South Korean coffee shop utilizes robotic baristas to maintain social distancing etiquette
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.
Sure, it can make and serve coffee, but can it horribly misspell our names, too?
A café in South Korea is reportedly utilizing robotic baristas to whip up its coffee drinks and serve them to customers, in the hopes of reducing the amount of human interaction between patrons and employees.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The café’s operation utilizes both a coffee-making “arm” and a mobile serving robot, which together can make a distribute 60 different types of drinks. (Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji)
CAFE OWNER DRAPES ENTIRE SHOP IN CLEAR SHOWER CURTAINS: 'DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO'
The technology behind the robots was developed by a firm called Vision Semicon along with a state-run science institute, Reuters reported.
“Our system needs no input from people from order to delivery, and tables were sparsely arranged to ensure smooth movements of the robots, which fits with the current ‘untact’ and distancing campaign,” said Lee Dong-bae, the director of research at Vision Semicon, per Reuters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER
The café’s operation utilizes both a coffee-making “arm” and a mobile serving robot, which together can make and distribute 60 different types of drinks. There’s also a kiosk where customers input their coffee orders, further reducing any human interaction.
In fact, there’s only one human employee in the whole café, in charge of both pastries and janitorial duties. This, however, has already sparked a separate worry, as at least one customer feared that “robots would replace humans” at coffee shops and cafés near a local university.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS
Then again, it’s not as if the idea of robotic baristas hasn’t been tried before in the States. The idea may be earning renewed interest thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but a San Francisco coffee shop called Café X had introduced the idea of a robotic barista arm over a year ago. And, as of last week, a robotic barista was serving patrons of In J Coffee in Portland, Ore., as seen in the following video from The Oregnian.
CLICK HERE FOR FOX NEWS' CONTINUING CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Owner Joe Yang, however, told the outlet that his robot can’t yet serve up certain specialty cocktails that only a truly “talented barista” could make.