SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Friday morning that starting Sunday, September 20, Americans will be banned from downloading Chinese-owned apps TikTok and WeChat, which the Washington Post is calling a “seemingly unprecedented move that will sharply raise tensions with Beijing.” According to Politico, WeChat will basically have to stop operating on Sunday, but TikTok will still be useable until mid-November (aka just after the election) by people who’ve downloaded it prior to the ban.

According to the Department of Commerce, the move—which was set into motion by an August executive order signed by Donald Trump—is intended to protect Americans from having their personal data “maliciously” collected by the Chinese government. “Today’s actions prove once again that President Trump will do everything in his power to guarantee our national security and protect Americans from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement. It’s unclear how banning new downloads while still allowing current users to continue their activity on the app will achieve that goal.

Earlier this week, database and cloud tech company Oracle presented a proposal to the U.S. Treasury department to become TikTok parent company ByteDance’s U.S. partner, a role that had previously been pursued by both Microsoft and Walmart.

Although the Oracle deal—which is apparently still being reviewed—would mean user data would be stored by a U.S. company, ByteDance would still have majority control of the app, which Trump opposes.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 — Database and cloud tech giant Oracle will partner with Trump-teasing media platform TikTok in a deal to keep the video app operating within the U.S. Though some analysts had expected TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to Microsoft, Oracle’s co-founder and chairman just happens to be GOP fundraiser Larry Ellison—one of Trump’s closest, and most generous, pals.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, Oracle said in a statement Monday that it “will serve as the trusted technology provider” for TikTok, adding, “Oracle has a 40-year track record providing secure, highly performant technology solutions.”

Earlier this summer, Trump signed an executive order that would forbid individuals and companies in the U.S. from using TikTok starting September 20 if ByteDance did not divest TikTok’s U.S. operations. TikTok is suing to block the order, calling it unconstitutional, but if the ban goes into effect the video service could be dropped from Apple’s and Google’s mobile app stores, causing TikTok’s 1,500 U.S. employees to lose their jobs, and forcing untold numbers of L.A. influencers to rebuild their brands on other platforms.

The Trump administration has cited “national security” as its reason for the ban, saying that TikTok could be sending user info to the Chinese government—an accusation TikTok has repeatedly denied. The order, however, was issued shortly after TikTok users in America employed the app in a series of publicly humiliating pranks on Trump.

In June, for instance, the users tricked Trump’s team into announcing that more than a million people would be at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where only 6,200 people actually showed up. Days later, the pranksters setup an elaborate hoax to temporarily shut down Trump’s online tchotchke shop.

Oracle employees and locals alike protested in February, when Ellison hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his Coachella Valley estate, with tickets ranging from $100,000 to $250,000.

And that’s just one of the fruits of the cozy relationship.

In December, 2016, Oracle Chief Executive Safra Catz joined Trump’s transition team while still keeping his position at Oracle, Reuters reports. Catz has also donated more than $130,000 toward Trump’s reelection and, in 2019, Oracle gave between $500,000 and $999,999 to Trade Works for America, a Republican operation to support Trump’s NAFTA replacement bill.

And it’s more than just money that Ellison has gifted Trump. This March, it was Ellison himself who informed Trump about the wonders of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. He also reportedly offered to have Oracle help collect data about the drug, free of charge.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the deal would be a win for everyone that would “create TikTok global, as a U.S. headquartered company, with 20,000 new jobs.”

Oracle shares shot up by 10 percent with the news Monday, but some experts believe that even Ellison’s warm presence may not be enough to quell Trump’s fears.

“They could control the inflows and outflows from a national security perspective,” Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, told the Times. “If that’s enough of a stamp for the White House to have comfort with the deal, that is something that remains to be seen.”

RELATED: Oracle Boss Larry Ellison’s Coachella Valley Trump Fundraiser Protested by Employees and Locals Alike

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Quibi was designed to be short-form–but, little did the company’s founders realize, the business itself would be over in the blink of an eye. The start-up, which raised nearly $2 billion in investments and spent lavishly on star-studded original content, is reported to be shutting down. It launched just six months ago.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the entertainment super-exec who co-founded the company with former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, made initial calls to investors on Wednesday morning with the news, according to The Wall Street Journal. A more formal call detailing the financial future of the company is expected to take place before the end of today, during which investors–including Walt Disney Co., AT&T, and NBCUniversal–will learn more about what is to come.

Questions are expected to include what will happen to the sizable catalog of original content already produced. Reports in recent days had indicated that an attempt was made to offload programming to NBCUniversal or Facebook, but it appears those deals failed to materialize as of today’s announcement, perhaps in part because, the Journal notes, Quibi does not actually outright own many of the shows, instead having lured A-list talent with deals intended to revert rights to creators at some future point.

While Quibi-skeptics abounded even before the platform’s launch, timing may have complicated things for the company. Quibi’s raison d’être was to fill short bursts of time throughout a user’s day–say, commuting on the subway, waiting for an appointment, or in between school classes–with five- to 10-minute mobile-only “bites” of content. Pandemic stay-at-home orders meant that, just as the service was attempting to attract subscribers, many of those potential subscribers were staying at home, watching full-size televisions, and not finding themselves out and about, in need of mini-shows.

Quibi execs had initially projected the service would sign up 7 million paid subscribers in its first year of operation. Reality is understood to have fallen far short of that, though by exactly how much is somewhat difficult to confirm, as the company has not published conclusive numbers. The Information reported earlier this month that the number may be between 400,000 and 500,000. According to The Verge, more than 90 percent of users who signed up for a free trial of Quibi ultimately unsubscribed at the end of the trial, rather than converting to paying customers (Quibi issued a statement after the publication of that report calling the analysis “incorrect,” but did not produce specific data refuting it).

RELATED: What’s Apple’s Streaming Strategy? Think of It as Content as Catnip

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California residents now have one more tool in the fight against COVID-19. Starting today, smartphone users can sign up for CA Notify, which can send an alert if you’ve been around someone who later tests positive for the virus.

Here’s how it works: Users start by opting in to the voluntary system, either by activating a setting on your iPhone or installing an Android app. Once it’s set up, any time you leave the house, make sure you have Bluetooth activated. The system will ping other devices with CA Notify enabled and create a log of other devices that came within six feet for a period of 15 minutes or more, considered the highest-risk type of exposure (though by no means the only type of exposure that can result in infection).

If a user of the system ever receives a positive test result, they can alert the app anonymously using a private code received from the California Department of Public Health. CA Notify will then text owners of devices that came into contact with the patient to let them know they may want to get tested themselves.

What CA Notify is not is a contact tracing app like the ones deployed in Korea or Singapore. Officials say the app retains no identifying information about anyone who uses it and has no mechanism for contacting any other individuals you may have been in contact with other than the few alerted via their devices. CA Notify also doesn’t do anything to track where a particular user goes or the identities of anyone they are around.

Because the system is entirely voluntary and limited only to people who have smartphones and choose to run the app–and then only works as an alert when people who receive positive results choose to reveal that information to the system, which is not required–just switching on CA Notify certainly can’t take the place of any other health protocols. But, if enough people use it, it could send people to get tested who otherwise wouldn’t know they had been exposed and that, in turn, could chip away at the spread of COVID-19.

RELATED:  The State Is Supposed to Be Collecting Data About COVID in the LGBTQ Community. Where Is It?

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Public health officials have reported that intensive care unit capacity in the Southern California region has reached zero percent, meaning local health care facilities are strained to critical levels. This is the first time that ICU capacity has hit its maximum in the region during the pandemic, but experts predict that local hospitals have yet to see the worst of the current surge.

“I want to be very clear: Our hospitals are under siege, and our model shows no end in sight,” Christina Ghaly, director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services, said at a briefing yesterday. “The worst is still before us.”

People who end up in the ICU due to COVID-19 typically land there around two or three weeks after they develop the virus. That means the record-shattering numbers of new infections reported recently have yet to convert to hospitalizations.

The Los Angeles Times reports that, when ICU beds are filled, hospitals do have protocols for accommodating patients in other facilities, such as emergency rooms. And, to address the situation, hospitals in the area are now going into “surge mode,” which can allow them to accommodate up to 20 percent more patients than usual.

Temporary field hospitals are being set up across the state, to which overflow patients with less-critical needs can be diverted, freeing up capacity for ICU patients elsewhere.

But the beds themselves are only one component of care. There’s also a limited number of ICU-trained nurses and doctors to tend to the patients. When they’re not available to give patients the appropriate level of care, mortality increases. And that goes for people who go to the hospital for COVID-19-related reasons, and those who suffer trauma, accidents, or other medical emergencies.

Earlier this week, Governor Gavin Newsom revealed some of what the state is calling a “mass fatality plan,” which includes 60 53-foot-long refrigerated storage units to store bodies when there is no longer room in local morgues.

That concept may call to mind bleak images of New York City in the early days of the pandemic. But unlike that time–when doctors and equipment from California and elsewhere were flown to New York to offer aide–now nearly every state is facing its own simultaneous surge.

“This is real, and it’s something that needs to be taken seriously,” Denise Whitfield, an L.A. emergency department physician told reporters Wednesday, describing a shift at her E.R. last weekend, during which she felt, for the first time in her career, that she wasn’t able to appropriately care for every patient for whom she was responsible. “It’s really, really quite frightening to me.”

RELATED:  The State Is Supposed to Be Collecting Data About COVID in the LGBTQ Community. Where Is It?

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As a violent mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol with little police resistance on Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted a video to social media telling the “very special” rioters that he loves them, and doubling down on the false claim that he actually won reelection.

“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us,” he said, from the safety of the White House as members of congress and Vice President Pence sheltered in place at the Capitol. “It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. …We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home at peace.”

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube removed the video shortly after it was posted, and on Thursday morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg followed up by announcing that Trump would be banned from that platform as well as from Instagram for at least the rest of his term, which ends in just 13 days.

RELATED: Views from Inside the Pro-Trump Insurrection at the Capitol Building

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In 2017, Volvo, Sweden’s maker of relentlessly safety-conscious, gasoline-powered vehicles, launched Polestar, a stand-alone brand dedicated to…relentlessly safety-conscious, electric-powered vehicles. As 2021 dawns, the second offering from the marque, a luxury crossover felicitously named Polestar 2, will be among us soon.

Starting at $59,000, Polestar 2 is meant to eat the lunch of Tesla’s Model 3 and upcoming Model Y. Having piloted one around L.A. recently, I say, bring them on. Polestar’s remit is to field EVs with Volvo’s fabled integrity intact while torpedoing the marque’s association with granola-tinged self-righteousness. Done and done. The exterior leads with a faceted fascia that evokes Volvo’s traditional grille after a testosterone patch; acceleration is a face-flattening 4.45-second leap to 60 mph. The interior’s muted vegan upholstery is the only concession to Volvo virtue-signaling, and Polestar will swap in leather if you insist.

Then again, why mess with this near-perfect balance of circumspect beauty and beastly performance?

Five more EVs to watch in 2021

Telsa Cybertruck

“We need something different,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk quipped, unveiling this literally bulletproof brute. We’ll soon find out whether winking Mad Max aesthetics play in the U.S. pickup-truck heartland.

Volkswagen ID.4

Eager to bury the Dieselgate scandal, VW is investing $37 billion in next-generation EVs. First to hit these shores, the ID.4  brings decent 250-mile range and a retro-future, Jetsons-esque cabin.

Rivian R1S

Americans are besotted with gas-guzzling trucks, so startup Rivian made its debut EVs a pickup and this seven-passenger SUV with beguiling lozenge-shaped headlamps and 300-plus miles of range.

Lucid Air

So-called Tesla killers abound, but Cali-based Lucid’s foxy debut sedan has the goods to get the job done: 1,080 horsepower, 517 miles of range, and the fastest charge time of any EV.

Mustang Mach E

Ford’s iconic pony car is reimagined as a high-performance, compact crossover that gallops from zero to 60 in under four seconds and could be a game changer on the level of its namesake.

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After resisting fielding an SUV (a strategy that swelled the profits of Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Lamborghini, and arch-rival Bentley) for fear of sullying its hallowed name, Rolls-Royce finally bit the bullet with Cullinan. Despite an eyebrow-raising $325,000 sticker that tops $400,000 after add-ons like a rear hatch that converts to a leather-seated sightseeing perch, Cullinan—named after the world’s largest diamond, natch—became the fastest-selling model in Rolls history, to the point that CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos fretted its success could threaten the marque’s “promise to our customers to keep our brand rare and exclusive.”

It’s a promise Rolls takes seriously. Like all Rolls-Royce models, each Cullinan is handbuilt at the company’s Goodwood, England, atelier to insanely detailed specifications; it takes a small army of craftspeople a month or more to build a single example. That translated into a mere 5,152 Rolls-Royces delivered in 2019, the most in the company’s history. (Last year Bentley cranked out a record 11,006 of its own superlative luxury rides; the $168,000 Bentayga SUV, choice of Queen Elizabeth II, was its best-selling model.)

Which brings us to the inevitable reckoning: what is the place for a penthouse on wheels like Cullinan in these precarious times? It turns out that cars of all price points are emerging as vehicles of escape, literal and metaphorical, from the grind of quarantines and masking up. Loading you and yours into your own private COVID-free zone and hitting the road or a pop-up drive-in offers a precious glimpse of the personal agency and freedom of movement most of us have sacrificed for the duration. So if you’ve got the scratch, why not drop it on a ride that cossets with shameless luxury that seems out of time—but hopefully not for much longer.

Cabin Fervor

Cullinan’s high tech—a GPS-sourced self-leveling suspension, anyone?—is mitigated by acres of buttery leather and 330 pounds of sound-deadening insulation for a nearly silent ride.

When You Wish

No fewer than 1,344 LEDs handsewn into Cullinan’s headliner create a starry night worthy of Van Gogh, complete with animated shooting stars. Bonus: you can pick your own constellation.

Disappearing Act

The Rolls “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornament automatically retracts when Cullinan is locked, a bit of theater that can be indulged on demand via the infotainment touch screen.

Now, This Is Tailgating

Lower the rear hatch, push a button, and—voila!—a cunning setting for cocktails for two springs into place. The flutes and a refrigerator for chilling the bubbly are hidden in a secret compartment in the back

Power Play

Cullinan propels its 6,000 pounds with a twin-turbo, 6.75-liter V-12 that delivers 563 horsepower, good for zero to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and a top speed of 155.

Let it Rain

Push a button on the doorjamb and a full-size umbrella rockets into your paw. It can also be deployed from the driver’s side by your chauffeur, so nary a raindrop touches you.

RELATED: With Polestar 2, Volvo’s EV Brand Is Set to Give Tesla a Run for Its Money

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A Beverly Hills police officer was seen on camera playing music on his phone during a live-streamed interaction with a citizen and, according to Vice, some are speculating he was attempting to trigger Instagram’s copyright protection algorithm so the video would get booted from the platform.

Last Friday, L.A. activist Sennett Devermont was filming himself during a visit to the Beverly Hills Police Department to request body camera footage of an incident in which he believed he had been unfairly ticketed, when Sergeant Billy Fair began playing Sublime’s 1997 love/revenge ballad, “Santeria.”

Devermont subsequently shared the video with his 30,000 Instagram followers, stating in the accompanying text, “I believe Sergeant Fair aka BILLY FAIR is using copyrighted music to keep me from being able to play these videos on social media. Then tells me in the second video he couldn’t hear be earlier in the day and also couldn’t hear me then, all while playing music.”

While Fair does seem a bit put out in the video after he notices he’s being live-streamed and asks Devermont how many people are watching, to which Devermont replies, “Enough.” Devermont then says, “Sir, you’re putting on music as I’m trying to talk to you. Can you turn that off? It’s a little ridiculous. ”

Looking into his cell phone as the tune continues, Fair responds, “I’m just trying to see how many people are watching this. Since you couldn’t answer my simple question, I’m trying to find out myself.”

“It’s not on there, right?” Devermont challenges.

“Well, it’s not,” Fair says. “Apparently, you turned it off.”

“No it’s still there,” Devermont informs the sergeant, adding, “but I’ve got ways of getting rid of things like this.”

That segment ends with Fair offering, “Well, let me go get you the answers to your question.” The video then moves to the street, where Fair is still playing the Sublime song while Devermont demands answers and Fair says he can’t hear him.

That scene concludes with Devermont noting that Fair isn’t wearing a body cam and saying, “No good, champ!” while walking away. Devermont then suggests that Fair read the comments on his video to learn “what people are saying.”

“I read the comments,” Fair replies. “They talk about how fake you are.” He then holds his phone toward Devermont, saying, “Listen to the music.”

According to Vice, Fair’s ad hoc deejay performance “seems to be an intentional (if misguided) tactic to use social media companies’ copyright protection policies to prevent himself from being filmed. Instagram in particular has been increasingly strict on posting copyrighted material. Any video that contains music, even if it’s playing in the background, is potentially subject to removal by Instagram.”

Devermont—who shared a private video with Vice that reportedly shows another cop drowning him out with the Beatles’ “In My Life”—believes that Fair and other officers are counting on Instagram’s copyright-seeking algorithm to automatically detect and delete troublesome videos, or that the copyright owners will complain and have the footage removed later. But for such a plan to work—and it didn’t—it would require the masterminds to have a solid understanding of Instagram’s rules, and even Instagram can barely manage that.

An Instagram representative tells Vice that “our restrictions take the following into consideration: how much of the total video contains recorded music, the total number of songs in the video, and the length of individual song(s) included in the video.”

In a statement to Vice, the BHPD said that “the playing of music while accepting a complaint or answering questions is not a procedure that has been recommended by Beverly Hills Police command staff,” adding that the video of Fair is “currently under review.”

RELATED: Versace Designer Salehe Bembury Accuses Beverly Hills Police of Racial Profiling

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Wondering how your stomach is handling that In-N-Out Double Double you wolfed down for lunch? Wonder no more—there’s now a device that keeps track of your digestive system’s food absorption capabilities. Also, gizmos that monitor your sleep patterns, your heart rate, your blood-oxygen levels, even your posture. In fact, there are so many personal surveillance gadgets on the market these days, it’s downright stressful deciding which to plug into your body. Fortunately, there’s a device that measures anxiety, too.

Posture
Why bother balancing a book on your head when you can strap an Upright Go device onto your upper back? It delivers a vibrating zap whenever its biosensors detect slouching, sort of like those electronic dog collars that keep Spot from straying. $80 at uprightpose.com.

Sleep
Exactly why this sleep monitoring bracelet is waterproof is anyone’s guess—in case you drift off in the bathtub? But Whoop not only tracks your bedtime habits, it recommends ideal times to call it a night, recommends the exact number of hours of shut-eye you’ll need, and keeps tabs on your heart and respiratory rates. $30 at whoop.com.

Fertility
Another bracelet, but this one is designed to help with other bedtime activities. Ava’s fertility sensor collects data—skin temperature, pulse, heart rhythm, blood circulation, breathing rates—to help you identify the optimum time to try for a baby. $279 at
avawomen.com.

Mood
Amazon is already collecting data on your shopping habits, taste in books and movies, and grocery choices. Now it wants to know how you feel. The Halo bracelet listens in on your conversations to measure your voice’s timber for signs of irritability, fear, or joy. Pair it with your cell-phone camera and as a bonus it will create a 3D scan of your body fat. Yes, that’s right, soon-to-be-ex-CEO Jeff Bezos now wants your underwear pics, too. $99 at amazon.com.

Infections
This futuristic ring—designed by a Finnish start-up—made headlines after researchers at UC San Francisco and UC San Diego suggested that the Oura might be useful in flagging infectious illnesses, like Covid-19, by monitoring body temperature and heart rate with tiny sensors. But that’s just scratching the surface of what this high-tech bling can do: it also tracks calorie burn, sleep patterns, activity rates, and respiratory rhythms. $299 at oura.com.

Digestion
After you’ve finished feasting, simply breathe into Food Marble’s portable Aire device and an app will tell you how much damage you’re doing to your colon, or at least track how well you’re absorbing what you eat. Another diet-related device, the Tellspec, lets you scan your food with a spectrometer, sends that data to its “analysis engine” in the cloud, then beams back a report to your iPhone. The whole process takes about ten seconds, just enough time to shove another Twinkie into your mouth. $159 at foodmarble.com. $1,999 at tellspec.com.

The Works
Apple stuffs so many high-tech features into its latest Series 6 smartwatch, you can practically launch a SpaceX rocket with it. Along with a pulse oximeter, there’s an altimeter—so hikers and skiers can track their elevation—and an ECG for do-it-yourself electrocardiograms. This watch is quite literally a life saver. Starting at $399 at apple.com.

Fitness
Devices that merely count steps? So 2000 and late. The new Venu SQ smartwatch does everything but wash your gym clothes. Heart rate, respiration, hydration, blood-oxygen levels—it tracks them all. Plus, it pings motivational messages: “Put that cookie down!” $200 at garmin.com.

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If you see a large square box rolling down the streets of your town, know this: it’s not a UFO, though it is the future—of food delivery. Bots are carting lunch, dinner, and grocery orders to Angelenos in a much cheaper, more environmentally friendly form than cars or trucks. That’s right, this is how your Pellegrino and Advil PM now roll. Literally.

Semiautonomous delivery robots, in development for years, are getting frequent test drives by Los Angeles restaurants in WeHo, Santa Monica, and Pacific Palisades. Luxury buildings like Ten Thousand on Santa Monica Boulevard have been employing bots for a while: for instance, Charley, a robot butler, delivers your champagne to your door. But now bots are becoming egalitarian, and, this being L.A., they’ve all got cutesy names like Pinky and Dotty. Pretty-in-pink Coco lingers on the Third Street Promenade.

The few hundred on the street right now get a little help from friends: humans follow on foot or remotely, even though bots are armed with sensors and programmed to make their way around objects, climb short steps, and move up to five miles per hour.

It’s the restaurant delivery apps that are most invested in robotics. San Francisco-based Postmates X has spun off into Serve Robotics. Its motto? “Why move a 2-pound burrito in a 2-ton car?” Pink Dot, on the Sunset Strip, employs three of them.

Bots have to recharge batteries just like we do (well, not just like). At night, they’re stored in secure recharge facilities and so will not be found doing late-night karaoke at Hamburger Mary’s.

Ali Kashani heads up Serve Robotics, and his TED Talk on its baby cyborgs has been viewed more than a million times. In it, he touts the entertainment value of bots: “Turns out kids love them! They’re designed to look friendly. Some people chase bots on foot to take photos. Chrissy Teigen posted about one. We’re very popular on Twitter.” Currently, Serve Robotics visits 10,000 homes via Postmates and Uber Eats.

Diego Varela Prada, COO of Kiwibot, believes lower costs are the big bot motivator for delivery apps. “The average order adds 40 percent in fees and tips,” explains Varela. “We only charge a few bucks on top of food charges.”

Downsides? Despite sensors and cameras, there’s still a bot overboard from time to time. “One of our bots got stuck on a sidewalk,” Varela says. “A guy came out and set him right. Sure, people attempt to vandalize them, steal them, and grab their goods. We work closely with the city to keep an eye on them. These bots are several thousand bucks apiece; they have GPS. Let’s just say, if you try to take a bot home, you’re taking the police with you!”

Hence, a Buzzfeed tech reporter created an experiment a few years back: Was it was possible to steal food from a bot? He managed to pry one open on his second try. Still, bots have eyes literally in the back of their heads—meaning, cameras on all sides. So as a result of Buzzfeed’s staged smash-and-grab, the technology has been upgraded—let’s just say the current generation of bots is practically Fort Box. DoorDash, with over 20,000 miles of testing and in contact with 4 million people, hasn’t had a single instance of theft.

Next year, delivery bots will be on the streets of most major American cities. Kiwibot alone will deploy 1,000 across the U.S. How do human delivery workers feel about losing jobs to programmed shopping carts? One DoorDash employee was recorded cursing a bot: “I hate your face!”

Kashani thinks there are a lot of misconceptions about bots stealing jobs. “ATMs didn’t replace tellers,” he says. “ATMs led to more teller jobs. I’m of the belief that this will lead to more jobs because more people will use food delivery.”

In the near future, experts concur, bots will likely be delivering all your heart’s short-distanced desires: dresses for last-minute dates, the coffee filters you forgot, and, yes, toilet paper. But for right now, you’ll have to settle for pizza.

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The post Will Semiautonomous Robots Soon Replace the Delivery Dude? appeared first on Los Angeles Magazine.