Amazon's drones still aren't here, but this little robot is now delivering packages
Clear the sidewalks, Amazon's new delivery bot Scout is coming through.
The Prime bot, which looks like a light blue cooler on six wheels, started delivering packages Wednesday in Snohomish County, north of Seattle.
The bot will work alongside usual Amazon delivery methods (aka human drivers) and only six of the robots will be rolling around to start. The Scouts will only drop off packages Monday through Friday during daylight hours.
Here's Scout, developed by Amazon in Seattle, in delivery mode:
The electric device is autonomous, but to start an Amazon employee will "shadow" Scout to make sure it is properly accomplishing its Prime-ly duties.
The bots arrival comes before Amazon Prime Air -- the company's drone delivery service that still hasn't taken off. Sure there was an inaugural flight more than two years ago, but the company says the project is still in development.
As to when an Amazon drone could join Scout as part of a robotic delivery fleet, the company can't really say. "We will deploy when and where we have the regulatory support needed to safely realize our vision," Amazon says.
With Scout's announcement also came new Amazon job listings: software engineers, robotics scientists, and more. Looks like Amazon's army of robots could be growing soon.
Topics Amazon
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
