Robot cars start delivering groceries in Arizona

Grocery giant Kroger and autonomous vehicle startup Nuro launched their driverless delivery service Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona. It is the first market for the two companies, which first announced their partnership back in June.
To start out, only one store is involved in the experiment: the Kroger-owned Fry’s Food Store on East McDowell Road. Customers can place orders via Fry’s website or mobile app. Grocery orders can be scheduled for same-day or next-day delivery. The delivery fee is $5.95 per order and there is no minimum order amount.
At first, groceries will be delivered via Nuro’s fleet of self-driving Toyota Prius and Nissan Leaf vehicles, and each car will have a safety driver behind the wheel. But later this fall the company plans on swapping in its custom-built R1 driverless delivery vehicles, which are still being tested at Nuro’s headquarters in California. (Old self-driving heads will recognize a passing resemblance to the original “Firefly” prototypes that Google retired in 2017.)
Arizona is a hotbed of autonomous testing, so the selection of Scottsdale should come as no surprise. In a statement provided by Neuro, Mayor Jim Lane said, “We welcome innovative technology that can benefit the lives of Scottsdale residents. We feel this partnership holds tremendous potential and promise and offers our residents real, not-yet-experienced convenience for everyday routines.”
Whether Fry’s Food Store shoppers see a benefit from the driverless deliveries remains to be seen. Unlike a typical, human-powered delivery service, customers will need to walk to the curb to retrieve their groceries — in anticipation of eventually using human-free delivery vehicles. The operators are certainly banking on the novelty of receiving produce, cold cuts, and a six-pack of beer from a vehicle that looks like a toaster on wheels in overcoming any initial feelings of inconvenience by the customers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linktree’s free workaround lets you add multiple links to your Instagram bio

Image
Instagram only gives you one opportunity to link to outside resources inside its photo sharing platform. This might not be a problem for a majority of the users, but for those wanting a little more customization and even more options, it leaves much to be desired. Enter  Linktree , a free tool for Instagram designed to improve traffic to your outside link, be it a blog, portfolio, or store. How it works is fairly straightforward. After connecting Linktree to your Instagram profile, you’ll receive a single link to place in your Instagram bio. Once that link in place, you can customize what it’s linked to within your browser, be it a single website, or a collection of sites you’re looking to direct followers to Say you’re a photographer who’s using Instagram as a marketing tool for your wedding photography. Using Linktree, you can direct Instagram followers to your blog, your portfolio site, and even your other social media accounts. Until now, you would’ve been stuck choosing b
Read more

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PIXEL 4, THE MOST-LEAKED PHONE EVER

Image
Google’s  Pixel 3 might have been the  most-leaked phone in history . Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos, photo comparisons, even a full review of the device. Surely, for the Pixel 4, Google would clamp down on leaks to leave some surprises for its debut on  October 15th , right? Let’s just say, if that was the plan, it didn’t exactly work out. We’ve now seen the Pixel 4 XL from every angle and in three different colors. At least seven different sources have touched this phone, many of them confirming the same specs. We not only know which cameras it’ll have, but also what they may be capable of, including air gestures (go figure). That doesn’t even count information Google has already shared  on purpose. So if you want to know almost everything about the Pixel 4 nearly a month before it’s announced, buckle up. We’ve sifted through all of the rumors and information we can find to compile everything we know — and everything we
Read more

Our favorite iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad in 2018

Image
As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to look at some our favorite apps of the year. While not all of these are brand new, many of them popped up onto our radar for the first time in 2018, and are definitely worth the attention. Others are some of our favorites that are still best-in-class despite having been around for some time now. We aim to do things differently at TNW, and as such you’re not going to find the recommendations you’re probably used to seeing: Gmail, Skype, Dropbox, and the like. Instead, we want to focus on the best-of-the-best that you may not have heard of, and others that are just special enough to warrant a mention. As always, we’d encourage you to share some of your favorites in the comments below, or on Facebook. Enlight Pixaloop (Free Pixaloop  is one of my favorite apps on the market. Unlike typical image editors that allow you to remove red eye or apply a filter, Pixaloop allows you to create stunning photo animations with a few clicks on your
Read more