If You Want a Robot to Stop Screwing Up, Hold Its Hand

The robot arm hovers over a pile of products before it makes its move, snagging a toothbrush with its suction cup. It holds the product up, waits for the red flash of a barcode scanner, then turns and drops the toothbrush in a cubby hole. Next the arm suction-cups a box of Goldfish crackers, turns, and files it, too. At a startup called Kindred in San Francisco, technicians are teaching robots how to precisely manipulate objects like these. Because somebody's got one hell of an online shopping habit.