Drones and sidewalk delivery robots promise to make last-mile delivery cheaper and more efficient, but they both have their limitations. Drones have trouble touching down in dense urban areas, and sidewalk robots tap out after a couple of miles. Uber-backed Serve Robotics and Alphabet’s Wing are betting that combining forces might just create the ultimate automated last-mile delivery service.

You could easily walk the entire Automate floor without spotting a single humanoid. There was a grand total of three, by my count — or, rather, three units of the same nonworking prototype. Neura was showing off its long-promised 4NE-1 robot, amid more traditional form factors. There was a little photo setup where you could snap a selfie with the bot, and that was about it.

Satellite sensors collect an incredible amount of raw data, but on-orbit compute limitations mean that operators have little way to process this data in space.