Guys, the future is really here. It’s very obvious that Singapore is entering the age of automation, first with self-driving cabs, then self-driving buses, face-reading payment systems, and now, automated food courts. Changi Airport recently introduced their unattended retail concept of paying for food and beverages with their automated food court at Terminal 2.
Visitors can now select their bowl of noodles or a plate of chicken rice from a screen, pay through their credit card and collect their food; all with minimal human interaction, which is somehow very contrasting to the notion of how food courts in Singapore usually work. It seems like Singapore is becoming more dependent on machines to overcome the regulations on the inflow of foreign workers that would usually make up the coffee shop’s low-end manpower, similar to what McDonald’s have adopted at some of their stores that have higher traffic (like the one at Raffles City).
Nike recently released their iconic self-lacing shoes recently—the same ones from the 80s cult film Back To The Future II—and everybody’s favorite ride-sharing conglomerate Uber has plans to create flying cars a la The Jetsons; we’d better catch up with technology before it eats us up whole.
