Delivery by drone is underway in the US. 7-Eleven beats Google and Amazon to the first regular commercial drone delivery service.
7-Eleven, the world’s largest convenience store chain, shared new numbers from its drone delivery experiment today. Seventy-seven customers in Reno, Nev., have now received items ordered from 7-Eleven delivered to their doorsteps via drone.
All 77 flights were from one store to a dozen select customers who live within a mile of the shop. 7-Eleven has partnered with the drone maker Flirtey for its delivery pilot.
It marks the first regular commercial drone delivery service to operate in the United States, flying ahead of other, potentially bigger drone delivery projects that haven’t yet been able to take off in the U.S. — like Alphabet’s Project Wing and Amazon’s Prime Air, the latter of which only demonstrated its first delivery to a customer last week.
Amazon’s drone delivery was in the U.K. countryside. The 7-Eleven drone delivery service, on the other hand, is in Reno, a populated urban and suburban area, which poses a potentially more complex set of challenges.
Deliveries were completed, on average, less than ten minutes after the order was placed, according to a statement from Flirtey.
All the deliveries happened within the line of sight of the drone pilot, but the drones flew autonomously. Right now, it’s not legal in the U.S. to fly a drone beyond the line of sight of the operator without special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration.
But in October, NASA and the FAA conducted tests in Reno to research a low-altitude air traffic control system that would track and record drone flights without the pilot watching the drone in the air the entire time. Air traffic control for drones will be essential to figure out before drone delivery can happen outside of the line of sight of the operator, and then delivery programs like those from 7-Eleven, Amazon’s Prime Air or Alphabet’s Project Wing can happen at a larger scale.
Project Wing completed its first U.S. customer delivery test in September, ferrying Chipotle burritos to students at Virginia Tech. But that was a one-off trial, not a run of 77 drone deliveries over a month, like the Flirtey and 7-Eleven collaboration.
France Becomes First Federal Postal Service to Use Drones to Deliver Mail
Motherboard reports France Becomes First Federal Postal Service to Use Drones to Deliver Mail
The French postal service is beginning an experimental drone delivery program to deliver parcels on a nine mile route once a week. After the program gets approval from the French aviation regulatory authority, the federal postal service will be the first to ever use drone delivery on a regular route.
The drones used in the French postal service experiment have the capacity to fly up to 12 miles carrying about two pounds maximum, going around 19 miles per hour. They are also equipped with parachutes for safe emergency landing in case something disrupts the flight. The eventual goal is to reach rural or mountainous regions that are otherwise difficult and expensive to get to using cars.
The drone mail delivery program has been a project of the DPDgroup, Europe’s second largest international parcel delivery network, operating as a subsidiary under the French national postal service. The DPDgroup had been working on this program with Atechsys, a French drone company, since 2014 in the south of France.
“The first commercial line represents a new step in the program,” DPDgroup said in a press release. With the testing phase now over, the experimentation phase is all set to begin.
Still, while France may be the first to use drones in federal postage, it’s not the only one using drones for mail. Amazon’s drone delivery service made its first delivery last week in the United Kingdom. And in America, the U.S. Postal service took a survey to determine how people would feel about drones delivering packages to their homes. It turned out that more people were into the idea than against it.
Delivery by drone appears like it may happen faster than I thought. My fear remains: delivery of bombs by drone.
We are going to need anti-drone drones at some point.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
We won’t need anti-drone drones.
Just a good .22 caliber rifle with a scope on it.
If you are a good marksman, they will be easy to “plink”.
Or simply a good shotgun. Or perhaps a lead weight and some fishing line.
Changing the discussion a bit, what’s to stop anyone from knocking down the drones and stealing the cargo? (Amp up the incentive to do so it they’re only used for high value cargoes.) Doorstep package theft is already a bit problem. Not having a human around, e.g. the UPS guy, would make things that much easier.
Plus, who’s gonna’ fly these things? They have to be paid, remember? And flying these things is a skill set that doesn’t come cheap, esp now that the FAA is in the loop. (And don’t say AI.will do it.) And with a few thousand of these things in a given area, you’re going to have mid-air collisions. Meaning in turn that you’re going to need a air traffic protocol. And massive liability coverage is needed as well.
Plus how do you know if the person even got the delivery?
In short, there’s a huge and expensive overhead with drone delivery, and with an uncertain outcome at the terminus.
Isn’t this all a bit pricey just for delivering a pizza? Or am I just out of touch and being a Luddite?
Really, how much of this is all just a publicity stunt?
Just a thought. (And raining on the parade.)
VicB3
Speaking of rain, and snow, and high winds… seems like a problem.
I still like the direction this is going. Want the George Jetson life. I’d just swap out Jane for Judy, and swap out Elroy for a 2nd Astro. Dogs are easy, no clean up, the poop just flys off the conveyor belt.
“what’s to stop anyone from knocking down the drones and stealing the cargo?”
Cameras streaming footage back home if it turns out to be necessary, will be of great aid to those investigating the crime. Real time surveillance by higher flying “guard drones” operated by cops, is another option. As is, if theft become endemic, hiding beacons amongst cargo…..
In general, there is little reason to believe a world with drones flying overhead, will be an easier place for criminals to operate in, than one without.
If you want to steal the cargo, no need to shoot the drone down. Just follow it and steal the package when it is released. The alternative is the drone doesn’t release the package until the consignee confirms the arrival – but that adds to the expense of the service.
The more dense the population, the less likely drone delivery service is economically viable.
Its just a matter of time before one of these store owned drones is used by a peeping tom (police departments already have reports of drones being used to spy on neighbor’s showering or teenage girls sunbathing by their pools…) leading to lawsuits against the stores for what their employees do. Just like a store owned truck that gets into an accident… the store faces massive liabilities
Its just a matter of time before one of these store owned drones violates noise ordinances — leading to massive fines and/or lawsuits against the stores.
A property owner’s airspace rights have been upheld by courts for decades — many buildings would not otherwise exist. In most locals, those airspace rights exist up to 1000 feet. You want to fly your drone through my airspace? Pay me. The courts will have to invalidate hundreds of billions of property leases, or they will have to uphold airspace rights.
Lets not forget about theft in transit. Your drone arrived at my house EMPTY. Some enterprising street gang figured out how to snip the wire holding the package to the drone, and stole the order in transit. You think your video is going to help you ID some kid in a hoodie? yeah, about your video feed:
Your drone was flying near my house when it was robbed (or car, or mugging, etc). I am subpoena-ing your drone’s video footage. You will be charged with hindering a police investigation, or you will have to hire a whole new department full of compliance people to respond to subpoenas. Good luck saving money on that.
….
As often happens, technology has outpaced the legal system by years if not decades. When Amazon was small, they got away with not collecting sales tax… but the bigger the company, the more profitable it was for state attorneys to go after them.
If the company operating a delivery drone is big enough to need a delivery drone, its also big enough to be a lawyer’s pay day.
Want to steal Amazon deliveries? Follow the brown truck. I’ve come home to a $700 item on my doorstep unattended.
Worried about drone bombing? Little to do with Amazon boxes. The technology exists.
Worried about being drone bombed? If you live rural or suburban, don’t.
Worried miscreant kids? Drone cameras.
Want to be the guy that refuses to yield his 1000 ft? So his neighbors can’t get pizza delivered? Don’t be a d***.
You apparently haven’t looked at the sorts of lawsuits that get filed every day in US courts.
As for your silly threats about not getting a pizza delivery because I won’t allow a flight below 1000 feet? Bring it buddy. Your pizza will cost you your house, your car, your paycheck and everything you ever worked for.
While on the subject of air rights, lets also remember all the cash strapped municipalities in the US. Guess who legally owns the public road (and its airspace) leading your house? Guess who already charges a tax of one form or another on all vehicles operating within said municipality / state? How about charging a toll for using a roadway?
The legal precedence is overwhelming. The drone services will pay to use airspace over roads, just like UPS and Fedex already do. Whine all you want about your stupid pizza, the drone owner is going to pay for airspace it flies thru.
Drones might be cheaper to operate (than a truck) for rural deliveries. In cities and suburbs, the law is already well established. You will respect your neighbors rights, and calling them a d*ck is just going to get you sued.
How do airplanes or helicopters get anywhere without flying over someones air space?
You might correct me on this, I could only find reference to UPS and Fedex paying for airspace indirectly the form of airport fees and general taxation.
I found more info on airspace regulation.
Congress has provided authority for the FAA to purchase non-public airspace near airports to accommodate planes taking off and landing.
The FAA established that public, or navigable, airspace is the space above 500 feet. In 2016, The FAA set regulations limiting drones to fly below 400 feet to prevent interference with planes above that height.
By FAA standards, the 7-eleven flight was illegal at any height. They couldn’t have flown above 400ft by regulation, nor could they have flown under 500ft without contractual agreements for all private land crossed.
The altitude at which the airspace over private land becomes public airspace is debated, but the Supreme Court rulings and space treaties are clear. A Landowner’s domain extends up to 365 feet above the ground – see Causby v US (1946).
The FAA appears to disagree with both itself and with the supreme court. I’d expect the supreme court to win.
Regardless of any of the legalism, I reserve my uncivil right to call people names. Every town has a cell phone user whose filed a lawsuit to stop a cell tower barely visible from their property line. That person is a d***.
I don’t think you have read all the statutes on airspace…
According to every pilot I know (its a whole airport full of them) — the FAA jurisdiction starts at 1000 feet, except in/around airports / heliports. It is illegal to fly below 1000 feet over any residential area, or “within any city limit”. There is some ambiguity about flying over water near a city (which is legally in the Army Corp Engineers or Coast Guard region, not in a city).
If you fly your aircraft below 1000 feet and get caught on radar, your pilot’s license will get suspended. And yes, I know two pilots who learned this the hard way (both were ex-military and understood the safety risks better than any FAA bureaucrat — but the law is very clear on this).
Whether some over zealous bureaucrat decided out of arrogance to make the number 500 feet is not enforceable. In legal statute, before FAA investigators and in court, aircraft don’t fly below 1000ft.
In addition to having your pilots license suspended, you also can be charged with illegal trespass and harassment (due to noise and privacy issues). Again, these two pilots I know learned this first hand when they buzzed a mutual friend’s house and the friends neighbor took it poorly.
As for your pizza delivery problems, too bad for you. As I commented elsewhere, Dominos could definitely cut a few minutes off their delivery time if they cut across all your neighbor’s lawns and went straight for your house. I am quite sure your neighbors don’t care if your pizza takes an extra few minutes, no matter what names you call them. Your pizza will wait.
We might be arguing with different definitions of words. I believe you’re correct so far as the aircraft you’re thinking of. In “14 CFR 91.119 – Minimum safe altitudes: General”, FAA regulations say 1000 feet residential. That does not mean the residents own the airspace, nor does it mean no aircraft are allowed.
On further research I’ve decoded the apparent inconsistencies in what I previously quoted.
US law (supreme court precedent) says 365 ft is owned by resident.
FAA has issued a legally challengable rule to keep drones under 400 ft.
FAA jurisdiction begins at 500 feet.
FAA rules aircraft, except helicopters, keep aircraft above 1000 ft.
Under these conditions it would seem legal to fly drones between 365 and 400 ft.
I’d also argue that a drone is more of a helicopter than a plane, in which case part d applies:
“d. Helicopters. Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph B or C of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface. In addition, each person operating a helicopter shall comply with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the Administrator.”
UPS and FedEx don’t currently pay for airspace (except airports etc) — because they don’t operate drones.
Both companies pay significant amounts in fuel taxes, road taxes, property tax on vehicles, etc — all different ways that municipalities and states pay for road maintenance and general revenue.
The point is: if delivery companies start using drones, flying in the airspace over public roads (and below FAA limits) — municipalities and states might start collecting airspace fees. They desperately need the revenue (not just for road maintenance).
Just as states don’t collect sales tax for “minor” amounts of sales (because the cost of prosecution exceeds the expected revenue), that doesn’t mean the sales tax avoidance is legal. It just means it isn’t worth the trouble to prosecute.
If drone delivery becomes a thing, the lost road use revenue and the opportunity to tax drones will make the cities enforce airspace rights…. but being public roads, they would have trouble refusing access.
Private property owners could decide to charge $1 billion per flight — and there is nothing Amazon could do (pay or fly elsewhere). Private owners don’t have to price reasonably, and courts have long recognized that a “$1 billion per use fee” is really just the owner saying “no”.
Your pizza order does not in any way trump property rights. Stop being a d*ck by thinking your little tech gadgets somehow negate centuries of legal precedent.
Yes, municipalities will tax whatever they can.
The human imagination is truly staggering in its ability to generate infinite scenarios of why something that is inevitable will not be practical.
Nothing inevitable about drones.
Sometimes, it is cheaper to deliver a package by 747. Sometimes a tractor trailer truck. Sometimes a small box truck (UPS or FedEx or similar). Sometimes a minivan (many stores use these). Sometimes it might be a bicycle delivery guy.
Depending how the technology advances, I could see some situations where a drone might be the lowest cost delivery solution.
But as the Google guys learned the hard way when their mapping cars broke into people’s WiFi, and Google glasses were worn into nightclubs, locker rooms and urinals — even the tech billionaires are subject to the law and to public expectations about privacy.
If Zuckerberg or Bezos or whomever doesn’t respect the airspace rights over your house — they would also have no rights over their houses.
It’s inevitable. I’d ask you to put your money where your mouth is, and I’d be delighted to do the same, if I could only come up with a metric to prove when the tipping point is reached. Maybe when Time Magazine publishes a hysterical anti-drone cover?
Its a cost thing buddy, not a technology thing.
Once the technology takes off, property owners will begin enforcing their rights. The cost of delivering in suburbia or a city will skyrocket — and drone operating costs will limit their use.
No one in their right mind operates a bicycle delivery service in a thinly populated rural area (they are very popular in cities).
Drones in a rural area (even paying the municipality for airspace over public roads) might make lots of sense
There’s this thing called a legislature. Laws can and do change.
@james – “There’s this thing called a legislature. Laws can and do change.”
So you went from claiming “inevitability”, to hoping a legislature can lower costs?
I would also add, James, that a legislature (if changing airspace rights laws) would have to weigh the costs of helping Amazon / 7-Eleven evade sales taxes, putting Postal / UPS / Fedex workers out of a job, and the drop in property values (angering voters and cutting property tax revenue). People buy into the middle class cul-de-sac lifestyle with certain expectations — and being in an airport traffic pattern is not one of them.
Legislatures will side with home owners, banning drones from flying willy nilly over people’s homes. It protects home values (and property taxes), it protects the city/state road taxes, it protects local delivery companies, and flying through other property’s airspace is just bad for business even if it were legal (which it isn’t).
There is no doubt Dominos could deliver a pizza faster if they cut across all your neighbors’ lawns and went straight for your house. It doesn’t happen, and no legislature will authorize it no matter how loud Amazon whines.
Drones might (depending on technology still under development) make sense for rural deliveries. Other than that, their external costs vastly exceed options readily available
Agree to disagree. The drones are here … to stay.
Yes. I was so wrong 60 years ago to say that there would never be flying cars, despite everyone writing about them, for obvious economic reasons! And now flying cars land on my lawn every day! Doh!
There may not be flying cars, but there are drones. Strawman?
Rosey the domestic robot is in the same Jetsons cartoon as the flying cars.
You can buy a zoomba vacuum cleaner (which only does floors, nothing else) for $400 or more. A standard vacuum cleaner will set you back maybe $100, a quarter as much.
The California la-la land crowd all has to buy a zoomba on credit so they can impress their clueless friends; more practical people are still waiting for the cost to come down.
Flying cars were (are) a technology fail. The physics is wrong.
Drones are a technology success. The physics work.
The yes/no drone argument is purely legalistic.
One of the million forgotten cases where something promised and doubted was delivered: video conferencing. Though not particularly useful its readily available any time, anywhere to anyone with a smart phone (nearly everyone).
If someone could use a drone for nefarious purposes what would stop them from doing the same with a self-driving vehicle?
And how easy would it be for a terrorist to put an explosive into a self-driving vehicle and program it for a specific location where it would detonate?
–> “If someone could use a drone for nefarious purposes what would stop them from doing the same with a self-driving vehicle?”
They can. But the vehicle would have to have a license plate (or whatever ID). Same as the peeping toms and stalkers now. If the vehicle being used is commercially owned — the owner could face serious legal problems. Drones would be no different.
–> “And how easy would it be for a terrorist to put an explosive into a self-driving vehicle and program it for a specific location where it would detonate?”
Terrorists? Despite media hype, you are far more likely to die in a standard highway crash. Or get hit by lightening. Or win the lottery jackpot.
Despite the media hype, there is nothing magical about drones. Can you imagine this kind of media frenzy when someone invented bicycle delivery messengers in a major city?
its just another transportation method — it has certain strengths and certain weaknesses.
Is it cheaper for the pizza place to deliver by car/driver (someone still has to eject the pizza out of the uber car into your house)? Is it cheaper to deliver by drone, after paying for takeoff / landing / airspace rights over public roads?
But the current fantasy of flying direct line of sight over other people’s homes? Not legally practical, even if they work out the AI for autonomous flight.
Billions of dollars of airspace rights, centuries of privacy rights/expectations, decades of noise ordinances… the technology hype will soon yield to practicality.
A pizza weighs about 1 pound. Cost is not an issue.
kawabunga dude! No one cares if your pizza is delivered late
I am guessing you are a recent college “grad” since no one with real world experience would assume delivery cost is just a function of your pizza’s weight
I have teenagers.
And over 20 years experience as an electrical engineer.
Sure seems like the terrorist’s dream bomb delivery system. As James said, “inevitable”. Then what?
It won’t happen, beyond publicity stunts, because it will simply cost too much…..like flying cars.
Then what? Then we deal with it. Nukes are far more dangerous, been dealing with them for 70 years.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Humans are toolmakers. It is the prime directive, the raison d’etre. Stifling innovation is more than anathema, more than paradoxical — it is nothing less than species suicide. And it is impossible.
It is very possible, even likely, that the human race will invent itself to hybridization or even outright extinction, but the human race will never become extinct because humans failed to innovate.
That which has been invented and has value in the market will become commonplace.
James, comparing drones and nukes is illogical: I cannot obtain a nuclear bomb. I can very easily and for not much expense buy a drone that would deliver a IED. The way to answer my question of how to deal with it is to explain how you can prevent drones from delivering IEDs without banning all drones. I hope you have the answer! I don’t.
My answer is that cars/trucks can and do deliver IEDs but no one is proposing banning them. I guarantee a drone will be used to deliver an IED — and no one will propose banning them either.
My point about nukes wasn’t to compare them to drones, but to illustrate that human innovation disregards the potential lethality of the invention.
Sorry but once again I must disagree with you James. Human innovation does NOT always disregard the lethality of the invention. Case 1: Many human innovations are expressly FOR the purpose of lethality. You cannot get around that. Case 2: Sometimes innovations (usually chemical weapons) are so awful that everyone does agree to ban them.
And BTW you did compare nukes to drones, as both being things we can “deal with”. Maybe so but you have not told me how. Or, are you saying the genie cannot be kept in the bottle, so, oh well? What are you saying, James?
Chemical weapons, while banned, are still used. Nuclear weapons, while restricted by treaty, are still a threat. Things get invented, come into existence by human hand, without regard for potential lethality. The process of ingenuity is not limited by concern for the destructive capacity of the invention. I believe this to be self-evident.
What I am saying is that it is more dangerous for the human race to stifle innovation than to deal with the consequences of innovation.
Not knowing a more succinct way of expressing that concept, I now retire from this discussion.
The Segway “personal travel” thingy was also inevitable. It was going to revolutionize blah blah blah.
They ended up giving them away to police departments (who still have trouble figuring out what to do with them). And Shaquille ONeil uses one to move around his over-sized house to his private gym.
Practicality is inevitable. James (and many other people) getting over excited about the latest wiz-bang techno gadget is inevitable too.
I am sure that Dominos could deliver a pizza to many houses a lot faster if their drivers cut across your neighbor’s lawn. It would cut out several minutes per delivery! But they don’t and they would get sued if they tried.
Drones might fly over public streets (which limits their advantage over a car doing the same thing already).
Most city streets are cleared of obstacles, where the airspace above has tree branches, power lines, cable tv lines, etc. The airspace over rural roads has a lot fewer obstacles, and the cost (per package) of driving a small package to a thinly populated area might make a drone the low cost solution
For the record, I could actually not care less about drones (automated vehicles I am very excited about). I just see drones as another manifestation of inevitable technological advance. Today’s toys are tomorrow’s household items.
It is very possible that the airspace ownership rights could wind up killing mass use of drones. Drones, existing as they do, however, are here to stay in some commercial-use form. If it becomes the least-cost solution, drones will replace vehicles. 10 years? 20 years?
I remember reading somewhere that airspace rights stopped at 400 feet.
FAA jurisdiction starts at 1000ft; one reason (along with safety) why aircraft are not (legally) allowed to fly lower than 1000ft (except over a farm, an airport, etc).
Many buildings in New York City (and other cities) are selling airspace rights well above 400ft.
Mish – drones over french nuclear plants, this was before the French terrorist atacks. Might have been attempt to size up.
http://Www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/31/more-drones-spotted-over-french-nuclear-power-stations
You will certainly need drone hunters if you have drones. Can’t wait for drone hunters patrolling the streets.
A little off topic but did you see the video of the self driving Uber in San Fran running a red light at an intersection with 6 lights? That’s pretty basic stuff.
I believe that the car has a driver in it at all time…. safety reasons, but you’re right because how long can you sit and watch things go by before you get bored, right? Well, knowing how automotive testing really goes, my guess is that the driver was of the cheapest variety and was probably looking for a job where he could double dip time wise, and play video games to cut the boredom. Just like the train engineer that crashed and killed a bunch of people on the job while texting.
What the hell does someone need delivered from 7-Eleven?
Cigarettes! Gotta have that nicotine fix.
Carton of twenty, less than a half pound landing in your driveway in three, two, one…
With a $5 lucky seven scratch ticket attached!
One other thought the media hype hasn’t considered:
By law, you are allowed to operate small low power radio transmitters on your property. Think about your WiFi router, cell phone, “wireless” appliances. Even if the Feds wanted to put that genie back in the bottle, its way too late…
While the law is somewhat ambigious in some jurisdictions, plenty of businesses already operate cell phone “jamming” equipment on their property — some with good reasons (priests not wanting cell phones ringing during mass), others with hard to dispute legal reasons (protecting intellectual property, witnesses visiting law firms, domestic battery shelters, drug rehab clinics, etc)….
Based on current law (which is admittedly way behind the technology) — there would be nothing stopping a property owner from using local GPS jamming signals and/or “drone control” jamming signals. Your drone was operating in my airspace, so legally it is an abandoned item that I can seize or return to the owner with an invoice (like an illegally parked car) at my discretion. A low power jamming signal is almost certainly legal (within my property / airspace), and the towing / seizing the vehicle is an income mainstay of parking lots everywhere. The drone operators don’t have a legal leg to stand on.
I am not saying that drone delivery has no place (in a rural setting during the daytime, it might be the lowest cost option). But in denser population centers, the legal precedent is heavily against it.
The FAA has jurisdiction over air travel above 1000 feet, but everything below that is legally owned by property owners — and there are hundreds of billions of airspace rights payments backing that up.
States or municipalities might lease airspace rights over public roads — but getting right of way over 3rd party private property is very unlikely.
GPS jammers are highly illegal.
So are radar detectors. You can buy both online, cheap, from US based sellers.
Grow up
Federal Criminal Code (Enforced by the Department of Justice) Title 18, Section 1362.
Federal crime enforceable by federal prison. Probably they’d give one or two free passes, but the stakes are much higher than with radar detectors.
Fiction or future? (the first book is a short story)
https://www.amazon.com/Enter-Nightmare-Two-Thriller-Set-ebook/dp/B01IYF0K0M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1482280295&sr=1-1&keywords=Enter+The+Nightmare+–+Two+Thriller+Set%3A+Drone+%26+Loss+Of+Reason+%28State+Of+Reason+Mystery%2C+Prequel+and+Book+1%2
A free read on Bookbub or something….
I think drones make much more sense in rural and remote areas before 7-11.
This was my thought as well. At some point economics takes over. I think newspapers started spending themselves into oblivion 30 years ago when they got rid of paper boys – having an adult deliver the paper may be more reliable, but it also costs 5x as much. And the adults were still too lazy to put the paper on the porch.
Great! Since a lot more people will be without jobs, we need the Fed to print the money and give it to them so they can buy the stuff that the drones are delivering! 😀
That IS the basis of our economy now.
I don’t believe the time has come yet for a successful drone delivery operation. Too many potential problems, many mentioned above. You KNOW there will be kids out there taking drones down, especially those that are broke and with time on their hands. You don’t need a gun, a slingshot will do it. I won’t be ordering anything to be delivered by “drone”. Stupid idea imo.
The Postal Service sucks.
I have all my mail, UPS and FEDEX packages delivered to a UPS store for the last 15 years. Great value for $15.00/month. Nothing ever stolen or left out on the step at my apartment.
The UPS store I use also a number of good, reasonably cost services. as well.
got to start somewhere.
What would stop a terrorist using a car
Ho about if the car would not go without someone in it
What it the cards requite a credit card and a PIN
There are lots of reasons including the fact that a drone can be programmed to go anywhere but a car cannot. Stop being ridiculous
I thought the premise behind self-driving cargo trucks was to eliminate the driver to save on labor costs? No drivers necessary. How easy would it be for a terrorist to load explosives in a delivery truck destined for a crowded urban center? A commercial drone would only be capable of carrying a light load. A truck could literally carry tons of dangerous materials. Car theft is a very common crime today despite all the built-in anti-theft mechanisms. There is no reason to believe it would be any different w/ self-driving vehicles. I don’t think any of my concerns about terrorists using self-driving vehicles as weapons are ridiculous. How is my concern any more or less ridiculous than concerns about armed drones?
Or just drive the truck through a crowd. Never mind the explosives.
Terrorism is more about getting the news coverage, not the actual taking of lives.
The theft of a driverless car would likely require software hacking. Probably a more time-consuming endeavor which makes it less likely. Insurance companies will figure it out if the government lets them.
For all the talk of car theft, why no discussion of drone theft? People talk about drone bombs, shooting down drones, etc. What about stealing/hacking them?
I have to back you up there LF. As a ‘free thinker’ of sorts, and more than average share of related experience, I will limit my words so as not to provide encouragement.
The west is one big soft target. With or without drone delivery or self driving vehicles there are a myriad ways to cause ‘trouble’ which anyone committed might attempt and succeed at. Self driving vehicles are a SERIOUS avenue, this is known. It is known Mish, both by intelligence and combatants, and there is no ( as in NO ) foolproof way to mitigate the possibilities. The safety of our countries is a product of disuasion ( much of it an illusion) , intelligence ( not political, they are the opposite), and the fact that those that would cause trouble are either limited in their knowledge /organisation or are intelligent enough not to seek blatant confrontation on western soil. That may change, and there are always loose or extreme factions or ideologies that appear, not just Islamic or Arab orientated… that would stretch right through to ‘our own’ looking for political effect.
So in short, I think that it will have to be a reality that will be addressed at a slightly higher level, that is to say tighter control on the population in relation to movement and vehicle tracking, the disuasion being after event efficiency. Not the sort of ‘freedom’ I look forward to.
Think about it Mish. The driver of the vehicle becomes a non persona, therefore legal and moral barriers are eliminated in tracking and control. You become the passenger subservient to the program of the vehicle, and therefore need protecting. The rest follows.
Drone of a bag of guns. Which is the better terror tool?
So how do the French mail drones get the mail into your mailbox?
I can’t think of anything practical that drone delivery will do for me, but I think it’s cool and I don’t think there are legal or physical reasons for them not to work. Once you’ve purchased a drone, it’s got to be a lot cheaper to deliver say, a pizza, via drone than car.
Dominos can deliver your pizza much faster if they cut across all your neighbors lawns and head straight for your house… but it is illegal.
So is flying a drone over your neighbor’s house — same reasons.
If you don’t like it, stay in college and you can play Peter Pan (don’t want to grow up) forever
It’s a shame to live in a time when there’s so much potential for technology and at the same time so much fear and paranoia about our fellow man. My only real concern about drones is the noise from the rotors, otherwise I think they’re going to be a great thing. But I also have a lot of faith in my fellow man’s ability to show restraint and refrain from pointing cameras in my house too.
The media really doesn’t want drones because they are a threat to their monopoly on aerial cameras. And better to just keep everyone still watching the news (what will happen to CNN when my parents’ generation dies off?), afraid and stressed out over new-fangled “toys”? If Fox News would have been around in 1903 they would have scared the bejesus out of everyone over the Wright brothers’ and how they’re going to crash into your house(!).
What will happen to CNN when my parents’ generation dies off? I ask the same question. A screen with a an botox-foreheaded old man and a miniskirt bimbo talking politics into living rooms?
Studies show kids prefer small screens to large ones, text to voice and blog to news. Big living room picture boxes won’t have much use beyond multiplayer first person shooter games.
Most people have turned off CNN already. Outside of people being forced to watch it at airports, its viewership has been in decline for many years.
The trend of people dropping cable TV service has only accelerated the trend.
Most of the media industry thought for years that nightly news would never make it — Walter Cronkite was the exception that proved the rule. A generation of self centered windbags took over from Cronkite and proved the industry old-timers were right.
Your parents generation will outlast CNN, unless Obamacare and Medicare costs do you parents in first
Slightly off topic, but driverless trucks will be quite easy to rob as well. Either hack into it and divert, or simply drive ahead of it in a car and progressively slow down to a full stop, forcing the truck to stop as well to avoid and accident. No driver to point a gun in your face or force you off the road. In the end, hiring security for these autonomous trucks might outweigh cost savings?
Please think before making ridiculous comments.
There will be a police alert the moment a truck is stolen or goes out of route. And it will likely be halted on the spot. This kind of incident will never occur with driverless trucks
Are you asserting that it would be impossible for terrorists to access driverless trucks?
Please think before making ridiculous comments.
A distinction without a difference. Terrorists can already access the alternative.
How is that any different from robbing a house? Yet we don’t have an epidemic of homes being robbed. It’s even riskier than robbing a house since you’ll be in the middle of a road.
Good grief little boy. When you graduate from college you will learn that every police department in the country has a robbery division or a detective group — because houses get robbed regularly.
Grow up
Minor point of correction: only a person can be robbed. Houses are burglarized. But yes. home burglaries are quite garden variety.
Let me know when they ar delivering Slushies by drone. I will order one.
Interesting question:
“Research shows that people are nervous about life-and-death driving decisions being made by algorithms rather than by humans. Who determines the ethics of the algorithms?”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-decisions-autonomous-vehicles-dire-situations.html#jCp
If a human designs the algo then it is the same, if not better, than a human improvising in the situation.
Do they deliver rolling papers? I really need some.