This Week in Logistics Tech
More $$$ for on demand, smarter parking, faster deliveries for Mexico + more!
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Instacart- the grocery delivery service- is rumored to be raising $400 milli’s, which would value the company at $3 billi’s. This huge fund raise is interesting considering how funding has slowed significantly in the on-demand arena. Instacart isn’t just aiming to be a delivery service, though. I wants to serve also as a means for existing grocery stores to seamlessly bring their businesses online by integrating with their current systems.
Lyft has stepped up its game- likely spotting an opportunity created by the current misfortunes felt by Uber. Lyft just launched in 10 more US markets. Add that to the 90 other cities it’s already entered this year, and it’s reached 100 cities in 3 months. That was its goal for the entire year of 2017. Now they have to find something else to do for the next 9 months.
Didi- the Uber in China- has opened a US based research lab in order to pull in more talent outside of the Chinese market. This lab does not seem to signal an impending Didi presence in the US, but rather an increase in research focusing on AI and self-driving technologies.
One notable researcher joining the project is Charlie Miller, who achieved some fame in 2015 when he demonstrated vulnerabilities in the automotive industry by hacking a vehicle from his laptop.
Didi’s presence in the US is also felt through its partnership with Udacity. They recently announced a joint contest for teams to develop an Automated Safety and Awareness Processing Stack (or ASAPS) to increase driver safety in manual and self-driving cars. The contest opens March 22, and the winner will get $100,000 buckaroos and the opportunity to work with Didi and Udacity on future projects. Interested? Go to udacity.com to learn more.
Sometimes I’m sitting in my apartment here in Chattanooga, and have a real hankering for that good ol’ Chicago style pizza. But I’m not going to settle for some imitation BS. No! I want it to be from Chicago, and I want it tomorrow. Goldbely understands these very serious first world probs, and it’s here to solve them.
It has raised a $10M Series A to expand its current offering of delivering your favorite food items from the some of the best restaurants around the country. It currently works with 300 food partners around the US and delivers to all 50 states. This service is not cheap, but this is not for people looking for a deal. This is for people with hyper location-specific food cravings and more money than they need.
Amazon Prime is now available in Mexico. This means unlimited free shipping on over 20 million items for 449 pesos ($23 for the Gringos out there.) for the first year. After that, the price will go up to the standard $46.
This is after Walmart announced it will be investing $1.3 billion in logistics improvements in Mexico, including building new distribution centers.
The logistics of parking, as it currently stands, is a hot mess. The Australian peer-to-peer parking marketplace, Spacer, is taking on the challenge and has acquired the US-based Roost in order to enter the US market more easily. The plan is to start up operations in San Francisco, Chicago and DC before expanding across the US.
MIT is using some bananas technology that uses a specific signal in the human brain to teach robots when they’re making a mistake.
All of our human brains give off a strong reaction called an “error potential” signal when we notice something is off or someone is making the wrong choice. Like, for example, when my parents look at me and my life choices.
MIT’s new tech is using an EEG cap that reads these signals when a person is observing a robot at work. The robot then receives this signal and changes its behavior. This is transforming the way we program robots from using their language to using our own in order to teach them. You can imagine this becoming very useful as humans take on a more supervisory roles throughout the supply chain.
