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May 14, 2015 10:11 am GMT

At this store, both the merchandise and the employees are robots

Beamstore4

Arika Bunfill has heard it all.

"Are you real?"
"Will you clean my house too?"
"Will you go out with me?"

It's hard out there for a robot.

Bunfill works at the Beam store in downtown Palo Alto, California. Scratch that. Bunfill works from her comfortable home in Vacaville, about 90 miles away. But her presence, via Beam, a teleconference robot that looks like the offspring of a computer and a Segway, roams the floor at what Beam reps say is the world's first and only unmanned store. That's right, no human beings work at the store — it's operated 100% remotely by folks like Bunfill.

"Hello ladies," Bunfill says cheerfully to two women walking by the brightly lit shop. They are momentarily stunned by her greeting from a flat panel face, but then walk away, glancing back once. Bunfill is undeterred. She maintains her bonhomie, swivels her wheeled robotic base, and begins to chat up Vish Sastry and Kaval Ali, a young couple on their first date. Ali, a trademark paralegal, is unfazed that she's carrying on a conversation with a machine. "This is so Silicon Valley," she said with a dismissive wave. Read more...

More about Robot, Palo Alto, Tech, and Beam

Original Link: http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/OIl8sq1roYk/

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