Apple Holding Discussions With Saudi Arabian Government to Open Retail Store in 2019

Apple could debut its first retail location within Saudi Arabia as soon as 2019, thanks to the government’s current push towards a “high-tech look” for the country. Reuters reports today that officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh — including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — are currently in licensing discussions with both Apple and Amazon in an effort to entice major technology companies into the country.

Apple is rumored to be talking with SAGIA, Saudi Arabia’s foreign investment authority, and a licensing agreement for Apple’s retail stores with the authority is expected to come by February 2018. The first location would then be targeted for an opening in 2019.

Image of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia via Wikimedia Commons

Apple and Amazon are in licensing discussions with Riyadh on investing in Saudi Arabia, two sources told Reuters, part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s push to give the conservative kingdom a high-tech look.

A licensing agreement for Apple stores with SAGIA is expected by February, with an initial retail store targeted for 2019, said two sources familiar with the discussions.

Amazon’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, is said to be leading the company’s discussions with Saudi Arabian officials. The talks are believed to be in “earlier stages” than Apple’s, with no specific time frame given for Amazon’s investment plans in the country.

The Saudi Arabian government’s regulations previously placed heavy limits on foreign ownership of businesses, preventing companies like Apple and Amazon from coming to the country. In the past two years, however, falling crude oil prices “highlighted the need to diversify” the country’s dependency on oil within its economy, leading to courting technology companies.

Evidence of this came in September, when Saudi Arabia lifted a ban on services that provide access to calling someone over the internet, including Apple’s FaceTime. The ban was enacted in 2013 and began due to the government’s fear of non-secure internet communication among its residents, but was lifted this year in the country’s new efforts to “attract more business” to its economy.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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iPhone X too expensive for you? A rumored price cut may change that

The most expensive iPhone yet may become slightly cheaper next year, if new rumors are to be believed, potentially enticing more people to by an iPhone X. The reason? Apple isn’t selling enough of them in the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, and other important markets.

This comes from a DigiTimes report, a website known for its hit-or-miss rumor coverage, so don’t take any future price cut as certain. However, it follows on from reports Apple plans to lower its iPhone X orders for the first three months of 2018 due to an apparent lack of demand. The best way to drum up new business? Cut the price.

Analysts at JL Warren Capital blamed, “weak demand because of the iPhone X’s high price point,” in a quote to Bloomberg, and expects shipments to fall from 30 million over the last three months, to 25 million in the first three months of 2018. Other analysts estimate far higher predicted sales numbers, and greater drops for the iPhone X next year.

The iPhone X starts at $1,000, but can cost a lot more depending on the amount of storage space it contains. How much will Apple cut from the price? The DigiTimes rumor doesn’t go into any detail, and should it come to pass, we shouldn’t expect the iPhone X to suddenly challenge the OnePlus 5T at about $500. The report’s wording suggests the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus — which suffered from poor sales due to anticipation for the iPhone X —  may also fall in price.

Apple isn’t averse to dropping the price of an iPhone, but mostly it does so when a new model is about to come out, or has just been released. If the outgoing iPhone is still current in Apple’s range, then a $100 price drop isn’t uncommon. Cutting the price on a current phone just a few months after release is more unusual; but it did pull a similar trick to reinvigorate iPad sales in 2017.

The iPad cuts may give us a clue about how much Apple could reduce the iPhone X by, and they range from $50 to $100. Would you consider buying a $950 iPhone X, after deciding a $1,000 iPhone X was too much? For now, no such price drop is official, and the rumor’s source isn’t always reliable; but it’s intriguing due to how it fits in with analyst concerns about the iPhone X’s overall sales success.

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Carrier report card: How we rated the Big Four U.S. networks in 2017

See who passed, who failed, and who needs to stay after class when it comes to the Big Four.

As part of any year-end roundup worth its salt, it’s time for a look at how the companies who provide our phone service did over the last 12 months.

For most people, talking about a cell phone provider is not sitting high on a list of interesting things. And that’s great, maybe even the way it should be. The best carrier for you will be the one that’s just there and works without any unnecessary fuss or fiddling, and as long as you send it a few dollars every month, there is nothing to talk about. That means picking the right carrier is one of the most important things about having an Android phone.

We’re going to look at four areas that make a big difference in how much we love our phones and see how each carrier did in them. And we’re going to be grading their performance and talk about how the grades were earned. It’s fun (and important) to judge things this way!

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The Network

A look at a map will tell you why it’s impossible for any carrier to cover all of the U.S. Any company that would try to provide top-tier performance for every location inside our borders would quickly run red ink and disappear — the country is too big. Thanks to newer technology and the ever-increasing population, things are better than they used to be, but we have a long way to go before we can say any company has you covered everywhere.

In this category, both total coverage and good coverage matter. The way we tend to use our phones means that low-speed or spotty service is no better than not having any at all. This is based on our experience, feedback from users, and actual real-world experience rather than coverage maps.

• Verizon: B+. Verizon once again has the best overall coverage in the U.S. and it’s getting even better. In 2017, Verizon quietly continued to expand coverage in rural areas and tried to keep providing the same excellent service available in metropolitan centers. Unlimited data plans, however, did have a major impact on LTE network speed averages. OpenSignal noted that average data speeds on Verizon’s LTE network slowed to 14 Mbps and we’re reading the same experience from users around the web. Anecdotally, we’re not seeing a dramatic difference in the areas we live, work, and play here, but all signs say they exist.

Where Verizon can improve: Find a way to deal with congestion. No matter how much bandwidth is available in total, it’s shared bandwidth. More people using more data makes it difficult to spread it all around and users aren’t very happy with ideas like throttling or spotty performance. Verizon isn’t afraid to spend money on equipment when it needs to, and this is a tough thing to fix that will need plenty of money.

• T-Mobile: B. While T-Mobile can’t boast when it comes to total coverage, the company can claim to have the most reliable service in the places it does cover. Network availability and speed in metro areas is strong, and OpenSignal claims that T-Mobile outperforms even Verizon here. Our experience supports this, as does user feedback. Not having the same network footprint as Verizon can’t be ignored, though.

Where T-Mobile can improve: Rural coverage. It’s well-known that finding the spot where T-Mobile goes from great to non-existent isn’t difficult. Usually, you only need to drive a few miles from any town or interstate to see things go from good to bad and even T-Mobile is aware they need to step it up outside their comfort zone. The 600 MHz spectrum is the fix and T-Mobile is positioned to use it.

• AT&T: C. A “C” grade means average, and that’s exactly what AT&T’s network in 2017 earns. It too experienced a significant slowdown in network speeds when an unlimited plan was made available in OpenSignal’s testing, though not as dramatic as Verizon’s with speeds dropping by just 1 Mbps to 13 Mbps on average. Network availability remains mostly unchanged since last January, as does the total network footprint. AT&T’s network performance is steady and stable in our testing and according to user feedback. A healthy “C” grade fits perfectly.

Where AT&T can improve: Like Verizon, AT&T has coverage in almost any location. Maintaining the level of service throughout the year in the face of more customers using more data is impressive, but we think AT&T could better utilize its fiber optic cable network to bring a faster and more reliable service to more customers. Without increasing the rates for either.

• Sprint: D. Sprint was in a tough spot all around in 2017. It is doing a fair job improving its existing network, though not at the pace we would like to see, but expansion seems to have stopped. OpenSignal noted that in several locales like Cincinnati, Sprint had both the best speed and reliability, so they are capable of going toe-to-toe with any other company in existing markets. Our anecdotal evidence has Sprint outperforming every other company in the western DC suburbs and maintaining the same level of service in other markets. Plenty of users can report the same, but more people have a very different experience.

Where Sprint can improve: Money. For the past few years, it seems that every plan to turn Sprint around has failed. The growth we hoped to see when SoftBank acquired 70% of the company in 2012 never really materialized and we once again saw attempts to consolidate and merge Sprint into another company. Sprint owns very valuable assets and has control over plenty of spectrum. With the right leadership, it could eclipse the competition.

Customer service

Of of the perks that come with using a “big four” carrier is the level of customer service you receive when compared to pre-paid service or an MVNO. We expect to be taken care of when we’re spending more money, and each carrier tries to deliver it. Some did well, while others struggled.

• Verizon: A. By all accounts, Verizon excels when it comes to customer service. For every horror story, you’ll see there is a counterpoint where Verizon has gone above and beyond to offer support. Offering tech support for users of such a complicated service is difficult, and Verizon does it best.

• T-Mobile: B-. T-Mobile may not have the expansive online tools that Verizon has (which the grade reflects), but they have mastered one very important area when it comes to customer service — social media. Tweet or message a support issue to T-Mobile’s army of social media experts and you’ll get a response almost every time. That’s impressive.

• AT&T: C. Once again AT&T comes in with a “C” grade because there hasn’t been much change. AT&T offers good customer service to subscribers (with pre-paid support for Cricket users a highlight) but the company hasn’t gone the extra mile to improve dramatically in any area. This isn’t a bad spot to be in, but we would like to see AT&T get even better here.

• Sprint: D. I don’t want to give Sprint a failing grade when it comes to customer service because of one reason — the dedication of their support staff. We’ve mentioned how leadership and money remains a big problem for Sprint and its customer service reflects this. While we can’t see any one area where Sprint is doing a great job at the corporate level, we can say that the employees are doing their best with what they have. Hard work and dedication of support staff deserve to be rewarded and because of the sincere desire to help we see from the people on the phones and on social media they garner a “D” grade instead of failing outright.

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Service plans

It’s not just the number of plans or the price that matters here. A company needs to provide the right plan for everyone (or as many users as possible) with the right features at the right price. Every carrier did well here in 2017, and we couldn’t be more pleased!

Best unlimited plan

• T-Mobile: A+. No more games with unlimited plans from T-Mobile. Calls, texts, and data (up to a whopping 50GB before any throttling) with a clear policy on high-resolution streaming are now the norm. Add in a cheaper option for seniors and you get that “A” grade. Paying all the taxes and fees gets that A+.

• Sprint: A. Sprint’s unlimited plans simply can’t be beaten. Excellent pricing and few restrictions on service are exactly what we want to see from a service provider and Sprint does both. If it ever gets the network in shape, Sprint could be our top pick for the best unlimited plan. We also have to mention that Sprint’s unlimited plans are priced so well that there isn’t much need for tiered data plans on its network. We like what we see from Sprint when it comes to service plans.

• Verizon: A. Unlimited data made a triumphant return to Verizon in 2017, and small snafus with streaming resolution are negated with a quick realization that two tiers of unlimited data plan better serve both the customer and the bottom line. Well done, Big Red. Well done indeed.

• AT&T: A. Like Verizon, seeing an unlimited plan return to AT&T was unexpected but welcomed. Seeing it include 10GB of LTE tethering blew our minds — nobody ever expected AT&T to include tethering on an unlimited plan. If you’re not a DirecTV subscriber, the top tier plan can be a bit pricey but millions of iPhones and Galaxy phones are chewing through more battery power than ever now that unlimited on AT&T is back. That is a good thing.

Every carrier did great here and that means the real winners was all of us.

Phone selection

This gets ignored too often when it comes to talking about carriers and how they are doing. We’re looking at both the phones a carrier sells and unlocked phones that work on the network as well as the company policy when it comes to using them.

• AT&T: A / T-Mobile: A (tie). No surprises here. Both AT&T and T-Mobile sell the most popular flagships from Apple and Samsung, decent mid-range phones from other names we know and trust like LG or Motorola, and entry-level phones for people who aren’t tethered to a touchscreen all day and don’t want to be or can’t afford it. What gives each carrier an “A” grade is their network technology for both voice and data. GSM is the worldwide standard and there are very few unlocked phones sold that won’t work on either.

• Verizon: C. We never thought we would see the day when all phones sold from Verizon were SIM unlocked and you were able to bring a phone with compatible network bands to use as an LTE-only device to Big Red. This might be a requirement for the spectrum Verizon was awarded, but the lack of resistance to the idea is awesome and we’re glad it stopped. What keeps Verizon from getting an outright “A” grade is not something they can fix for a while — a CDMA network. You need a phone number and service to make calls and send texts, and Verizon isn’t able to certify most unlocked devices for VoLTE. It’s great that the HTC U11 “works” on Verizon. It’s not great that the OnePlus 5T doesn’t.

• Sprint: C-. Sprint is a huge company that phone manufacturers want to support, even though you only hear the bad news about it. All the big names in mobile offer their best devices through Sprint and a wide selection of inexpensive phones are available, too. What keeps Sprint from getting an above-average grade is both their CDMA network and their list of “approved” unlocked phones. The network is something they can’t change right away (though like Verizon, they are working on it) and unlocked phones must be able to use Sprint’s CDMA network to get service. On the plus side, it’s easy to get your Sprint phone unlocked. On the minus side, many Sprint phones don’t support the LTE bands you might need with another carrier.

2017 was a good year

The return of unlimited data to AT&T and Verizon capped a great year where we saw T-Mobile continue to push towards the top and Sprint maintaining their presence as a top-tier provider despite the odds against it. Other highlights were T-Mobile eating the fees and taxes on your bill, Sprint making family plans almost free after you pay for the first line, and seeing all of the major carriers reacting to each other to give us more and better choices when it comes to phone service.

Here’s hoping 2018 is even better!

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• Join the Discussion

The Morning After: Thursday, December 28th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Good morning. NASA is already planning a mission in 2069, we watch an iPhone X camouflage your face, and combine sex, robots and popular culture.

Hype matters more than quality.Will Smith’s ‘Bright’ is terrible, but that doesn’t matter to Netflix

Despite a low Rotten Tomatoes review score (32 percent), Bright could still be the algorithmically-created hit Netflix is seeking.

If you have a TV, you can explore most of the issues yourself.You don’t need a Ph.D. to grasp the anxieties around sex robots

Many of the preoccupations that were on display at the third International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots are ones previously explored in pop culture. From Futurama to Westworld, going back to Weird Science and The Stepford Wives, the questions that academics are currently pondering have already been played out, fictionally at least, on TV. To spare you a lot of very dry reading, we offer this guide on what you should be watching. If last year’s show was about the potential for humanity to cause harm to robots, then this year’s was devoted to our anxieties about our transhumanist future.

“I do not really know what it can be used for.”Watch a developer erase his face with the iPhone X

The iPhone X’s Face ID sensors have shown great potential for art, gaming and the weird, but a Japanese developer has taken another tack with the device. Using Unity, ViRD game developer @noshipu, aka Kazuya Noshiro, completely erased his face, except for his mouth and eyes. Calling the trick “optical camouflage,” Noshiro admitted that he has no clue about a use case. “If you want to make your face transparent, we’re recruiting,” he joked.

Keep downloading.Nintendo is delaying the Switch’s 64GB game cards

To get around the Switch’s current 32GB limit on game cards, Bethesda split Doom into two parts. The single player campaign is what shipped on the game card, and multiplayer was a separate download. It sounds like that might be the norm for a bit longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nintendo won’t start supplying 64GB game cards until 2019, around six months later than the original mid-2018 target. According to WSJ’s sources, some technical issues are to blame, Nintendo wants to ensure that product quality is up to snuff.

Politics can’t stop the revolution.Year in review: Green tech will be everywhere in 2018

With the green energy expectations of consumers, companies and governments all getting higher, 2018 has a lot to deliver. Here’s what to expect on the consumer side for EVs, clean home power, battery storage backup, and more.

Do you suffer from gaming disorder?The WHO may add video games to its list of recognized addictions

If you have lacked control over playing video games (like when and how often), prioritized gaming over other life interests and are unable to stop playing games even when negative consequences have occurred as a result, then you may be an addict. Well, you might be if the World Health Organization keeps “Gaming Disorder” on the International Classification of Diseases list when it finalizes the 11th revision next year.

But wait, there’s more…

• Apple’s original graphical OS will be available for free in 2018
• LG unveils its first smart speaker with Google Assistant
• What’s on TV: ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘Bill Nye’ and bowl games
• Hackers say Nintendo’s hidden golf game on Switch is gone
• NASA hopes to send a probe to Alpha Centauri in 2069

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Twitter bans ‘Impostor Buster’ bot that ID’d Nazi trolls

It’s been a rocky road to Twitter’s newfound pledge to kick members of hate groups off its platform. For those on the end of racist abuse, reporting trolls to Twitter has been a frustrating process. But, earlier this year, one journalist decided to take matters into his own hands. After suffering a record amount of harassment, reporter Yair Rozenberg teamed up with dev Neal Chandra to build a bot that unmasked impersonator accounts manned by bigots. It got off to a great start, explains Rozenberg in a New York Times op-ed, before Twitter shut it down at the behest of Nazis.

The bot, dubbed “Impostor Buster,” went after trolls with fake profiles of real individuals from ethnic minorities. To fool unwitting users, they’d adorn these accounts with clear identifying markers “like a yarmulke-clad Hasid or a woman in hijab,” along with descriptors like “jewish,” “muslim” or “enemy of the alt-right” in their bio, writes Rozenberg. Armed with the fake identity, they’d interject their racist bile in Twitter conversations by high-profile users, in the hopes of defaming an entire community.

Tapping into a crowdsourced database of impersonator accounts, which were curated to avoid false positives, Impostor Buster leapt upon the hijacked conversations to publicly expose the fakers. In a matter of weeks, the bot accrued thousands of followers, while its creators received thank-yous from victims, making it a success story for our troubled times. Then the Nazis mounted a fightback.

Inundated with reports of harassment from bigots, Twitter briefly suspended the bot in April. Despite fine-tuning it to evade Twitter’s alarms, the bot was permanently banned this month. It seems Twitter gave into the reports of spam and unsolicited replies from the neo-Nazis the bot had been targeting.

The move is just another sad chapter in Twitter’s paradoxical fight against hate on its platform. The moral of the story, according to Rozenberg, is that the company’s top-down enforcements are unfeasible. Instead of censorship, he posits a bottom-up approach using bots like his own to nurture a “healthier culture below.”

Source: The New York Times

Scientists made a virtual supernova you can walk around

At 11,000 light-years away, it’s safe to say you won’t be able to visit Cassiopeia A even if private space corporations start selling seats to amateur spacefarers. Thanks to a team of scientists, though, you might be able to see the 300-year-old supernova remnant up close — or even walk inside it. The team used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based facilities to create a 3D model of Cassiopeia A with VR and AR elements. You’ll be able to walk into the model, engage with parts of the remnant and conjure up short captions on what you’re seeing and “touching.”

To build the 3D model, they looked at the elements inside a supernova (such as iron, silicon and argon) and the light they emit when heated. That gave them a way to figure out how fast the supernova’s debris are moving and in what direction. The result is a visualization showing the spherical component making up the outer parts of the remnant and the flat, disk-like component making up the inner part. You can also see high-velocity plumes or jets shooting out of the structure:

Since the team created the model specifically for other astronomers building supernova models, it’s unfortunately not that easy to get your hands on it. You’ll have to contact Kimberly Arcand, the Visualization Lead for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, to get the open access files for VR caves (immersive VR rooms) and for the Oculus Rift. The team is also working on a Google Cardboard version, so you may want to wait a bit before sending in a request if that’s your preferred device.

Source: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Snapchat Stories May Soon Be Shared Online Like Embedded Tweets

Snap is reportedly working on a new Snapchat feature that will let users share stories outside of the mobile app, in an effort to boost Snapchat’s presence in the social media space (via The Verge).

Called “Stories Everywhere”, the feature should see Snapchat’s premium video and editorial content appear on news sites and elsewhere online. The move aims to bring greater visibility to the brand, in the face of increasing competition from the likes of Facebook and Instagram.

Live streaming news network Cheddar reports that former Storyful CEO and News Corp executive Rahul Chopra is leading the “Stories Everywhere” project. Chopra’s job is to attract more active users to the social platform – similar to how, in 2011, Twitter began letting people embed tweets off-platform for the first time, for example.

The strategy comes at the end of a bad year for Snap, which saw third quarter revenue fall after its March initial public offering failed to excite investors, many of which struggled to understand how the app works. In response, the company earlier this month released a redesigned Snapchat app that aims to offer a more personalized user experience that’s easier to navigate, especially for new users, with brand and friends’ content kept separate.

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WhatsApp to Pull Support for Older iPhones From Next Year

WhatsApp announced on Thursday that its mobile app will stop working on some older smartphones from next year, as it concentrates on developing new features for the popular messaging platform.

The decision means that from January 1, 2018, WhatsApp will pull support for the app on iPhone 3GS and older models, as well as iPhones running iOS 6 and earlier. The list of unsupported phones also includes Android 2.1 and 2.2, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Phone 7.

Explaining its reason for the move, WhatsApp said that when it was founded back in 2009, the mobile landscape was very different.

“About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia,” the company said. “Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time.”

Apple’s iPhone 3GS was released in June 2009, while iOS 6 was released on September 19, 2012, followed by iOS 7 in 2013. According to Apteligent Research, less than 0.04 percent of iPhone users are currently using iOS 6. Apple’s most recent mobile OS, iOS 11, was released on September 19, 2017, and accounts for over 75 percent of active iOS users.

(Via Sky News.)

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iMac Pro Base Model Teardown Reveals 2x SSD RAID Configuration and Four 8GB DIMM Modules

While we await iFixit’s inevitable comprehensive teardown of Apple’s new iMac Pro, third party Mac component supplier OWC has just published its own teardown video, providing some interesting tidbits on the internal configuration of the non-user upgradeable machine.

Whereas standard 27-inch iMacs have a small hatch in the back that allows the RAM in the machine to be upgraded after purchase, the iMac Pro does not. Fortunately, an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider is able to open up the iMac Pro and swap out the RAM, and here’s what they can expect to find upon doing so.

The teardown reveals that in the 32GB base model, there are four 8GB DIMM modules, a configuration type that appears to be mirrored in the 64GB (4 x 16GB) and 128GB (4 x 32GB) models. The good news is that this means the iMac Pro supports quad-channel memory, but the bad news is that it also means users looking to upgrade from, say, 32GB to 64GB will have to replace all four modules to do so.

The teardown also reveals that in the iMac Pro 1TB base model, Apple has chosen to use two 512GB SSDs in a RAID configuration. Rather than soldering the flash storage on the main board, both drives exist as separate modules that are attached via screws, so replacing them is at least technically feasible, even if Apple does not make it easy.

OWC says that in the near future it will be offering a DIY memory upgrade kit for the iMac Pro, although most users are likely to hand over such an undertaking to a qualified service provider. For more details on the iMac Pro’s internals, including the Intel Xeon W eight-core processor, be sure to watch the video embedded above.

Related Roundup: iMac ProTag: OWCBuyer’s Guide: iMac Pro (Buy Now)
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This self-driving delivery robot uses facial recognition to unlock the goodies

Small, wheel-based delivery robots continue to be of interest to many startups around the world, though considering the tragedy that befell this hitchhiking robot a few years ago, it’s hard to know if the human race is actually ready to fully embrace the idea of autonomous robots trundling along the street by themselves.

One outfit that isn’t giving up on delivery robots is E-Novia. Based in Milan, Italy, E-Novia is currently testing YAPE — short for Your Autonomous Pony Express — a compact self-driving robot that has an impressive range of some 50 miles (80 kilometers).

Bringing to mind Piaggio Fast Forward’s Gita robot, YAPE moves along on two-wheels and self-balances while reaching speeds of up to 12.4 mph (20 kmh), according to New Atlas.

Able to transport packages weighing up to a hefty 154 pounds (70 kilograms), YAPE uses a combination of sensors, cameras, and GPS to navigate sidewalks and other off-road routes such as cycle lanes to reach its destination. It also communicates with sensors fitted to traffic lights and other road equipment so it can respond to fast-changing street conditions.

When it reaches the delivery address, the recipient simply shows their face to YAPE’s facial recognition camera to unlock the compartment containing the package.

“YAPE is simple to use thanks to an app connected to a control platform,” E-Novia explains on its website. “To send packages via YAPE, all you have to do is input the destination address in the app, or simply to whom the package is addressed, leaving the task of finding the correct address to YAPE’s GPS system. On delivery, the recipient will only be able to open the package compartment using a facial recognition system.”

It all sounds rather cool, though regulatory hurdles will need to be overcome if such technology is ever to make it into the mainstream. And we still worry about ne’er-do-wells who believe it’d be hilarious to throw a blanket over YAPE as it goes on its merry way, or simply lift it up and toss it into a canal. Remember poor ol’ hitchBOT.

If a secure delivery system can be worked out, then we’re right behind YAPE and other similar designs offered by the likes of Starship Technologies and DHL. Heck, robots like these don’t even have to go out by themselves — they could simply act as a personal helper or robotic companion that follows you around and carries your stuff.

E-Novia will be showing off YAPE at CES 2018, and DT will be there to check it out.

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