Technology - Google News

Amazon expands Whole Foods free delivery to Atlanta, San Francisco area
Disney Parks Arrive on Google Street View
Segway's new Loomo scooter doubles as an obedient Instagram husband

Amazon expands Whole Foods free delivery to Atlanta, San Francisco area

Posted: 05 Mar 2018 10:00 PM PST

It's the same free two-hour delivery window. Time

SAN FRANCISCO – Add two more areas where Amazon can get you your Whole Food fix in under two hours — Atlanta and much of the San Francisco Bay area.

Beginning Tuesday, Amazon is rolling out free, two-hour delivery from its Whole Foods stores to Prime members in Atlanta and San Francisco for all orders over $35. For those in a hurry, one-hour delivery is available for a $7.99 charge.

The San Francisco area is quite large, covering parts of the East Bay (Berkeley and Oakland) and Silicon Valley as far south as Apple's hometown of Cupertino.

That's in addition to Austin, Dallas, Cincinnati and Virginia Beach, Va., where the service has been available for almost a month. More cities are expected to be added over the course of the year.

More: Why Amazon is sending you pictures of your front porch

More: Empty Whole Foods Market store shelves anger shoppers

More: Online grocery delivery: How Amazon Prime Now compares to the competition

In San Francisco, customers will be able to also order beer, wine and spirits, depending on the liquor license of the local Whole Foods store that is fulfilling their order.

That service not available in Georgia due to state regulations. In Texas, only beer with an alcohol content by volume of under 5% can be delivered.

It's part of Amazon's broader move into the grocery business, which was turbocharged last year when it bought Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion.

The free service is available to subscribers to Amazon's $99-a-year Amazon Prime delivery service. As in the other cities, it will be available during the hours the local Whole Foods stores are open, generally 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The announcement is the latest in Amazon's integration of the chain of high-end organic supermarkets.

While the additions represent a 30% increase in the cities where Amazon offers free Whole Foods delivery, grocery delivery overall is still a tiny proportion of total U.S. grocery sales, cautions Moody's lead retail analyst Charlie O'Shea.

"Delivery is really, really niche. It's a small customer base when you look at it relative to total food sales," he said.

Exact numbers are difficult to get, but O'Shea guesses grocery delivery is probably under $2 billion annually, compared with $800 billion for the U.S. grocery market.

Even so, it's another chance for Amazon to stake out a place in a new market and gather as much intelligence as possible in that market while it does so.

Unlike other retailers, Amazon's has the luxury of not having to make a profit while it works out the kinks because its stockholders have long shown that they're profit-agnostic when it comes to the Seattle behemoth, O'Shea said.

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Disney Parks Arrive on Google Street View

Posted: 06 Mar 2018 08:11 AM PST

Good news, Disney lovers: The Happiest Place on Earth is now available on Google Street View.

Google on Tuesday announced that users can now virtually explore panoramic views of 11 Disney parks in Street View. That includes Disney's Typhoon Lagoon Water Park, Pandora – The World of Avatar inside Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom Park, Disney Springs, and Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida plus Disneyland Park and Mickey & Minnie's houses in California and Disney California Adventure Park and the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction.

So, if you're planning a Disney vacation, you can scope out the place beforehand to get excited and plan your itinerary.

"With Street View, anything your heart desires will come to you—castles, rides, attractions to infinity and beyond," Street View Program Manager Deanna Yick wrote in a blog post.

Google mapped many notable places for Street View in recent years, including Mont Blanc, Western Europe's highest peak; an archipelago of 80 tiny islands located more than a thousand miles off the coast of Australia called Vanuatu; Jordan's historical sites; Mount Everest; and dozens of underwater locations around the world.

In other Disney news, the company has two streaming apps in the works: an ESPN-branded multi-sport video streaming service called ESPN Plus slated to launch this Spring, and an as-yet-unnamed Disney-branded service expected to arrive in 2019. The Disney streaming platform will be the exclusive home for the company's live action and animated films, as well as content from Pixar and the Disney kids TV channels. That means Disney content will be yanked from Netflix beginning with the 2019 theatrical slate.

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Segway's new Loomo scooter doubles as an obedient Instagram husband

Posted: 06 Mar 2018 06:05 AM PST

Just look at that cute face.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

By Raymond Wong2018-03-06 14:03:21 UTC

The Loomo isn't quite R2-D2, but it might just be the next best thing to a real-life droid.

Built by Segway Robotics, a division of Segway-Ninebot, the Loomo is what happens when you fuse a miniPro self-balancing electric scooter (or as I like to call it a knee-controlled hoverboard) with AI so that it can essentially see and hear you almost like a pet.

At the most basic level, the Loomo is still a personal transporter. It's controlled exactly the same way as a miniPro — steering is done with your inner knees — and has a top speed of 11 miles per hour and up to a 22 mile range on a single charge.

I rode it around in a small-sized showroom and it's every bit as smooth as the miniPro. The 11-inch wheels are nice and thick and can easily ride up curbs and along sidewalks with issues.

Say "Loomo, transform" and the personal transporter changes into a personal robot.

But that's not what has me so excited about the Loomo. With a "Loomo, transform" voice command, the middle compartment flips around and springs to life to reveal a small 4.3-inch touchscreen with 800 x 480 resolution.

And just like that the Loomo morphs from being your personal transporter designed into a friendly robot capable of following you around using its sophisticated Intel RealSense depth and motion-sensing camera technology. The same voice command also transforms it back from robot mode to transporter.

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Loomo is also controllable with a smartphone app, but that's nowhere near as fun as having it scoot around on its own.

These 11-inch wheels can ride over any crusty city streets.

If you stop and think about the state of personal robotics, one thing becomes fairly obvious: They don't really exist outside and on the streets. Most personal robots, like the awful Jibo, are designed for indoor use, primarily at home.

It's challenging to create a robot for the streets that pedestrians will welcome, Adam Bao, a U.S. spokesperson for the Loomo told me during a briefing.

How do you make a robot that people won't be afraid of that can also survive a beating in the weather? This is the question that Segway-Ninebot sought to answer as it explored ways to combine AI with personal mobility.

Loomo has 5 mics and an Intel RealSense camera to recognize voices and faces.

Loomo works because it's a transporter when you need to get around from Point A to B and a personal robot second. It's only the latter when you summon it to transform into one. And there are various reasons why might want a robot with you outside.

Bao presented me with several practical scenarios. For example, maybe you don't want to ride the Loomo or carry the 42-pound clunker home when it's running low on power. In such a situation, the Loomo could simply follow you home.

Or maybe you're shopping at the grocery store and have a few bags too many. No problem — just place two of them on the Loomo's foot pads and let it literally carry them home for you.

Don't have a real Instagram husband? Loomo's got you covered.

Are you an aspiring vlogger? Loomo could record you using its 1080p camera and snap selfies for you to post to Instagram.

There's really no limit to what Segway-Ninebot thinks is possible with the Loomo. Right now, the door's wide open for developers to come up with whatever tickles their fancy.

With an Android-based SDK, developing new voice, gesture, or touch controls (via the touchscreen or the touchpad on the side of the screen) for Loomo shouldn't be difficult, says Bao.

Despite being a prototype, I liked what I saw in the Loomo. It's not trying to be R2-D2 and yet the limited few things it does are quite useful and its personality is approachable.

The Loomo's currently up for pre-order on Indiegogo for a somewhat hefty $1,299. I'm no psychic so I can't say if the streets of the future will be filled with Loomos trailing behind everyone carrying their groceries, but wouldn't that be a sight to behold?

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