Attach a standardized handle to every item. Have the robot look for and grab the handle.
The handle should be such that when grabbed by the robot in correct orientation, it can properly support the full weight of the item (or the box/packaging containing the item) + some amount of additional torque incurred while moving.
The handle can either go out with the item or be removed by the robot for reuse. If it goes out with the item, it needs to be reusable/recyclable or represent minimal additional packaging material.

Many small items already have the standard ____()____ hole for rack display. Make it easily recognizable (contrasting border) and give robots a little finger to grab it.
Many light items in cardboard boxes have standardized cut-flap handles. Give robots a little hand to grab it.
Heavier items in cardboard boxes often have handles. Standardize, give hand.

Think of it as pallets for individual items. When shipping items you don't need to determine how best to pack, handle, move, or store them, let alone program a robot to do so. You just use a forklift and grab the pallet. All of the thinking for the other shit for each individual item is done by the people making the individual item.

It allows people to behave in ways you don't like, but there is no logical flaw.

"American" cheese is a very mild cheddar with a low melting point. It is actual cheese.

The USA had "unlimited roads" up until a few decades ago when then morons ruined it.
Now we have to cater to the fucking idiots who don't know how to drive yet are clogging up the roads.

Yes it does and it always has, retard.
Show me where in the constitution public safety is given higher precedence than the first amendment.
Show me where the constitution conflates speech and the right to it with culpability for the consequences of said speech.

The take away is that the first amendment exists.

What kind of small, hateful person says "women, children, and other civilians" instead of "people" or "civilians"?
How fucked do you have to be to value the life of one person more than another because of their sex or adulthood?

The cert is as secure as the cryptography and implementation.
The trust is up to you, not some web of "authorities".

If you can't establish trust in a secure manner, then you cannot trust them.
Welcome to actual security.

We should. We won't.

A system built around certificate authorities is broken by design. Self-signed certs are much more secure than anything stamped by a CA.
And can we start using client certs, please? I should be able to walk into my bank and hand them a unique cert that they attach to my account and use for verification. Additionally, I should be able to request a unique cert on their end that they use only for my account so I can do my own verification.
Since this is all self-signed shit, it can be easily automated.

For revocation, all either party has to do is stop using/trusting the cert. No one can regenerate the bank's unique cert that I trust because there is no authority with that power. No one can regenerate mine. If the bank wants to issue a new cert, I have to go in and get the new cert and trust it. You can dumb down your trust if you want - the bank could mail you the cert, mail you a letter saying it's going to be changed, post the thumbprint of the cert on their site, to their support phone line, whatever. If I want to issue a new cert, I have to get them to trust me in a similar fashion.

Doing it this way is more work, but you have ACTUAL trust, negotiated equally by both parties. You can choose convenience over security if you want, but you're not subject to some government/CA MITMing everything on a whim.

PCIe-connected flash drives have been around in the PC space for years, and M.2 slots (which for high-end storage devices are nothing but connectors tied to X lanes of gen Y PCIe) have been increasing in popularity significantly over the past year.

Pretty much.

M.2 slots and SSDs are now fairly common place in laptops.

For desktops, direct PCIe flash drives have been around for years. PCIe adapters also exist if you want to use an M.2 drive now and your motherboard doesn't have an M.2 slot. Newer desktop boards ship with SATA Express ports, and drives should show up this summer offering the speed benefits of M.2 (running off PCIe lanes) as well as the benefits of NVMe, along with the possibility of being thrown into RAID (depending on your controller, of course). Many newer boards also feature a M.2 slot if you hate cables or are very space constrained.

I'm referring to the privacy and security risks to the user, not the people in public places.

"IoT" devices like these have their own embedded radios and are full IP hosts, have far less user-facing control than webcams, mics, cell phones, are designed to be always-on, are designed around remote operation, and are under the ultimate control of the world's largest datamining corporation.

Google Glass and everything Nest are useless fucking trash. Even if they somehow becomes useful in the future, they'll never be worth the invasion of privacy and security risks.
Take your "IoT" and show up back up your own fucking asses.

The whole fucking point of this feature is to "lock" the phone but not really lock it until the gyros determine the phone has been set down.
Letting the phone time or hitting the power button will "soft lock" the phone. You won't need a pin/face/password to wake it up until the gyros determine the phone has been set down.