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• July 14, 2008 11:56 AM
• News

Robo Retail Therapy? Droid-Assisted Shopping Arrives

By Gabriel Bell

We like to shop. And despite our eBay fixation, we truly do prefer the old analog ways of browsing through stores, enjoying the displays and molesting the merino wool. But sometimes, we have neither the time nor the willpower to drag ourselves out onto the street—that's why we're so excited about the TMSUK-4 remote shopping robot.

Able to go where Amazon can't, the consumer-friendly automaton recently demonstrated its consumer creds when an elderly lady was able to use it to shop from her home in Kitakyushu Japan via a live-video enabled cellphone. Now, it's true that the TMSUK-4 is neither available for purchase or widespread use (also, it has some issues determining good pashmina from the cheap stuff), but it's a Gigantor-sized step forward in droid-assisted splurging. We understand that the TMSUK-4 is the precursor of form of lifestyle-assisting robot whose prime directive isn't allowing us to shop at Colette from Central Park, but helping the elderly and infirmed. Then again, we've always regarded anything that stands in the way of a sample sale as a disability. We're good like that.

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