31–40 of 149 posts
I personally expect that the first successful drone delivery service will be implemented by some sophisticated drug dealers because unlike with all these drone delivery services, they would need to be quiet and reliably deliver products instead of publicity.
- quiet
- droneEarlier quoted context omitted.
One needs to restock these dead drops, right? Maybe a distributor can bypass all the small time street dealers and create an empire whose only distribution channel is drones.
You must be from US - it seems to be lagging behind in that area. Here, there are not street dealers anymore, deaddrops are how end users buy it. And hiring a stream of low-skill couriers that end up in jail after 2-3 months of working for anonymous boss is way cheaper and safer than flying drones from your own location.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if the winch is to prevent people nicking the drone.
Why would they? How often are delivery trucks stolen, for example?
The drone is "small", can be transported and stored without it being visible, so it get's lots of points there. Also I'd be concerned about stupid people/assholes and the shiny new drone.
That said, Cameras+GPS, not to mention you don't want to steal the drone if it's delivering to you because it'd be kinda obvious.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if the winch is to prevent people nicking the drone.
Why would they? How often are delivery trucks stolen, for example?
There's a better video of the drones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prhDrfUgpB0 Google's delivery drones combine a multirotor design with fixed-wings. It seems like an eminently sensible design to me; fixed-wing operation will be quieter and more power-efficient, allowing longer travel distances (unlike the early Amazon Prime Air videos [1]), while hover capability avoids the need to parachute the load (unlike…
Hadn't heard of Zipline. And when I read it I imagined a simple cableway with small autonomous cars zipping along the line, possibly with branching points. I suspect it would be way cheaper to set up as an infrastructure and much more reliable than drones.
Zipline would require infrastructure setup on the scale of roads/telephone lines to be useful wouldn't it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current deaddrop schemes seem to be working quite well, drones would be much easier to target than just a random person walking around.
Don't drones have to be controlled from a certain distance? Most prisons around here are in remote areas, so if you see car pulled over on the side of the road near a prison, maybe they are flying a drone to deliver contraband.
It reminds me of the issue where constitutional protections can be selectively removed within 100 miles of the US border by border agents.
There's a better video of the drones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prhDrfUgpB0 Google's delivery drones combine a multirotor design with fixed-wings. It seems like an eminently sensible design to me; fixed-wing operation will be quieter and more power-efficient, allowing longer travel distances (unlike the early Amazon Prime Air videos [1]), while hover capability avoids the need to parachute the load (unlike…
I wonder if the winch is to prevent people nicking the drone.
There's a better video of the drones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prhDrfUgpB0 Google's delivery drones combine a multirotor design with fixed-wings. It seems like an eminently sensible design to me; fixed-wing operation will be quieter and more power-efficient, allowing longer travel distances (unlike the early Amazon Prime Air videos [1]), while hover capability avoids the need to parachute the load (unlike…
Maybe if we have to dome our cities and thus have no wind to disrupt the drone.
I wonder if it would be cheaper to use a small electric self-driving car like a mobile version of the amazon locker?