Bye Bye Baristas: Starbucks Will Soon Take Orders By Talking To Its App

Bye Bye Baristas: Starbucks Will Soon Take Orders By Talking To Its App

Gear up on five IoT news bites for Tuesday.

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Starbucks Voice We all know how accurate those Starbucks baristas are with your name on your order. Soon you'll be able to skip the entire process—if you have the Starbucks app. The coffee conglomerate just released a new tool that allows user to place their orders, even customize then, then pay for their coffee or cake pop all by speaking into their mobile device. Customers will also be able to order via Alexa if they have the Starbucks app on their smartphone.The first roll-out will be to one thousand customers on iOS devices only, says TechCrunch. More should be able to get access to the tool by the summer. Android is coming later this year.

Fitbit SmartwatchesFitbit will be making smartwatches according to its CEO and co-founder, James Park. Park noted that Fitbit now owns the assets of Pebble, Vector Watch and Coin, and those will play a role in the new smartwatch device. How consumers will take to Fitbit's device—when it ever rolls out—is unknown. Smartwatches did not have the most robust of years in 2016. Fitbit believes buyers are ready for round two in 2017.

Phone Case + DroneAirSelfie is an Android + iPhone phone-sized case that doubles as a drone and a selfie device. There's a camera in the case, hence the selfie element. Of course the case alone is priced at $260, and that's after a Kickstarter late last year. You can pre-order this oddity now and get it in hand (ahem) by May.

Car Merge A new AI would let self-driving cars merge with cars driven by people, like a school of fish, says Inverse. Scientists in Switzerland have focused on how to safely integrate autonomous cars with those still controlled by human drivers—not an easy feat.

Death Star Fun We spent some time with the new "Star Wars" Death Star bluetooth speaker. Will the force be with you?

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