Jeff Bezos shows off robotic hands and claims they will be in commercial use in ten years

Bezos describes Amazon's robot hands as "really cool"

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has showed off a pair of large robotic hands during a "re: MARS" technology event in Las Vegas, Nevada

In a video posted on Twitter by GeekWire's science editor Alan Boyle, Bezos is seen manipulating two huge robotic hands using special high-tech gloves and using those big hands to pick up items, including a small football and a drinking cup.

"This is really cool," Bezos says in the video.

In one exercise, Bezos is seen using robotic arms to skilfully place plastic rings around a rung.

Looking at the Rubik's Cube on the demonstration table, Bezos laughs out loud, telling the audience that he can't solve it.

"No, thank you, I can't even do that with my hands," he said.

Bezos described the experience of manipulating robotic arms with special gloves as "weirdly natural".

The robotic system that Bezos played with at the event is called "telerobot" - a system that enables a person to control lifelike motion of robotic arms with special gloves.

AI & Machine Learning Live is returning to London on 3rd July 2019. Hear from the Met Office's Charles Ewen, AutoTrader lead data scientist Dr David Hoyle and the BBC's Noriko Matsuoka, among many others. Attendance is free to qualifying IT leaders and senior IT pros, but places are limited, so reserve yours now.

The technology works by mixing robotics with haptic feedback to control objects remotely. With haptic feedback, a person wearing the gloves can feel the items they hold in robotic hands, making it much easier to manipulate things in the surroundings.

The product that Bezos displayed is being developed by HaptX, a Seattle-based company, in association with Shadow Robot Company and SynTouch.

Bezos believes such robotic hands will be ready for commercial use within the next decade. The technology will be used to create commercial robots able to grasp items as reliably as humans, eventually leading to automation of warehouse jobs - and many others besides - across the world.

Although Bezos didn't provide any detail about Amazon's plans to use the robotic arms at its warehouses, analysts believe the company will use such robots as they become ready for commercial use in near future.

"I think grasping is going to be a solved problem in the next 10 years," Bezos said.

Amazon is already using many robots at its warehouses. One of Amazon's warehouses has about 800 robots, which are used to carry out a variety of tasks.

The company has reportedly said that it plans to create a fully autonomous fulfilment centre, but that would take at least 10 years.

Amazon is one of a number of companies not only working on robotics, but aspects of robotics such as hands and arms that can, for example, manipulate soft objects like tomatoes without squashing them.

Ocado already claims to have developed a robotic arm that can pick up everyday items, while analysts at Peel Hunt have suggested that Ocado's warehouse technology, at the moment, is more advanced than Amazon's.

Delta is a new market intelligence service from Computing to help CIOs and other IT decision makers make smarter purchasing decisions - decisions informed by the knowledge and experience of other CIOs and IT decision makers.

Delta is free from vendor sponsorship or influence of any kind, and is guided by a steering committee of well-known CIOs, such as Charles Ewen, Christina Scott, Steve Capper and Laura Meyer.

Ten crucial technology areas are already covered at launch, with more data appearing and more areas being covered every week. Sign-up here for your free trial of the Computing Delta website.