Waymo has received its first permit from the New York City Department of Transportation to begin testing autonomous vehicles in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, marking the city's first official rollout of self-driving car trials. The program will initially deploy up to eight vehicles with safety drivers through late September, with the potential to extend and expand into other boroughs. CNBC reports: New York state law requires the company to have a driver behind the wheel to operate. "We're a tech-friendly administration and we're always looking for innovative ways to safely move our city forward," [Mayor Eric Adams] said in a release. "New York City is proud to welcome Waymo to test this new technology in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as we know this testing is only the first step in moving our city further into the 21st century."

The news comes just two months after the company said it filed permits to test its cars in the city with a trained specialist behind the wheel. [...] As part of the permit, Waymo must regularly meet and report data to DOT and work closely with law enforcement and emergency services.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Time and again, surveys and studies show that fears and concerns about charging are the main barriers standing in the way of someone switching from gas to EV. A new market research study by Telemetry Vice President Sam Abuelsamid confirms this, as it analyzes the charging infrastructure needs over the next decade. And one of the biggest hurdles -- one that has gone mostly unmentioned across the decade-plus we've been covering this topic -- is all the junk clogging up Americans' garages. lThat's because, while DC fast-charging garners all the headlines and much of the funding, the overwhelming majority of EV charging is AC charging, usually at home -- 80 percent of it, in fact. People who own and live in a single family home are overrepresented among EV owners, and data (PDF) from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from a few years ago found that 42 percent of homeowners park near an electrical outlet capable of level 2 (240 V) AC charging.

But that could grow by more than half (to 68 percent of homeowners) if those homeowners changed their parking behavior, "most likely by clearing a space in their garage," the report finds. "90 percent of all houses can add a 240 V outlet near where cars could be parked," said Abuelsamid. "Parking behavior, namely whether homeowners use a private garage for parking or storage, will likely become a key factor in EV adoption. Today, garage-use intent is potentially a greater factor for in-house charging ability than the house's capacity to add 240 V outlets." Creating garage space would increase the number of homes capable of EV charging from 31 million to more than 50 million. And when we include houses where the owner thinks it's feasible to add wiring, that grows to more than 72 million homes. And that's far more than Telemetry's most optimistic estimate of U.S. EV penetration for 2035, which ranges from 33 million to 57 million EVs on the road 10 years from now.

Denmark's PostNord will end centuries of letter delivery as digitalization and high postage costs make physical mail nearly obsolete. The BBC reports: The steep decline in letter volumes has been driven largely by digitalization, and PostNord announced in March that it will cease letter services at the end of the year. It will bring to an end four centuries of letter deliveries by the state-owned operation. A third of its workforce is being let go, as it sheds 2,200 positions in its loss-making letter arm. Instead it will focus on its profitable parcel business, creating 700 new roles. "Danes hardly receive any letters anymore. It's been going down for years and years," says Kim Pedersen, chief of PostNord Denmark. "They're receiving one letter a month on average, it's not a lot." "On the contrary, Danes love to shop online," he adds. "Global e-commerce is growing significantly, and we are moving with it."

Fifteen years ago, PostNord operated several enormous letter-sorting facilities, but now there's just one on the western outskirts of Copenhagen. Since 2000, the volume of letters the business handles has declined by more than 90%, from around 1.4 billion to 110 million last year, and it continues to fall rapidly. As PostNord prepares to cease letter deliveries, 1,500 of its red post boxes are being removed from Danish streets. However, few locals in the capital appear to use them much.

From email and cashless mobile payments, to digital health cards carried by smartphone, there's an app for almost everything in Denmark - and it's one of the world's most digitalized nations, second only to South Korea, according to the OECD's 2023 Digital Government Index. The Danish government has embraced a "digital by default" policy, and for more than a decade correspondence with the public has been carried out electronically. "We are facing this natural evolution of a digitalized society, earlier than maybe some other countries," Mr Pedersen explains. "In Denmark, we are maybe five or 10 years ahead."

The high cost of sending a letter in Denmark is also a contributing factor behind its decline. In 2024, a new law opened up the postal market to private competition and took away its exemption from the country's 25% rate of VAT, so the price of a PostNord stamp jumped to 29 Danish krone ($4.55) per letter. "That made [volumes] drop even further faster," Mr Pedersen points out. The report notes that private firm DAO will take over nationwide letter deliveries in Denmark after PostNord exits. However, concerns remain that elderly citizens and rural residents may struggle with fewer post boxes and reduced service quality. Both the advocacy group DaneAge and the 3F Postal Union warn the transition could disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.

In a pair of class actions filed this week, passengers from each coast quibbled with United Airlines and Delta Air Lines' policies charging extra for window seats that are not actually beside windows, instead offering a view of a blank aircraft wall. From a report: "Delta indicated to the plaintiff and class members that the particular seats they chose had a 'window'; even though Delta knew full well they did not," the plaintiffs taking on Delta said in an 18-page complaint filed in federal court in New York, accusing the airline of false advertising and deceptive business practices.

Half of Delta's fleet of nearly 1,000 aircraft comprises Boeing 737s, Boeing 757s and Airbus A321s -- all of which have at least one wall-adjacent seat with no window, according to the plaintiffs. It's where vertical air conditioning riser ducts are located, making putting a window there impossible, the competing Alaska Airlines explains on its website. But unlike Alaska and others, the plaintiffs complain, Delta advertises the seats as having a window, offering them as a "window seat" option on its seat map during checkout.

Kyte, a rental car startup once touted as a modern alternative to Hertz, has shut down after years of rapid growth followed by mounting financial troubles. From a report: Founded in 2017, the San Francisco company built its brand by delivering rental cars directly to customers' doors, eliminating the paperwork and long waits of traditional counters. At its peak, Kyte operated in 14 U.S. cities, managed a fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles and raised nearly $300 million from backers including Goldman Sachs and Ares Management.

14 months ago a jury ruled against Boeing, awarding $81 million in damages to failed electric airplane startup Zunum. "Zunum alleged that Boeing, while ostensibly investing seed money to get the startup off the ground, stole Zunum's technology and actively undermined its attempts to build a business," the Seattle Times reported at the time.

But two months later that verdict was overturned, Reuters reports, with U.S. District Judge James Robart deciding that Zunum "did not adequately identify its secrets or show that they derived their value from being kept secret."

And then three days ago a U.S. appeals court reinstated the original $81 million award, reversing that district judge's decision and "rejecting his finding that the information Boeing allegedly stole was not entitled to trade-secret protection." [T]he district court erred in concluding that "Zunum failed to identify any of its alleged trade secrets with sufficient particularity"... Here, the court rejected Zunum's repeated attempts to introduce comprehensive trade secret definitions into evidence and instead provided the jury with a court-created exhibit enumerating Zunum's alleged trade secrets with a short description of each. Zunum's witnesses identified the trade secrets by number, provided a basic explanation of each, and used exhibits and demonstratives to exemplify information comprising specific trade secrets.
"internal Boeing communications introduced at trial suggesting that Boeing intended to modify its own in-house designs, methods, and strategies to incorporate information from certain Zunum trade secrets..." according to the new ruling. "Under the parties' agreement, Boeing was not permitted to use Zunum's confidential information for any reason other than to manage its investment in Zunum."

Reuters adds that "A spokesperson for Boeing declined to comment on the appeals court's decision"

One final note: The appeals court also ordered the case to be assigned to a new judge after Robart revealed that his wife had acquired Boeing stock through a retirement savings account during the litigation.
Judge Robart had called that an "error". (And judicial ethics experts interviewed by Business Insider in 2024 "characterized Robart's trades and delayed disclosure to the parties as a minor issue," they reported Thursday.)

But Thursday's ruling notes that the delayed disclosure "taken together with the district court's consistent rulings in Boeing's favor during and after trial, could give an objective observer reason to question the district judge's impartiality in further proceedings."

EV sales are up 27% for the first seven months of 2025 — for the world. But in America "For the first half of 2025, EV registrations rose 7% to 620,642, with market share inching up just 0.1 percentage point to 7.5 percent," reports Automotive News.

America's new EV registrations were up 4.6% in June (compared to June of 2024), "But EV market share fell for the month and stayed flat for the first half of the year, according to the most recent S&P Global Mobility data." June's 113,460 EV registrations represented 8.6% of U.S. light-vehicle market share, down from 8.8% a year earlier... The data, which serves as a sales proxy since some EV makers don't report U.S. numbers, shows continued flattening of EV market share ahead of the Sept. 30 repeal of the $7,500 federal tax credit.

The S&P Global Mobility numbers include only battery-electric vehicles and not hybrids.
In June Tesla led with 57,260 registrations — more than 6x its next competitor. (Although Tesla's share of the EV segment dropped 6.8% to 43.7 percent in the first half of 2025).

Ranking #2 in June registrations was Chevrolet with 9,517 — a 152% gain over Chevrolet's June 2024 registrations. (Pointing out that the Chevy Equinox EV starts at under $35,000, Electrek writes that "America's most affordable EV with over 315 miles of range, as GM calls it, is quickly winning over buyers.") Automotive News reports Equinox EV registrations surged 722% to 6,239 in June, with Chevy's share of the EV segment more than doubling to 7.7%.

Chevy pulled ahead of Ford (5,759 registrations), Hyundai (5,227 registrations), Rivian (4,613 registrations) and Cadillac (4,121 registrations). Although maybe it's just as interesting that the complete chart shows electric vehicle registrations for 33 different automakers...

From the French newspaper Le Monde: Odorless, quiet, sustainable. On the last day of July, passengers boarded Barcelona's V3 bus line with no idea where its fuel came from. Written in large letters on the bus facade, just below its name "Nimbus," a sign clearly stated: "This bus runs on biomethane produced from eco-factory sludge." Still, the explanation was likely too vague for most to grasp its full meaning. The moist matter from wastewater treated at the Baix Llobregat treatment plant was used to produce the biomethane. In other words: the human waste of more than 1.5 million residents of the Catalan city.

Slashdot reader darwinmac writes: Volkswagen is offering a subscription model for extra horsepower on its ID.3 electric cars. Want to bump your ride from the standard 201 bhp to the full 228 bhp? That will be about £16.50 per month or £165 per year, or a one-time £649 "lifetime" fee that is tied to the car, not you. If you sell it, you have to pay again.

VW defended this to the BBC by saying you are basically paying for a sportier experience without buying a higher powered model upfront, calling it "nothing new." Nothing changes mechanically. You are just paying VW to essentially flip a boolean somewhere in the car's software.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CleanTechnica: In a sharp rebuke to the anti-electrification agenda in the US, global EV sales are up 27% over last year, with some legacy automakers -- but not all -- indicating the potential for a successful transition to electric mobility. CleanTechnica has spilled much ink on the pace of plug-in hybrid and full EV adoption, and the latest report from the UK firm Rho Motion (a branch of the price reporting agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence) adds some fresh insights.

Covering the first seven months of 2025, earlier today Rho Motion totaled up more than 10.7 million EVs sold for a "robust" 27% increase over the same period last year, with China leading the pack by a wide margin. Europe also contributed to the overall robustness. Germany and the UK racked up impressive gains and Italy also turning in a mentionable performance. "The European EV market has grown by 30% year-to-date, with strong momentum in both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), up 30% and 32% respectively," Rho Motion summarized.

"In contrast, North America's growth has been muted so far in 2025, with the US facing policy headwinds and Canada seeing a slowdown," Rho Motion Data Manager Charles Lester observed. "We expect a short-term lift in US demand ahead of the IRA consumer tax credit deadline in September, followed by a likely dip," Lester added. That short-term lift won't help North America catch up to Europe [...] Rho Motion's EV sales snapshot shows the recent gains:

Global: 10.7 million, +27%
China: 6.5 million, +29%
Europe: 2.3 million, +30%
North America: 1.0 million, +2%
Rest of World: 0.9 million, +42%

Twenty years after Michelin introduced the Tweel in 2005, airless tires remain absent from passenger vehicles despite their promise to "eliminate nearly 200 million scrap tires a year caused by flats and underinflation," according to Michelin's internal testing cited in a Jalopnik report. Current prototypes "tend to transfer more road noise and vibration into the cabin than traditional radials -- making the ride harsher, especially at highway speeds." Heat dissipation poses additional challenges as "airless designs -- particularly those with internal webbing or solid cores -- have fewer ways to shed thermal load." The added structural mass "can affect fuel economy and increase unsprung weight -- bad news for handling and suspension tuning." Federal regulations compound these technical barriers since vehicle tires are subject to rigorous performance standards, many of which assume air pressure as a baseline.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [O]ver in the UK, a single-motor version of the Polestar 3 just set a world record for the farthest drive in an electric car on a single charge. Three "professional efficiency drivers," Sam Clarke, Kevin Booker, and Richard Parker, drove 581.3 miles (935.4 km), taking 22 hours and 57 minutes to complete the task. That's an efficiency of 5.1 miles/kWh (12.1 kWh/100 km) -- more than 40 percent better than I saw in day-to-day driving in the twin-motor version.

"We are very proud to say we have a world record holder in the Polestar family! This official Guinness World Record for range is another proof point that Polestar 3 is setting new standards. We will continue to push the boundaries of technology and electric performance," said Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO. The report notes that the Polestar 3 was "entirely standard, on stock tires," and averaged a speed of less than 25 mph (40 km/h).

Spirit Airlines has warned investors that it may go out of business, just months after exiting bankruptcy. From a report: In a quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, it said there was "substantial doubt" over its "ability to continue as a going concern within 12 months." The budget airline said it was harder to make money because of weak demand for domestic leisure travel and "elevated domestic capacity," meaning increased competition on such routes. Spirit reported a net loss of $245.8 million for the second quarter of 2025, up from a $192.9 million loss for the second quarter of 2024.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Seeking Alpha: General Motors is reviving its autonomous driving program, tapping former Cruise employees to help design a driverless car for consumers. Under the helm of former Tesla autopilot head Sterling Anderson, GM is moving ahead with a driverless, eyes-free, vehicle with the ultimate goal of developing a car without a person at the wheel, according to a meeting between Anderson and employees revealed to Bloomberg. Anderson reportedly said plans include rehiring Cruise employees, and adding staff at GM's Mountain View, California office.

Currently, LiDAR-equipped vehicles are collecting data on public roads for the development of GM's driverless vehicles, GM spokesperson Chaiti Sen told Bloomberg, with the goal of building simulation models that will guide development. GM (GM) shuttered its majority-owned, money-losing, Cruise robotaxi business late last year and let go of ~1,000 Cruise employees, after a pedestrian accident led to the grounding of its entire fleet and regulatory scrutiny. At the time, the company said it was pivoting away from robotaxis to the development of hands-free driving for personal vehicles.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Detroit Free Press: Ford is announcing the creation of a new electric vehicle production system and a new EV platform that will allow the automaker to more efficiently bring several lower-cost EVs to market, the first of which will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup that seats five, to launch in 2027. That pickup, which is expected to start around $30,000, will be assembled at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant for U.S. and export markets. The Dearborn-based automaker said it will invest $2 billion to retool the Louisville plant starting later this year. [...] Ford's investment in Louisville Assembly is in addition to Ford's previously announced $3 billion commitment for BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan, where Ford will make the prismatic LFP batteries, starting next year, for the midsize electric pickup. Together, the nearly $5 billion investments mean Ford expects to create or secure nearly 4,000 direct jobs while strengthening the domestic supply chain with dozens of new U.S.-based suppliers.

Ford executives and Kentucky officials also introduced on Monday, Aug. 11, the new Ford Universal EV Production System, which they said will simplify production and ease operations for workers. Ford leaders also announced the creation of the Ford Universal Electric Vehicle Platform, which will enable the development of "a family of affordable electric vehicles produced at scale." The vehicles will be software-defined with over-the-air updates to keep improving the vehicles over time. "We took a radical approach to solve a very hard challenge: Create affordable vehicles that are breakthrough in every way that matters design, technology, performance, space and cost of ownership and do it with American workers," Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. "Nobody wants to see another good college try by a Detroit automaker to make an affordable vehicle that ends up with idled plants, layoffs and uncertainty."

Farley has teased this announcement since Ford's second-quarter earnings when he said Ford would have a "Model-T moment" on Aug. 11. He's referring to the classic vehicle that helped turn Ford into a mass market automaker and perfect the assembly line process. At that time, Farley said it was critical that Ford unveil an EV strategy that would position it to make money selling the electric cars and effectively compete against the Chinese, who are known for making high-quality, desirable and affordable EVs. "So, this has to be a good business," Farley said of Ford's investments in the new process and platform. "From Day 1, we knew there was no incremental path to success. We empowered a tiny skunkworks team three time zones away from Detroit. We reinvented the line. And we are on a path to be the first automaker to make prismatic LFP batteries in the U.S. We will not rely on imports." Ford says its new Universal Electric Vehicle Platform "reduces parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and 15% faster assembly time." The new EV pickup built using this platform is targeting a "starting MSRP at about $30,000, roughly the same as the Model T when adjusted for inflation," adds Farley.

He shared additional details in an interview with Wired, such as how the automaker hired Tesla veterans Doug Field (who also helped lead Apple's now-defunct EV project) and Alan Clarke. "Turns out, Doug and Alan and the team built a propulsion system that was like Apollo 13, managed down to the watt so that our battery could be so much smaller than BYD's," said Farley.

Imagine this. Lightning sparks a wildfire, but "within seconds, a satellite dish swirling overhead picks up on the anomaly and triggers an alarm," writes the Los Angeles Times. "An autonomous helicopter takes flight and zooms toward the fire, using sensors to locate the blaze and AI to generate a plan of attack. It measures the wind speed and fire movement, communicating constantly with the unmanned helicopter behind it, and the one behind that. Once over the site, it drops a load of water and soon the flames are smoldering. Without deploying a single human, the fire never grows larger than 10 square feet.

"This is the future of firefighting." On a recent morning in San Bernardino, state and local fire experts gathered for a demonstration of the early iterations of this new reality. An autonomous Sikorski Black Hawk helicopter, powered by technology from Lockheed Martin and a California-based software company called Rain, is on display on the tarmac of a logistics airport in Victorville — the word "EXPERIMENTAL" painted on its military green-black door. It's one of many new tools on the front lines of firefighting technology, which experts say is evolving rapidly as private industry and government agencies come face-to-face with a worsening global climate crisis...

Scientific studies and climate research models have found that the number of extreme fires could increase by as much as 30% globally by 2050. By 2100, California alone could see a 50% increase in wildfire frequency and a 77% increase in average annual acres burned, according to the state's most recent climate report. That's largely because human-caused climate change is driving up temperatures and drying out the landscape, priming it to burn, according to Kate Dargan Marquis, a senior advisor with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation who served as California's state fire marshal from 2007 to 2010.... "[T]he policies of today and the technologies of today are not going to serve us tomorrow."

Today, more than 1,100 mountaintop cameras positioned across California are already using artificial intelligence to scan the landscape for the first sign of flames and prompt crews to spring into action. NASA's Earth-observing satellites are studying landscape conditions to help better predict fires before they ignite, while a new global satellite constellation recently launched by Google is helping to detect fires faster than ever before.
One 35-year fire service veteran who consults on fire service technologies even predicts fire-fighting robots will also be used in high-risk situations like the Colossus robot that battled flames searing through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris...

And a bill moving through California's legislation "would direct the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a pilot program to assess the viability of incorporating autonomous firefighting helicopters in the state."

"General Motors claimed a new world record for EV driving on a single charge," reports the Verge, "after a Chevy Silverado EV traveled 1,059.2 miles without recharging its battery." The potentially record-breaking run took place over seven days on public roads near GM's Milford Proving Ground and Detroit's Belle Isle "using smart driving techniques" that included limiting the speed to 20-25 mph. The truck was a 2026 Chevy Silverado EV Work Truck with an EPA-estimated range of 493 miles. But by making a number of adjustments, GM's engineers were able to far surpass the vehicle's estimated range...

First of all, the test was conducted in the summer for "optimum ambient temperature for battery efficiency," GM says. They also lowered the windshield wiper blades to reduce drag, inflated the tires to the highest acceptable pressure for lower rolling resistance, removed the spare tire to lighten the load, and optimized the wheel alignment. A tonneau cover was added to the truck bed for smoother airflow, and climate control was turned off for the duration of the test.
GM isn't seeking the Guinness World Records, the article adds, with a GM spokesperson calling it "a passion project led and executed by GM engineers." (The test "started out as casual conversation among a group of GM engineers in late 2024," GM says, but "quickly turned into a challenge: How far could the Work Truck go if we optimized absolutely everything?")

After the test, reports Motor Trend, "The dead truck was hauled back to Milford, its battery was topped up, and the energy used to power a Stratasys F370 3D printer, which spent 6.5 hours printing an ABS plastic trophy to commemorate the auspicious event."

Ancient Slashdot reader Epeeist shares a report from The Guardian: The newest version of the maglev train is capable of traveling at 600km/h (about 370mph). However, the train's engineers have wrestled with the problem of the shock waves which occur as the train exits the mouth of a tunnel. When a high-speed train enters an enclosed space such as a tunnel, air in front is compressed, like in a piston. The resulting fluctuations in air pressure coalesce at the tunnel mouth, generating low-frequency shock waves. These are colloquially known as a "tunnel boom" -- a related, albeit different phenomenon to the "sonic boom" heard as aircraft pass the speed of sound. Tunnel booms pose serious challenges to operational safety, as the shock waves can disturb humans and animals nearby, as well as causing structural damage.

Now, however, researchers have discovered that placing innovative soundproofing buffers at tunnel mouths can reduce shock waves by up to 96%. This promises improvements in operational safety, noise pollution and passenger comfort, as well as safeguarding animals in the vicinity of future lines. [...] The porous structure of the new 100-meter long buffers, combined with porous coatings on the tunnel body, allow the trapped air to escape before the train reaches the tunnel mouth, suppressing the boom in the same way as a silencer fitted to a firearm.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: China's automakers have teamed up with software companies togo global with their driverless cars, which are poised to claim a big share of a growing market as Western manufacturers are still preparing to compete. The industry in China is expanding despite tariffs imposed last year by the European Union on electric cars, and despite some worries in Europe about the security implications of relying on Chinese suppliers. Baidu, one of China's biggest software companies, said on Monday that it would supply Lyft, an American ride-hailing service, with self-driving cars assembled by Jiangling Motors of China (source paywalled; alternative source). Lyft is expected to begin operating them next year in Germany and Britain, subject to regulatory approval, the companies said.

The announcement comes three months after Uber and Momenta, a Chinese autonomous driving company, announced their own plans to begin offering self-driving cars in an unspecified European city early next year. Momenta will soon provide assisted driving technology to the Chinese company IM Motors for its cars sold in Britain. While Momenta has not specified the model that Uber will be using, it has already signaled it will choose a Chinese model. In China, "the pace of development and the pressure to deliver at scale push companies to improve quickly," said Gerhard Steiger, the chairman of Momenta Europe. China's state-controlled banking system has been lending money at low interest rates to the country's electric car industry in a bid for global leadership. [...]

Expanding robotaxi services to new cities, not to mention new countries, is not easy. While the individual cars do not have drivers, they typically require one controller for every several cars to handle difficulties and answer questions from users. And the cars often need to be specially programmed for traffic conditions unique to each city. Lyft and Baidu nonetheless said that they had plans for "the fleet scaling to thousands of vehicles across Europe in the following years."

The U.S. Transportation Department is proposing new rules to speed deployment of drones beyond the visual line of sight of operators, a key change needed to advance commercial uses like package deliveries. From a report: "We are going to unleash American drone dominance," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Under current rules, operators need to get individual waivers or exemptions to use drones without visual line of sight. The department said eliminating those requirements "will significantly expand the use-case for drone technologies in areas like: manufacturing, farming, energy production, filmmaking, and the movement of products including lifesaving medications."

The proposal includes new requirements for manufacturers, operators, and drone traffic-management services to keep drones safely separated from other drones and airplanes. "It's going to change the way that people and products move throughout our airspace... so you may change the way you get your Amazon package, you may get a Starbucks cup of coffee from a drone," Duffy said.