  Emerging are so-called smart things embedded with computational, sensing,
networking and actuation capabilities, from smart bins to smart park benches,
as well as the proliferation of autonomous vehicles and robots in an
increasingly wide range of applications. This is not only an increased in
automation affecting and hopefully improving daily life, but also calls for
thinking about what a society saturated with such robotic things (i.e., smart
things and robots) might look like. This paper discusses five aspects of a
vision of Internet connected robotic things (or Internet of Robotic Things
(IoRT)) occupying and operating in public spaces, from streets, parks to
shopping malls. We discuss, highlighting issues, with the notion of an
entourage of drones and robots accompanying people in public places, the idea
of creating environments or envelopes suitable for robot function, the idea of
societies of robotic things, and governance for robotic things in public
spaces.
