Robot waiter at your service

Pudubot - Sin Chew Daily

Compiled by C. ARUNO, JO TIMBUONG and R. ARAVINTHAN

A RESTAURANT in Melaka has resorted to using a robot waiter to reduce human contact within its premises during the Covid-19 pandemic, Sin Chew Daily reported.

Its customers took to social media to write that they were greeted by a robot, known as the Pudubot, rather than the usual human servers.

Equipped with wheels and multiple food trays, the robot waiter would return to a table where it had taken an order by using a technology called simultaneous localisation and mapping, known more popularly by its abbreviation SLAM.

It was also programmed to stop itself when coming in close contact with moving or stationary objects to prevent spills.

The robot waiter has since become a gimmick at the restaurant, with some customers visiting the shop just to experience being served by it.

> The daily also reported that a member of the Taiwanese rock band Mayday was nearly “blinded” during a freak mishap while eating in Singapore some 20 years ago.

Recounting the incident on the social networking app Clubhouse, frontman Ashin, who initially misidentified the country where it took place as Malaysia, said the band members decided to go out for fried chicken while recording their album.

During the meal, a piece of chicken fell onto a plate of cut chilli in soy sauce, causing the spicy liquid to splash into bassist Masa’s eye.

Ashin said although they immediately took Masa to rinse his eye, they could not stop laughing even when faced with the possibility that their bandmate might lose his sight.

At this point, Masa corrected Ashin by saying that the incident had happened in Singapore and not in Malaysia.

“I can’t believe you forgot where it happened and yet have the nerve to tell the story, ” he jokingly chided his friend.

Formed in 1997, Mayday is one of Taiwan’s best-selling rock bands.

> A man wearing thick boots and a cloak while riding a white horse in China’s Jiangsu province was told by the police to dismount, China Press reported.

Police officers spotted the rider waiting for the traffic light to change in Nanjing on Tuesday.

The man, who is a photographer, told the officers that the horse was one of his props at a photoshoot and he decided to ride the animal back after finishing his job.

Fearing that the horse would be startled by the loud traffic noise, policemen asked the man to dismount and walk the horse back.

The above article is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.