A Silicon Valley startup has developed a robot that may soon replace mall cops. Knightscope, which specializes in fully autonomous security data machines, says it is officially signed up to patrol malls in New York and Massachusetts, with nearly two dozen accounts set up across 16 cities this year.“We’re starting off in the public arena, so we are allowing them to patrol places like shopping centers, corporate campuses, professional sporting arenas and movie studios. Once the [robots] prove that what we are saying they are doing is actually happening, then you go to a mayor and say, ‘hey, we are actually able to reduce crime,’ and they are going to buy into this very, very, quickly,” Stacy Dean Stephens, co-founder and VP of marketing and sales, tell FOX Business.
Knightscope, which launched in 2013 after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- where 26 kids and adults were shot and killed – was designed to provide intelligence to security centers and law enforcement to help alleviate crime.