Have you ever scrambled around at an airport, hunting down a power outlet for your laptop or smartphone? Amazon’s inventors have the answer: a power-charging robot that’ll come to your side and let you plug in, for a price.
It’ll even sell you chewing gum. The robot is the subject of a patent published, which is based on an application filed by a Seattle-based Amazon team back in 2015. The newly published patent lays out a detailed system for a fleet of robots that can be summoned in an airport, shopping mall or other public place. You could even set up a mobile app to have a robot show up unbidden when your device’s charge drops below a certain level. Once it’s summoned, the robot determines the user’s location and navigates its way through the crowd, using synthetic vision.
When the robot reaches a power-hungry user, it could ask him or her to watch an ad on a video screen, take a survey, participate in an activity, buy an item or pay a price for charging up. Some of the patent application’s illustrations show the robot offering a charging cable and a stick of gum as potential purchases.
Amazon typically doesn’t comment on its patents and its applications unless it releases an actual product, and there’s no guarantee that the device-charging, ad-displaying, gum-selling robot will ever become a reality.

Source: GeekWire