On 12/28/2014 10:32 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
"Michael A. Terrell" on Sun, 28 Dec 2014
03:56:18 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
" wrote:
On Saturday, December 27, 2014 6:47:20 AM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
If robots can sell coffee machines I think that they can probably say,
"With Fries?" and it is very likely that if the Nestle experiment
works, and there at present at least one Japanese company that is
currently using robots in their outlets, that companies like
Macdonald's will be looking at the same solution.
I do not believe that we will ever see robots selling hamburgers. Instead you will see smart phones being used to place orders for hamburgers. Much less cost for the hamburger seller.
So you can't buy a burger, if you don't want to have a so called smart
phone?

decaster missed this bit of news from 2012:
http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/
"According to Momentum Machines, making burgers costs US$9 billion a
year in wages in the United States alone. The company points out that
a machine that could make burgers with minimum human intervention
would not only provide huge savings in labor costs, but would also
reduce preparation space with a burger kitchen replaced by a much
smaller and cheaper stainless-steel box."
[...]
"This self-contained, automatic device sees raw ingredients go in one
end and the completed custom-made burgers come out the other at the
rate of up to 400 per hour. "

So, yes, there is no humanoid looking robot flipping burgers and
asking "Do you want fries with that?". Nope - just a machine which
makes hamburgers to order.

Oh yes, and while we are at it - the "Barista In A Box":
http://qz.com/134661/briggo-coffee-army-of-robot-baristas-could-mean-the-end-of-starbucks-as-we-know-it/
which features a kiosk at the University of Texas Austin, which in
fifty square feet of floor space (five by ten, or 4.6 sq meters), does
everything - and repeats the process, so that your order today is the
same as yesterday, as the day before, as it will be tomorrow.
"High-end restaurants automated coffee production and no one
noticed."

The robots are here, and they don't take breaks, come in late or
hung over, require medical benefits or overtime. And the price of
these robots is coming down, as their abilities increase.

And the substances coming out of them are little different from the
substances coming out of me after I've eaten them.

David