High-tech Beijing district opens an all-service robot store

A humanoid robot works at the reception of a restaurant at the Robot Mall, in Beijing

A high-tech district in the Chinese capital is opening an all-service robot store today to push a national drive to develop humanoid robots.

From plucking boxes off a pharmacy shelf to serving drinks from behind a bar, robots at the government-run facility showcase how far humanoid robot development has come — and how far it has to go.

The goal is to help robotics companies commercialize what has been largely a research-focused endeavor to date. China has produced eye-catching shows of two-legged robots dancing in sync, but can they be put to practical use?

“With the mass production of humanoid robots, we believe that both enterprises and customers will face pain points,” said Wang Yifan, the director of the Robot Mall in Beijing E-Town, about 40 minutes southeast of downtown by car.

Many of the companies have no experience in sales and marketing and there are few opportunities to display their products, he told a pack of journalists at a media preview this week.

The four-story facility is dubbed a 4S store, meaning sales, service, spare parts and surveys — or collecting and analyzing customer feedback. It is the first such store in China, though other cities are building them too, Wang said.

Besides those performing tasks, the robots on display include ones that play soccer or Chinese chess, as well as historical figures from scientists Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton to Li Bai, considered one of China’s greatest poets.

Robots, showing perhaps a humanlike tendency, are not infallible.

One was designed to recognize and separate trash from dishware returned by customers at a cafe. Its hand picked up a coffee cup and swung to one side but then held the blue-green mug in the air, not putting it down on a tray. A worker intervened to reset the software. MDT/AP