
UPS Also Said To Be Testing Drone Delivery - akrymski
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/03/ups-also-said-to-be-testing-drone-delivery-constant-robot-background-hum-increasingly-inevitable/
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nswanberg
Sadly the article just quotes a Verge article
([http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/3/5169878/ups-is-
researching...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/3/5169878/ups-is-researching-
its-own-delivery-drones-to-compete-with-amazons)) which itself just quotes
some anonymous people at UPS, and then has a couple of people's reactions to
the rumors. So not very interesting.

I guess the Techcrunch article adds some predictable jokes and a meme
illustration, leaving us to ponder the idea of what our grandparents would
think about this article--premise, illustration, and all. Or better yet, the
idea of our grandparents being shown this article in 1963 by some future-man.
The notion of a future flying delivery robot would have been passe--it's the
illustration that would have blown their minds.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
_UPS also now appears to be interested in replacing its reliable army of
brown-shorted carriers with repurposed evil mindless deathbots._

This is one of the reasons I avoid TechCrunch, which appears to be a
sensationalist/gossip-mongering type of opinion platform pandering to
teenagers, rather than a true tech news organization.

Previously they had an article on what they called the uselessness of near-
field communication (NFC) devices, even to the point of redefining the
initials as "Nobody F--king Cares" (my obfuscation, not theirs). Really? I
_do_ care.

~~~
esrauch
To be fair, no one else cares. What percentage of those NFC supporting
services do you think have ever used it? I would be surprised if it was even
1%.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Probably. But for vertical market and internal applications (building access,
inventory control, time tracking), NFC is getting a lot of attention.

I suspect it won't achieve a mass market for a few years, if ever, given
Apple's utter lack of interest and lack of a killer application. Plus, QR
codes are cheaper to use, albeit read-only.

~~~
esrauch
I wouldn't exactly hold up QR codes as a successful technology either, in the
US at least.

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bruceboughton
If UPS want to one-up Amazon, they should announce they will be 3D printing
their drones and choosing flight paths using Big Data.

~~~
jdiez17
And crunching all of this Big Data in The Cloud. Using Node.js. On a Docker
container.

~~~
charlieflowers
And definitely programmed in Go.

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ck2
_insert company name_ wants free news coverage for using drones.

So drones for now are kinda silly.

But what about self-driving cars?

Instead of half hour delivery, be more realistic like twice a day coverage a
city (instead of for example UPS arriving 8pm at my door).

~~~
sputknick
My initial thought for self-driving delivery trucks was to combine the two. A
truck drives itself to your house. a quadcopter flies out of the truck and
leaves the package on your stoop.

~~~
aryastark
a large number of apartments/condos do not have an outside stoop. Which makes
this whole drone thing a bit impractical. UPS already has enough trouble
opening a lobby door or getting past a security gate.

The only practical thing I see happening is scheduled deliveries within a
certain 15-30min window and having the drone text you when the package is
there so you can physically go and retrieve it out on the street/sidewalk.

Of course, the problem then becomes having a drone hovering and waiting while
the person comes outside. And obviously that will cut into the profit of the
delivery service, as you have a drone waiting on people to get out of the
shower and stupid things like that.

~~~
randomdata
Amazon suggested this was intended to deliver within 30 minutes after the
order. You are presumably, barring some kind of emergency, not going to be
leaving your place after ordering this service. I don't think the intent of
this is to replace the stuff you traditionally order through the mail/courier
services over the span of days.

------
codfrantic
[http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-
l-s/](http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/)

is much nicer..

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DanielBMarkham
"...The delivery drones will block out the sun, and all will be plunged into
darkness. On the bright side, we'll get our Kindles in record time..."

Well hey, as long as the NSA is not involved, I don't think there's a downside
here.

[Obviously a send-up of the publicity stunts we're seeing that try to pass for
tech news lately]

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danielweber
Cheek is so far in tongue that it got swallowed.

UPS already has drones, they are called people, and they work pretty well.

UPS will go to a driverless (or remote-controlled) truck with a human in it to
run packages to doors before they do a truck (human-driven or otherwise) with
drones launching from it.

~~~
6cxs2hd6
Although the human drones do work pretty well, flying drones will be able to
ring the doorbell and run away _much_ faster.

Seriously, I wish all the organizations with a holiday season PR problem would
issue one, joint "look at this waving hand" press release. Microsoft will
deliver more Surface by drone! The US HHS will Berlin Airlift insurance forms
to homes across the nation! Delta will deliver your lost luggage to your hotel
by drone! &c. I'm sure CBS "News" will promote those, too. These days, they
believe anything. /headdesk

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thrillgore
I can't wait to hear how Teamsters will take this news.

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cfontes
Who isn't?

This Drone thing(for me they are RC helis, but let's not argue about that.) is
looking more and more like a PR stunt than anything else.

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joshdance
Not super useful. Of course UPS will say, ya we are looking at drones too.

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chadwickthebold
I think the Doge meme at the top perfectly summarizes the discussion and
usefulness of 'Amazon Prime Air'.

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downer92
Seriously? They used the Doge meme?

Why would you do that?

This is why we can't have nice things.

