To use DelivAir, clients would start by requesting a delivery via a smartphone app. Possible scenarios could include a hiker in need of a first aid kit, a stranded cyclist needing a spare inner tube, or even a remotely-located person requiring life-saving equipment such as an EpiPen or defibrillator.
At a store, depot, or other location, the required item would then be loaded onto a drone, which would autonomously fly out to the client's smartphone GPS coordinates. Using the app, the client could in turn check the GPS coordinates of the drone in real time, to see how close it was getting to them.
Now when you break your Ming vase, a drone can deliver another one to you on the spot.
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Delivair Would Deliver to People, Not Just Addresses
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:43PM (2 children)
Okay, I'm remote. I need defibulated. I, or someone nearby, orders a defibulator from Amazon. The drone comes out, drops the damned thing on my head. Hey, I don't need defibbed anymore!! Not with my brains splattered over several square feet of ground!!
Sorry people, that's just the mental picture I got while reading TFS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:29AM
I thought you were planning on electrocuting healthy people, being the psychopath that you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:04PM
In the article there's a picture that shows the protective head gear.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:09PM
Would it do it - accepting bitcoins off course...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:29PM (3 children)
Possible scenarios for use of a television include watching Opera and differential equations college class lectures. Oh wait its mostly corporate and left wing propaganda with a side dish of voyeuristic trash. A vast wasteland as they say.
In a similar manner, this could be used to deliver defibrillators in 15 minutes to people who will die in 5 minutes without one, err... well anyway all this optimistic BS. However...
My gut level guess is it'll mostly be high speed condom delivery, practical jokes, and law breaking. Some examples of law breaking the concession stands at the last maker faire I attended paid an insane tax to the landowner so bottled water had to be $4 to pay the tax man. Under those circumstances if an energy drink can is $8 at the concession stand, and Amazon sells them for $1 plus $5 drone delivery... Another example of somewhat more severe criminality, order a lock picking kit using your smuggled in cell phone from inside prison. Or 8 inch fixed blade knives. Go thru security at the mass media event where they don't permit recording equipment (or a police line at a crime scene and/or protest, perhaps...) and have a camera delivered to you...
I suspect the drone and GPS are not accurate enough in tight quarters unless they're going to extremes of differential GPS on both drone and phone. That means in the more diverse vibrant neighborhoods your stuff will get stolen from the drones.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:05PM (2 children)
On the other hand there will be lots of drone parts available on E-Bay.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:26PM (1 child)
LOL that too.
Also I'm unclear how a cop is supposed to tell the difference between a drone speeding along at 45 mph owned by a "legit" company delivering emergency condoms and beer or whatever, vs something homemade delivering emergency weed. So there's that issue, here's a technology that weirdly enough is physical and not really interceptable. I mean there's not even discussion of an "inspection protocol" on the sci fi sites. Thats kinda a first in the realm of illegal item trafficking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @02:58PM
You're describing an exciting new technology the law hasn't yet caught up with -- not one it can't catch up with. Once aerial drone deliveries move from gee-whiz press releases to actual widespread use, they'll make some annoying new laws, and things will go back to normal.
Transponders will be required by law, transponders with fake ID will be a felony (if they catch the drone's owner); the big boys like Amazon will allow cops access to a tracking database, so if the transponder says "Amazon drone #905", it looks it up, sees that Amazon 905 is halfway across town, and the cop knows it's a fake.
Shotgun, net gun, HERF gun, they're interceptable enough, once you know it's illegal and don't have to worry about damaging it.
I don't know about "the sci fi sites", but again, you solve this problem by legally mandating a cops-only override to force drones to land for inspection. (Yes, hilarity ensues when thieves figure out how to transmit an override signal and steal stuff, but don't worry, the lawmakers aren't on the hook for that.) If a drone ignores the override, it doesn't get inspected; it gets shot/netted/zapped out of the sky.
But inspection is really only necessary in airspace where some drone deliveries are legal and some aren't -- I expect national borders, prisons, etc. will not permit any drone deliveries at all (legit companies will be required to respect these exclusion zones, all others will be shot down), and the whole rest of the city is just not worth bothering about -- it's going to be 90% Amazon traffic (do police inspect UPS packages for contraband by stopping delivery trucks, or at distribution hubs?), and the other 10% is probably easier dealt with by stings where the cops order a weed delivery, and nab the drone when it arrives, than by cruising around looking for un/mis-registered drones to inspect.
Sure, these laws will be hard to comply with for anyone who's not doing it for living, but that's how laws go.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:30PM (1 child)
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/20/matternets-autonomous-delivery-drones-can-now-refuel-and-reload-by-themselves/ [techcrunch.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16325084/matternet-autonomous-drone-network-switzerland [theverge.com]
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/31/matternet-cleared-to-fly-blood-samples-in-delivery-drones-over-swiss-cities/ [techcrunch.com]
First two links probably fresh enough to sub if anyone wants to.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Sunday October 08 2017, @04:08AM
I read the first linked article, glad to see the tech being used to save lives and medical costs.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:52PM (9 children)
"Possible scenarios could include a hiker in need of a first aid kit, a stranded cyclist needing a spare inner tube, or even a remotely-located person requiring life-saving equipment such as an EpiPen or defibrillator."
Hiker in need of a first aid kit? Someone dying of an allergy or needing a defibrilator? They'll be dead before it gets to them. The cyclist? How many cyclists carry the tools necessary to change an inner tube?
A solution in search of a problem. Folks, that's backwards. Invention is NOT the mother of necessity!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by tekk on Saturday October 07 2017, @05:42PM (3 children)
Tools to change an inner tube? All you need is some sort of spudger, the inner tube's already deflated if you need a new one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @08:49AM (1 child)
> some sort of spudger
You'll probably get a better tool if you ask for a "tire lever"...
With most combinations of bike tire and rim, the fit is loose enough that fingers can re-install the tire on the rim. I don't know anyone with strong enough fingers to get a flat tire _off_ the rim, that takes a lever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:11PM
Eh, I've done it. Depends how deep the cross-section of the rim is, but on a couple different bikes I've had, once you get both beads loose, and drop them down into the middle of the rim on one side, you can just pop the bead over the rim at the opposite side. I've also had several where you needed a lever of some sort, but a fellow could pick deep rims on purpose to ensure toolless tire changes. (Being the sort of fellow who carries tools as a matter of course, I've not made it a point to.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:16PM
Not to mention, if you don't carry anything that will work (seriously?) and also can't find anything laying around that will work (double seriously?), you could always order the inner tube and a couple tire levers, delivered via drone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:34PM (3 children)
Depends what the problem is. A head injury or severe bleeding.wouldn't be realistic, but a burnt hand or sprained ankle might be realistically treatable in the bush to the point where the hiker could get to an evac point or all the way back to a car.
In some cases there may be somebody with medical training to treat a condition, but carrying the supplies for a rare occurrence wouldn't be realistic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @08:31PM (2 children)
You claiming a first-aid kit designed for hiking is not something you would carry on a hike?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:28PM
Depends where you hike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:12PM
You'd be covered for the burn, but not necessarily a sprain or broken leg. Both of which you might be able to leave with if you've h got appropriate gear.And there's plenty of other things that need supplies. Carrying a huge first aid kit just in case isn't realistic in most places that are too rough to get a chopper or atv in.
And sometimes the supplies get lost. If the reason you need the help is that you slipped going over a snow field that first aid kit may no longer be accessible.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:41PM
I never owned a tire tool until I was an adult. A screwdriver, or some random bit of scrap metal, is all a guy needs. Or, more precisely, TWO scraps of metal. I bought my first real "tire tool" to change tires on a two-ton truck, then I bought more appropriately sized tools for my motorcycle, and finally my cars. Of all of my vehicles that I've owned over the years, only that two-ton really required the purpose built tool.
Note, I'm not claiming that purpose built tools are completely unnecessary. Fact is, those tools make the job easier and faster, on any kind and size of wheel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:39PM (1 child)
The Internet delivers porn. DelivAir can deliver porn and sex toys.
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Sunday October 08 2017, @04:02AM
Zounds! Isn't that what made PC's into TERMINALS?
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 2) by dbe on Sunday October 08 2017, @09:28PM
Maybe in other counties you still have cell reception a mile away from civilization, though if it's not possible in the SF bay area (not even mentioning eastern sierras) I doubt it's an exception.
Improving cell coverage or having everyone be a Ham would save life, not drone developments...
-dbe