Droids Not Drones Are The Future Of E-Commerce Deliveries

In the shadow of Greenwich’s 02 Arena – the futuristic dome originally built as London’s showpiece for the Millennium – what looks like a picnic cooler on wheels zips among groups of gawking children. This little delivery robot, designed to autonomously navigate sidewalks, not roads, later this year will begin making deliveries from local businesses direct to customers. In doing so, it may just conquer e-commerce’s final frontier: the Last Mile, the least efficient and most problematic step in the delivery process. “Thirty to forty percent of the cost of delivery comes in the last mile,” says Allan Martinson, the chief operating officer of Starship Technologies, the company building this robot. The venture is the brainchild of Ahti Heinla, one of Skype’s original developers, and is backed by billionaire Skype co-founder and tech investor Janus Friis. Read more at Bloomberg.