From Kit Buchan at Guardian, a little more about the Lowe’s robotic shopping assistant, OSHbot, one realized idea from the chain store’s Innovation Labs, and one which won’t be replacing human workers, not yet at least:

“According to [Innovation Lab’s Executive Director Kyle] Nel, OSHbot is the product of an extraordinary innovation scheme in which Lowe’s Innovation Labs ask published science-fiction writers to produce stories predicting futuristic scenarios for the store. Lowe’s then seek out what Nel calls ‘uncommon partners’ to help make the stories reality; in OSHbot’s case, the trendy Silicon Valley learning hub Singularity University and the startup robotics firm Fellow Robots.

OSHbot is a 4ft-something, pear-shaped character; limbless, with nothing but a vague green glow for a face, and a screen slanted in front like a starched pinny. ‘It’s basically a roving kiosk; we definitely didn’t want it to have arms or anything like that,’ says Nel. ‘But there’s still lots to figure out, for instance: what voice should the robot have? Should it be male, should it be female? There are so many things we can’t know until we try it.’

Nel is quick to clarify that OSHbot is not a replacement for human beings – rather it is there to ‘augment [the] store associates.'”