ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Technologies many consumers might have thought were extravagant just a few months ago, are being looked at more seriously because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Remember the delivery drones concept being developed by Google?
"This was kind of considered this pie in the sky idea," says CNET Senior Reporter Ben Fox Rubin, "oh you're too lazy to go the store. They're seeing a ramp-up in demand."
And Rubin tells KMOX another company, Starship, has sidewalk delivery robots.
"People probably thought it was this lazy technology that let people sit on the couch longer," Rubin says. "Now those types of things are enabling folks to stay home, especially vulnerable communities, like the elderly, who are more potentially impacted by the virus."
Rubin says there's also much more interest in touch-free shopping at stores.
"People are trying to reduce the number of surfaces they touch," explains Rubin. "One of the things that major payment processors, like MasterCard and Visa, they've already been trying to push people to go into contactless. Those are tap to pay cards, and also services like ApplePay and GooglePay where you wave your phone in front of the payment terminal."
He says despite consumer demand, it may take retailers time to catch up and invest in some of these technologies.