 Drone delivery: going just as great as self-driving cars. Amazon's much-hyped drone project is dropping small objects on driveways. Customers are not sure what it delivers beyond minestrone. "I know this looks like science fiction. It's not," said... 10 comments
@jwz Zipline is doing well with medical delivery in a few Central African countries, they very specifically package items to be droppable from a decently high altitude and with forward momentum. In terms of scale, I really donโt want a future where every single large retailer has numerous UAVs flying all over the place polluting the airwaves with their infuriating buzzing. Iโm happy to wait a day or more for my deliveries, leave the โinstantโ stuff for actual emergencies.  @sendai @jwz Zipline is working on making deliveries in the US too. A friend of mine managed to get hired there. He had a difficult time, because their engineering team is almost all aerospace hires, and they have little overlap with big tech. I expect they're going to do much better than AMZN. At the same time, I really want the FAA to keep a firm grip on delivery drone rules.  @overeducatedredneck @sendai @jwz came to the comments for this. Zipline seem far better placed to get this tech right. We'll have competent drone deliveries well before competent self drive cars...  @jwz Nothing is going to happen to Amazon when they drop a can of soup on a person, but the day they flatten a yappy dog Bezos is going to have to move further than Miami. @jwz Drone delivery would make sense for something with a high value to mass ratio. Like, drugs. And that industry has some experience with low level flight and sketchy landing sites. |
Gregory's Server
@jwz the fact that it completes the delivery by just yeeting your order from 12' instead of landing momentarily and setting down the payload makes it look even more like.... a proper robo-capitalism abomination. Carry on I guess