Arika Bunfill Beam of a store in downtown Palo Alto, California, she often heard the following questions.
"Did you really? "
"Will you help me clean the room? "
"Did you go out with me? "
This is a bit difficult for her, because, while she was working in a shop, but her body as far as 90 miles away in wasaweili a comfortable home.
A store that no human
Her form in the Beam shop, is a station on the ground looks like computers and electric scooter derivatives of of robots, Beam is the world's first and only no one store. Humans with this store in the works--it is totally dependent on remote operations to run, like Bunfill did.
Sometimes, Bunfill happily to say hello, and then they will be greeted by her startled, expressionless faces filled with dismay. This is not surprising for Bunfill, she can turn the robot's wheel, and he's not afraid of talking to someone.
Tom Wyatt is the store manager, but only about once a week, most of the time just because he is the trendy ice cream shop across the street fans. Wyatt and a robot remotely controlled by Michelle Posey can go together. A man and robots together to buy a banana walnut fudge, is a very easy to the eye thing, that's what Wyatt wants to effect. Wyatt said: "once you see the Beam store, you can easily understand the value of it. "
In December 29, Posey joined the 30-person team in four-hour shifts, 5-6 days a week. When she first started working, simply login in her Monterey home. There, Posey can be opened and the stores closed their doors, adjust the lighting and temperature, to control the robot around the shops, answer the questions about the products, issued through mischievous candy jar colorful candy so that curious kids cheered.
For Posey, now posts is much more fun than her previous work. "I used to spend four hours a day driving to and from work, and this work gave me a relaxing free life because I can work at home, and this job is really interesting. "
Robots trying to sell their own
Machine screen at 5 feet 2 inches off the ground height, the bottom of the screen is the Beam of the two "legs", the bottom is a base with wheels. Sliding of the Beam on the ground just as a man on the ice with skates glide smoothly. It has excellent parking assist feature helps Beam into place, controlling speed, in addition it has a "party mode" settings, you can eliminate microphone on the back of sound and reduce environmental noise.
Customers can visit the store and select Pro or Plus version in any round. Compared to the Pro version, Plus version is more suitable for personal use, small size, the price is cheaper, battery life only lasts 2 hours. Pro has 8 hours of battery life, and engage in a dialogue to 20 feet away.
Corporate users can Beam factory stationed abroad, so you can not charge kept supervision at any time. There is also a customer of the University of Maryland graduate student, he unfortunately suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, with Beam he can sit at home and participate in the course, or even walking in the Hall together with the students. Moschino Galaxy S5 Case
Robots moving at a speed of two miles an hour, and generally similar to the walking speed. "This sets us apart from traditional video conferencing," Posey said, "this kind of non-verbal information, such as location of the station, it is easy being received. "
Since the store opened, has sold many small Beam Plus version, Wyatt did not disclose the specific number of how many, but earns enough money to open a second store in San Francisco. 26 year old shop assistant Day says, "our group is a dynamic, large group". He is very friendly, smiling when it is communicating with customers, especially when he let the Beam onto University Avenue, being in the hustle and bustle of the crowd. "Beam will let people freely say those afraid to say face to face, it changed the way I talk to people ... ... I became more outgoing and brave. "
In addition, as a Beam operator also has other benefits. A Posey "being" at a party at the New York Museum, or even spin around the dance floor. "I've never been to New York, but the experience made me feel like myself. "
Via AT Moschino Galaxy S5 Case
1342 votes
Thunderbolt money treasure
Is designed to help users share money treasure is a little idle bandwidth box, place it at home on the router, you can use to make money. Itself does not have the router function, can be considered a micro server, users insert a storage device such as USB flash drive or an external hard drive, you can make this server a thunderbolt using idle bandwidth to the server part of the network. Contribution to Thunder Server network, the greater, it means digging "mines" more. Dig the minerals can be bound directly to the public, "Crystal mine" convertible into cash red packet, used to spend or bank card.
View details of the voting >>