One more thing we learned at TEDxBoston: Robots really are taking over the world

Published Jul 02 2011, 08:06 PM by Tyler Manoukian

We've always known that robots would take over the world someday. And thanks to this fascinating, slightly horrifying presentation shown at last Tuesday at TEDxBoston, seems clear that we're just a little bit closer to our inevitable droid-dominated future.

Or at least the droid-dominated future of online commerce: Mick Mountz, the founder of the Woburn-based Kiva Systems, has enlisted an army of robots to take over order-fulfillment for such online-retail behemoths as Zappos, Staples, and Diapers.com.

Mountz, who discussed his project with FORA.tv back in May, spoke last Tuesday at TEDxBoston. Mountz took us through a day in the life of the next generation retail fulfillment robots that will fuel the future of ecommerce. Kiva robots are designed to self navigate across the warehouse and retrieve the items you submit for order. A human ‘picker' (as Mountz calls them) then packs the order and primes the shipment.

All of which means no more waiting two days for your order to process before it's even shipped. Now you can get your copy of Gears of War 3 and fight off the hordes of Lambent enemies that much quicker. It doesn't get much better than this, geeks. (Just don't think too hard about the unsettling implications of a robot future.

READ: "What I learned at TEDxBoston," by Will Dailey

READ: "Watch TEDxBoston 2011 now," by Katie Lannan

Filed Under: TEDxBoston

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Filed Under: TEDxBoston

Boston Phoenix
One more thing we learned at TEDxBoston: Robots really are taking over the world
Published 7/2/2011 by Tyler Manoukian
We've always known that robots would take over the world someday. And thanks to this fascinating, slightly horrifying presentation shown at last Tuesday at TEDxBoston,...

Boston Phoenix
What I learned at TEDxBoston
Published 7/1/2011 by Will Dailey
Editor's note: Boston singer/songwriter, Will Dailey attended TEDxBoston, Boston's third independently organized TED event held at the Seaport World Trade Center on June 28, 2011....

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