (:

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.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;TKJNC" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;TKJNC</a>

Redwood City has Starship Technologies robots doing Doordash deliveries in the downtown area. Those look more like a finished product. They&#x27;re mostly autonomous but can be controlled over a cell phone link if necessary.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=7y3-AmqVg5E" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=7y3-AmqVg5E</a>