Apple is restricting iPhone Duo walk-in sales in Japan, South Korea, and the UAE ahead of its Oct. 23 launch. Here's what buyers should know before visiting.

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Apple is restricting iPhone Duo walk-in sales in Japan, South Korea, and the UAE ahead of its Oct. 23 launch. Here's what buyers should know before visiting.

The post Apple Confirms Limited iPhone Duo Walk-In Stock Ahead of Oct. 23 Launch appeared first on TechRepublic.

Shoppers navigating aisles of chips and cookies at a Fred Meyer store in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood are dodging more than carts — they’re also sharing space with a smooth-gliding, autonomous robot named Tally.

Equipped with an array of cameras, computer vision and AI, the slender machine pauses briefly near display shelves before beeping like a grocery-focused R2-D2 and zooming down the line to scan digital shelf tags.

During a GeekWire visit one morning last week, Tally sparked a mix of curiosity and pointed questions about the impact of retail automation from shoppers and workers alike.

“It’s kind of wild,” said a shopper named Mark, who, like others we encountered, preferred to give just his first name. “It’s the Jetsons happening right here, right now. If this is what the future is then I guess that’s what it is.”

The future apparently arrived a couple years ago, at least as far as Fred Meyer parent Kroger is concerned. The retail giant began piloting robotic technology in 2024 to “gain real-time insights on product inventory.”

According to a thread on Reddit, Tally robots have been spotted in Fred Meyer stores in Seattle as well as around Washington state, including in Lynnwood, Puyallup, Port Orchard and University Place. Kroger operates more than 50 multi-department grocery and retail stores across the state.

“At Fred Meyer and QFC, we are always exploring new and innovative ways to create a more convenient and friendly customer experience,” Tiffany Sanders, head of public affairs for QFC & Fred Meyer Divisions of Kroger, said in an emailed statement to GeekWire.

Sanders said the technology means “associates can more easily and quickly identify and address shelves where products are low or out of stock” and that teams gain more time “to do what they do best,” which is serve customers.

Sanders did not provide any details about how many stores in the region are using the robots, how many hours per day they roam the aisles, whether any human workers have been displaced, or what Kroger does to ensure customer privacy.

Cincinnati-based Kroger’s automation push does come amid plans announced Monday to slash roughly a third of its corporate workforce over the next three years under a sweeping restructuring led by CEO Greg Foran to lean heavily into technology and streamline operations.

Developed by San Francisco-based Simbe Robotics, Tally is an autonomous mobile robot engineered to help retailers track inventory, check pricing accuracy, and monitor product placement using computer vision and AI. Standing more than 6 feet tall with a slender frame atop a rounded Roomba-like base, the robot navigates store aisles at slow speeds using dozens of onboard sensors designed to safely weave around shoppers and displays.

Rather than sounding alarms or pinging workers in real-time, the robot feeds data into Simbe’s software platform, generating prioritized task lists for store employees to handle out-of-stock items.

Introduced to the market in 2015, Tally is part of a growing wave of automated inventory technology competing for space in grocery store aisles nationwide. Rival systems include autonomous machines from competitors such as Badger Technologies—whose googly-eyed robots are deployed in chains like Stop & Shop—as well as software platforms from companies like Brain Corp.

Simbe has scaled rapidly alongside competitors, recently surpassing a milestone of 3,000 autonomous units under contract globally, anchored by a 500-robot footprint within Kroger’s nationwide ecosystem.

Autonomous robots like Tally may patrol grocery aisles on their own, but some tech companies argue that the best way to track inventory isn’t by adding another machine to the floor, but by empowering the humans already there.

One Seattle startup taking that approach is Augmodo, which develops spatial AI technology designed to capture shelf data through human movement rather than roaming robots.

“Augmodo started by knowing what is actually on the shelf, just like robots, but our vision is to augment the physical workforce,” said Augmodo founder and CEO Ross Finman. “People already go up and down the aisles hundreds of times a day, so enabling the existing workforce with simple, inexpensive smartbadges can provide more frequent, cheaper data while also building an AI assistant to add two years of experience to every associate across back of store, delivery, facility maintenance, and more.”

Unlike autonomous floor bots that have drawn privacy scrutiny from shoppers, Finman emphasized that Augmodo’s hardware focuses strictly on products rather than people.

“Regarding privacy, we focus on products, not people — we actively filter out any people before anything leaves the store,” Finman said. “We do not just filter out anything that could be a person, we filter out anything that is irrelevant.”

Ranked No. 122 on the GeekWire 200 list of top Pacific Northwest startups, Augmodo raised $21 million in a funding round this summer, a year after raising $37.5 million.

For all the futuristic promises of automated inventory, the machines still invite a mix of skepticism from those who share the floor with them.

During GeekWire’s Fred Meyer visit, a number of shoppers gave the robot a bit of side eye or muttered at it for being in the way while they shopped. At one point, Tally paused for several minutes in front of an aisle end cap stocked with Doritos. In other aisles it easily maneuvered around floor displays or paused for customers.

“Right now, it’s a curiosity,” said a Hershey sales rep named Mike who frequently stocks candy in grocery aisles and has watched Tally navigate the store. While he noted that the robot doesn’t personally bother him, he echoed rumors heard among workers about potential labor impacts.

Other shoppers looked past the novelty and expressed concern about broader privacy implications. Patrick, a Seattle resident who works in cybersecurity, said he usually tries to avoid the aisle when he spots Tally rolling past.

“First off, it’s taking jobs, but also it’s just more mass surveillance,” Patrick said. “Every time I pass it, I wonder: Is it collecting Bluetooth pings off your smart devices? … I’d be very surprised if it really was just doing cameras on the shelves versus trying to collect data on actual customers as well.”

The anxiety over data collection comes at a sensitive time for major grocers in the region. The Seattle City Council recently passed a groundbreaking ban on algorithm-based “surveillance pricing,” prohibiting retailers from using personal data and AI tracking to set individual, dynamic prices for shoppers.

Simbe’s Tally website features images of shoppers posing for selfies with the robots, under a headline that reads, “People are more likely to shop at retailers with in-store robots.”

While Tally is officially engineered for inventory management, shoppers like Patrick say roving robots only deepen distrust over how much corporate data is being gathered inside the aisles. Pointing to the cameras mounted on the robots and pairing them with modern AI tracking software, Patrick argued that it feels reminiscent the pushback against Flock automated traffic enforcement cameras.

“I think it’s just another way for them to cut the humans out of the labor force and steal more data from customers,” he said.

Walmart looks like it might beat Amazon to the skies over the Seattle area as the retail giant announced this week that it plans to bring automated drone delivery to the region in 2027.

The move is part of a broader nationwide push by Walmart and drone operator Wing — a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet — to scale across nearly 20 U.S. metropolitan areas. By adding Seattle and Denver in its latest expansion push, the partnership aims to eventually offer 30-minute aerial delivery from more than 270 Walmart stores coast-to-coast, reaching over 40 million potential customers.

Details on which Seattle-area stores will offer the service have not yet been announced. There are no Walmart stores within Seattle city limits, but The Seattle Times reported that permit filings point to initial groundwork underway at store locations in Federal Way and Tacoma.

Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell said his community south of Seattle is looking forward to bringing the region “an incredible new convenience” with the advanced delivery solutions.

“The future has arrived and its being delivered by Walmart by drone!” Ferrell said in a news release.

Wing’s electric aircraft fly at speeds up to 60 mph, serving homes within a six-mile radius of participating stores. The drones carry payloads up to five pounds to drop household essentials from groceries to small electronics. Once operational, eligible local shoppers using either the Walmart or Wing app will automatically see airborne drops as a checkout option.

KIRO 7 captured a demonstration of Wing’s delivery system in Bellevue this week, showcasing how the aircraft take off and raise and lower orders.

While Seattle-based Amazon has pushed aggressively to expand its Prime Air drone fleet to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns, the tech giant has yet to launch commercial drone deliveries in its hometown. Instead, Prime Air operations remain concentrated in markets like Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

Amazon isn’t ignoring the Pacific Northwest entirely, however. The Portland Business Journal reported last month that Amazon filed permit applications to build a Prime Air hub at a North Portland facility, targeting an early 2027 launch that has already drawn early pushback from nearby residents concerned about noise and safety.

Those noise concerns mirror a broader backlash taking shape in established test markets. The New York Times and others reported last month on residents living beneath Amazon’s drone flight paths in Richardson, Texas, who have taken exception to the constant low-altitude buzz of delivery aircraft disrupting their suburban way of life.

Wing has sought to head off potential noise backlash by re-engineering its aircraft acoustic profile. According to the company, its latest drones feature custom propellers designed to reduce high-pitched whines, keeping sound levels at roughly 43 to 50 decibels at cruising altitude and around 62 decibels during hovering drops — a level Wing claims is quieter than a standard delivery truck.

But Walmart and Wing have still encountered friction at the local level. In metro Atlanta, county leaders shut down a proposed Walmart drone hub after more than 1,000 nearby residents signed a petition citing noise, safety, and privacy concerns.

Seattle startup Meadow AI has raised $7 million in new funding to scale its AI-powered operational software for physical retailers and restaurants.

The seed round was led by Ulu Ventures, with participation from York IE, Flying Fish, TenOneTen Ventures, Leadout Capital, and Wedbush Ventures. The financing includes the conversion of $6 million in Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs) from earlier pre-seed financing, bringing Meadow AI’s total funding to date to $13 million.

Meadow AI develops an artificial intelligence “co-manager” platform that gives operators real-time visibility into physical locations. The software ingests video and audio feeds alongside labor and inventory data to continuously monitor team execution, service speed, and overall store conditions.

Dubbed a “digital secret shopper,” the technology flags bottlenecks and delivers live prompts and coaching to frontline employees while customers are still on-site. It also automates repetitive administrative tasks, freeing up managers to stay on the floor.

Founded in 2023, Meadow AI was launched by repeat entrepreneurs Max Jai Sim and Abbas Guvenilir alongside CTO Dragos Velicanu. Sim and Guvenilir previously co-founded real estate technology startup Modus, which raised $14 million before being acquired by Compass in 2020, while Guvenilir went on to lead AI and engineering teams at Nordstrom. Velicanu holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT, where he analyzed particle physics data at CERN, and previously led engineering at Dave AI.

The startup aims to eliminate a persistent blind spot for brick-and-mortar businesses, which lack the deep customer journey analytics available to e-commerce sites. While traditional point-of-sale systems track what was bought, Meadow’s technology reveals why a customer had a poor experience — such as waiting too long in line or going ungreeted.

“Physical businesses generate an enormous amount of information, but most operators still don’t have a clear, real-time understanding of what’s happening across their locations,” Velicanu said in a news release. “We’re trying to make the physical world as understandable and actionable as the digital world.”

Meadow AI says its software grew by 6x over the past year and projects another 5x growth over the next 12 months. The platform has expanded to more than nine brands across the restaurant, retail, hospitality, and entertainment sectors, generating over $3 million in contracted annual recurring revenue and more than $1.4 million in live ARR.

Alongside the funding, Meadow AI announced that former Toast VP of Enterprise Solutions Tanvir Bhangoo has joined as chief revenue officer to oversee enterprise expansion across restaurant and retail accounts.

Meadow AI has grown to 17 employees and is hiring, with plans to use the new capital to expand its engineering, product, and go-to-market teams.