[Art]

Not with this Cowarobot, the first and only Robotic suitcase.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cowarobot-r1-the-first-and-only-robotic-suitcase-travel-technology--2#/

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There are a lot of places where it is extremely unwise to take your hands off your luggage. Self appointed porters will try to take your luggage from you and refuse to give it back unless you pay them. Quite aside from that issue, this smells like another project that might possibly work under controlled conditions in the lab, but which will fail miserably in the real world without considerably more R&D and field testing than a crowd funded campaign can support.

Last time I travelled anywhere I had to walk many kilometres through airports (Changi is so big it has it's own internal mass transit rail transport system) and lift my luggage over many obstacles which even the oversize wheels on my PacSafe got stuck on. What about the battery this thing will need? What airline would let you take it on board a plane? It might be easier and more practical to fly with a Segway.

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The article clearly showed the battery and it's compartment and stated that it and the suitcase were approved. Then again, that might just be sales hype.

I also had that feeling with the guy walking along in such an almost cavalier manner, just begging for some cretin to run up and snatch that small case and take off with it.

Really...how lazy have humans gotten that there is actually a need to rely on something like this! Pity that!

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Curiouser and curiouser, they may be too late anyway.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/30/vespa-creators-unveil-cargo-robot/

This is developed by a well established company with a long track record in transportation. It is also aimed at a commercial market and not intended for use on airlines etc.

[Art]

Wow! That certainly puts a new slant on gangsta related drug and gun deliveries! Can you just imagine these things rolling autonomously around town...

Imagine worse, law enforcement nightmares of trying to identify and intercept them, especially if booby-trapped.

Oh yeah...there goes the neighborhood.

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There is nothing to suggest that these are autonomous, they are strictly follow the "user" for running errands. Delivery drones, whether wheeled or flying, are a whole other thing. Your comments certainly apply to those types of things. The whole idea of delivery drones actually started out in Africa where they were originally being used to get urgent medical supplies from town to town to avoid interception by bandits. How ironic if they end up being used to get illegal drugs past law enforcement in your town.

Similar to this product, I've long thought it would be very useful to have a motorised wheel barrow or trolley that could follow me around my garden. We are on a very steep hill side and it takes a lot of effort to get bags of mulch and fertiliser up to the orchard at the top of our property. I'm also remembering my father who was making robots to work on his farm many decades ago. With no knowledge of programming or electronics he made self-powered autonomous trolleys that could follow grooves that he cut into the ground to ferry produce and other materials from place to place around the farm.

[Art]

That's very ingenious of your father.

In this country, they have had for at least a decade (if not longer), motorized golf bags that would follow a single player, who elected to walk the course for exercise instead of ride in a cart.
Though one rarely sees them any longer, they did exist.

With those cargo robots, autonomous control / behavior would / should be a relatively easy fix. A little hack here and there.

Better yet, wait a bit longer until the "Self-driving" vehicles hit the scene, then some driverless van can deliver the "goods" when ever and where ever needed. Oh...the future is going to get very interesting, in a scary sort of way.

Lastly, there's:

[kei10]

Goodness me, the noise, though.

[Art]

There is nothing to suggest that these are autonomous, they are strictly follow the "user" for running errands. Delivery drones, whether wheeled or flying, are a whole other thing. Your comments certainly apply to those types of things. The whole idea of delivery drones actually started out in Africa where they were originally being used to get urgent medical supplies from town to town to avoid interception by bandits. How ironic if they end up being used to get illegal drugs past law enforcement in your town.

Well, I respectively beg to differ with your comment about them not being capable of autonomous delivery...feast your eyes on the following video and read the onscreen comments.

My statement was a supposition whereas this video indicates that such a scenario is already quite real.


Now where's that pizza and 6-pack I ordered!?

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http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/piaggio-cargo-robot

Oh I'm sorry did I forget to say "fully" autonomous?

I don't know which is worse, the endless blathering of aimless youth who can't get a girl and can't program 1000 lines of code, or the irritating opinions of grumpy old men with too much time on their hands.

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Either way, the device illustrates how blatantly lazy humans have become.

Soon, the human race will "morph" into those characters of the movie, "WALL-E", where everything is done for them and all they now have is leisure time.

Yes, this new age of electronica will certainly make our lives easier, to the point where we no longer have to think...about driving, shopping, doing math calculations, cooking, etc.

Curiouser and curiouser....