Robot dogs in Tokyo serve customers ice cream to keep workers and customers safe

[Oct. 12, 2020: Emerald Pellot]

In the age of social distancing, restaurants all over the world are enlisting the help of robot servers.

Tokyo-based company Connected Robotics developed adorable robot dog servers to serve ice cream to customers and keep human workers safe during the pandemic. The robot dogs — referred to as Reita-Kun — can prepare an ice cream cone in 30 to 40 seconds or 90 servings per hour, according to the company.

Footage showed a blue dog, with a robot arm protruding from under its head, on the job. A worker placed a cone into the arm, then the robot filled it with soft-serve before delivering it to a customer.

“We introduced Reita to give restaurants better options to deal with the pandemic,” Connected Robotics said according to Newsflare. “The robots will attract more customers because they have unique services. Not only that, the time spent on training part-timers will also decrease with the robots.”

Connected Robotics also offers dinosaur, bird and other customizable ice cream-serving characters. But these robots don’t just have a cool facade. They can have conversations with patrons and even recognize when someone waves or has a facial reaction.

Some of the other available robots are a Hot Snack robot, which is not as cute as the dog, but can work a deep fryer and an electric grill. Another one, still in development, is Loraine, an automatic breakfast maker that prepares bacon, eggs, vegetables, toast and coffee.

This Brighter Side of News post courtesy of In The Know.

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