UPS Also Said To Be Testing Drone Delivery | Hacker News Reader

UPS Also Said To Be Testing Drone Delivery

techcrunch.com

37 pointsakrymski32 comments

Sadly the article just quotes a Verge article (http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/3/5169878/ups-is-researching...) 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.

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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.

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%.

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.

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

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

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

And definitely programmed in Go.

they must announce it runs on AWS.

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).

You can't really have an unmanned delivery truck. The truck can't put the package at your door, ring your doorbell, or collect a signature.

I suspect the limiting factor in twice-a-day deliveries is labor cost.

You could take one of those 7/11 cabinets where you scan a bar code to open it, and put it in a truck. Then an automated system calls, and asks where you are (i'm at my office xyz fake street) the car shows up around an agreed upon window, then calls you. You walk out to the truck, pick up your item, and it goes to the next person.

I would pay extra for that because I hate it when they leave a note because i'm getting my pants on.

For this reason, I think this whole drone thing is silly. By the time this is economically practical, you'll be better off with a self-driving car and a secondary ground delivery robot. Adding the complication of flinging them through the air isn't worth it.

(It may actually simplify the programming, which is probably why we're talking about this at all, but regardless of how great the programming is, it's just not going to be as safe to have these flying through the air, loaded with kinetic energy, through low-level airspace, as it will for them to be on the ground, rolling along, safely.)

A fleet of drones flying through the air is a silly concept in my city where buildings cannot be more than 3 stories high as to not block the views.

On the contrary, since they know no buildings are higher than three stories, they could just fly above the rooftops instead, without impeding the view.

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.

that's exactly my comment from yesterday.. basically use the truck as a base station for the drones.

would just have to figure out how many drones vs how many packages are optimal.

Yes, that really makes sense so it can cover more distance.

However, they are aiming for delivery in under 30 minutes. The last time we tried delivering packages by air, road travel times were considered too long[1], and things have probably only gotten worse.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBVPG0XLbv0

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.

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.

Well then you don't need a drone. If you get texted that the delivery person is about to arrive at your place 20 mins before they get there, you can grab the package directly from the delivery person.

http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/

is much nicer..

"...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]

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Seriously? They used the Doge meme?

Why would you do that?

This is why we can't have nice things.

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