New York City Wants to Ban FedEx Robots

FedEx robots called Roxo appeared in New York City for a preview party of the company’s Small Business Saturday event. Despite not being there for testing, New York City’s mayor tweeted that they weren’t welcome, and criticized FedEx for taking jobs away from humans.

FedEx told TechCrunch that the bots were there for a preview party for its Small Business Saturday event and are not testing in New York. Even this promotional event was too much for city officials concerned with congestion and bots taking jobs from humans.

After reports of the bot sightings, the mayor tweeted that FedEx didn’t receive permission to deploy the robots; he also criticized the company for using a bot to perform a task that a New Yorker could do. The New York Department of Transportation has sent FedEx a cease-and-desist order to stop operations the bots,  which TechCrunch has viewed.

How Far Would You Go to Protect a Robot?

From boingboing: “‘Under what circumstances and to what extent would adults be willing to sacrifice robots to save human lives?’ That was the question posed by researchers at Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich.” The results have implications for how we’ll design robots with apparent human feelings.

Sphero Intros BOLT Robot for STEAM Education

Sphero announced its newest robot, Sphero BOLT, on Monday. The sphere-shaped robot is targeted at the education market, but is available to everyone. It packs an array of infrared and ambient light sensors, LEDs, and a digital compass in its clear body. You can program it from a wide range of devices including iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets, Kindle, Macs, and PCs. Sphero BOLT is priced at US$149.99 and is available at the Sphere website.