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The distance in metres per second covered by the new Space Egg robot porter, built by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

The robot, designed to ferry items around hotels, was unveiled at a computing conference in Hangzhou, China, last week, and will start work at its first hotel in the city next month.

Standing almost 1m tall, with a curved aluminium casing covering a set of wheels, and using cameras and lasers to navigate, the Space Egg will be able to take room-service orders from guests following voice commands, then collect them from the kitchen and deliver them to guests’ rooms.