Next Year, Let the Robot Do Your Thanksgiving Shopping

Next year, your Thanksgiving grocery shopping may be fulfilled by robots--locally. Takeoff Technologies is piloting a technology that sends robots into a warehouse to fill grocery orders of up to 60 items in five minutes. This operation may finally make the eGrocery concept feasible. That concept goes back to Webvan, an online grocery fulfillment concept that was born--and soon died--during the dot-com boom and bust. Takeoff is partnering with a number of supermarkets to launch the robotic picking of groceries.