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Robot Janitors Are Coming to Mop Floors at a Walmart Near You
The world's largest retailer is rolling out 360 autonomous floor-scrubbing robots in some of its stores in the U.S. by the end of the[sic] January, it said in a joint statement with Brain Corp., which makes the machines. The autonomous janitors can clean floors on their own even when customers are around, according to the San Diego-based startup.
Walmart has already been experimenting with automating the scanning of shelves for out-of-stock items and hauling products from storage for online orders. Advances in computer vision are also making it possible to use retail floor data to better understand consumer behavior, improve inventory tracking and even do away with checkout counters, as Amazon.com Inc. is trying to do with its cashierless stores. Brain's robots are equipped with an array of sensors that let them to[sic] gather and upload data.
"We can take anything that has wheels and turn it into a fully autonomous robot, provided that it can go slow and stopping is never a safety concern," said Brain Chief Executive Office Eugene Izhikevich. "And it's more than just navigation. It is to robots what Android operating system is to smartphones."
Amazon wants to sell booze at one of its Chicago retail stores
Amazon.com Inc. wants to sell alcohol at its planned new Amazon Go retail store in the Illinois Center. Seattle-based Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) applied for a liquor license from the city of Chicago this month, with "Amazon Retail LLC" applying for package goods liquor license at 111 E. Wacker Drive, floor 1, according to the city.
Amazon announced its fourth Chicago-area Amazon Go retail store earlier this month, planned for Illinois Center, with an opening set for early 2019. None of the current Chicago Amazon Go stores currently sell alcohol.
Previously: Walmart to Deploy Shelf-Scanning Robots at 50 Stores
Amazon Plans to Open as Many as Six More Cashierless Amazon Go Stores This Year
Amazon Considering Opening Up to 3,000 New Cashierless "Amazon Go" Stores
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 03 2018, @10:04PM (2 children)
The interesting side of this equation is medical research - there's decades worth of learning and hundreds of hours per week worth of reading to keep up with all the relevant research in most active specialties, AI expert systems are starting to outstrip the meat-based physicians' competency in diagnosis and treatment prescription.
We still need friendly face MDs to talk to, and surgeons are generally more effective at (most) procedures than robots, but large parts of the hallowed profession are being out-performed by machines already, and the pace of change in that area isn't slowing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:06PM (1 child)
It is interesting (and modded as such...) - the only thing about the machines so far is that for the most part they have to be fed the data by a trained observer. One can automatically transmit vitals including glucometry, or even an EKG, without human intervention after setting the test up. The machine still has to be told the patient has 1+ grip strength with flaring pain and positive Tinel's and Phalen's signs before it can recommend imaging for carpal tunnel. So far. (OTOH, when an EKG is run the machine itself analyzes the strip and produces a report at the top of any anomalies it finds including if it thinks the leads were misplaced, which we call "Doc in the Box". It's quite good and a little scary to think about. There is a bit of art in EKG interpretation - like chess, the machine never "knows" what's really going on in the heart's electrical system from a holistic physiological process sense - but almost any named condition can be reduced to a deterministic set of characteristics.)
But I should have amend myself to say, "all jobs are becoming by definition easier to automate." Another reason to realize that this wave of automation is different from the past.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 04 2018, @05:23PM
It was about 19 years ago that I stood at "presentation day" in the FDA in Rockville, MD next to a company that was doing AI pap smear screening. At the time, only a trained (and highly paid) cytologist was qualified to look at a pap smear slide and tell you "Cancer / No Cancer," but the rest of the process between actual taking of the sample, down to mailing the results was just about 100% automated. The slides were already better prepared for reading by machines than people, and even 19 years ago the AI was outperforming the people on production work. Tellingly: at that time, when sat down head to head man vs machine short duration showdown, most cytologists could outperform the AI, but when faced with a 40 hour production oriented work week, the AI outperformed the people solidly.
🌻🌻 [google.com]