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Transportation Businesses Robotics

Domino's Will Deliver Pizza By Drone and By Robot (roboticstrends.com) 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the transporting-tomato-sauce dept.
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes CNN Money's report that "pizzas will soon be dropping from the heavens": Domino's demonstrated its ability to deliver food via a drone Thursday in New Zealand and plans to test actual deliveries to customers next month. "It doesn't add up to deliver a two kilogram package in a two-ton vehicle," said Scott Bush, a general manager for Domino's Pizza Enterprises, which is independent of the U.S. chain and operates in seven countries. "In Auckland, we have such massive traffic congestion it just makes sense to take to the airways."

A Domino's customer who requests a drone delivery will receive a notification when their delivery is approaching. After going outside and hitting a button on their smartphone, the drone will lower the food via a tether. Once the package is released, the drone pulls the tether back up and flies back to the Domino's store.
Robotics Trends has video from the flight, and reports that Domino's is also testing a pizza-delivering robot. Their Domino's Robotics Unit "has four wheels, is less than three feet tall, and has a heated compartment that can hold up to 10 pizzas. It can deliver pizzas within a 12.5-mile radius before needing to be recharged."
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Domino's Will Deliver Pizza By Drone and By Robot More

Domino's Will Deliver Pizza By Drone and By Robot

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  • cold pizza (Score:3, Funny)

    by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @05:37PM (#52782563) Homepage Journal

    Just what we need - pizzas delivered under a nice cooling fan! Did Dominoes decide their pizzas didn't suck enough - that they had to lower the bar further in their race against Pizza Hut for bragging rights for the "worst pizza ever?"

    • They have this new invention... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Its called the 'hot bag' and its made for pizza to go inside and be kept warm.

      Delivery bag[edit]
      Bags used to keep pizza hot while being transported are commonly referred to as hotbags[16] or hot bags.[17] Hotbags are thermal bags, typically made of vinyl, nylon, or Cordura, that passively retain heat.[16] Material choice affects cost, durability, and condensation.[16] Heated bags supply added heat through insertion of externally heated disks, electrical heating elements, or pellets heated by induction from

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      Keep the drone, throw the pizza in the garbage.

  • new crime wave

  • It'll take'em a while to get it fully regulated and perfected, but the future is coming. Gone are the days of the high school student with a new license making a buck where a drone can do it cheaper. :|

    • Making a buck? Those days have been gone for a long time. Odds are you'll spend more in mileage, maintenance, and fuel on your vehicle than you'll make on today's slave wages.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by afgam28 ( 48611 )

        +1. Many years ago my brother worked as a pizza delivery driver for a bit of extra income. We sat down and worked out the expenses, and found out he was basically breaking even. Most people have no idea how expensive it is to operate a car. I suspect Uber and Lyft drivers are in the same boat.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jrumney ( 197329 )
          No need to just suspect. There must be a very good reason why licensed taxi drivers can not just lower their prices to compete (and not just in places like NY where they pay ridiculous amounts for their medallion). Most budding Uber drivers will only consider immediate costs when calculating whether they can make a profit from the job. The cost of wear and tear and rapid depreciation of their vehicle is not factoring into their calculations.
  • Will the drones expect a gratuity?

    • Nope, and missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Saturday August 27, 2016 @06:49PM (#52782843) Homepage Journal

      I know you are going for funny point mods, but the real advantage here to Dominos is that NO gratuity is expected at all. If the price is the same then they will sell far more pizzas as people won't have to worry about tipping enough, or being dressed well enough to greet a stranger at the door, or have the front living room clean enough as said pizza person casually stares past you as you fumble for your wallet. Just talking to a stranger is a task for some socially awkward people. It will be perceived as safer also. No one casing your home as they deliver pizza. When you factor in the energy and gas savings and once it is perfected I bet the per mile cost is 1/10th the amount with a delivery person.

      Yes jobs will be lost. Drudge jobs we as a society shouldn't be expecting people to live by. As for students, their time is better spent studying than trying to pick a few extra bucks, because like it or not, the no skill jobs are going away. Even many skilled jobs are in peril. This will be an awkward 10-50 years as we learn to adapt society to a not-everyone-has-to-work society. Corny as Star Trek's 'we work to better ourselves' slogan is, the only non-dystopian future will have to be this way -- where you are not compensated for the work you provide, but by how well you prove you are constantly learning and helping society as a whole, and yes for same that will be a regular job kind of work, but for most it will be community service and continuing education.

      • Re:Nope, and missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

        by RichPowers ( 998637 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @08:57PM (#52783271)

        You're absolutely correct. Bemoaning the loss of these "jobs" is like fretting that indoor plumbing will put the "night soil" collection crew out of business. Inane busywork is not a particularly lofty goal for any wise civilization.

        Besides, think about how preposterous and decadent pizza delivery is: you pay someone $X/hour to deliver a 1 lb package in a vehicle that weighs ~3000 pounds and is powered by oil, a finite resource that took literally millions of years for nature to create. In Critical Path, Bucky Fuller argued that one gallon of gasoline should really cost $1 million, given the time and energy (solar, geothermal) required to create petroleum [1].

        Entrepreneurship is about discovering and eliminating inefficiencies in the economy's production structure as much as creating or inventing Shiny New Things. In fact, efficiency improvements are paramount if we want to support 7+ billion human beings on this planet.

        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • Bucky Fuller is an idiot.There is no way a gallon of gasoline could be valued at $1 million. You can sell something only at the price someone is willing to buy it. It has nothing to do with the production costs. However, to make a profit, your production cost must be lower than your selling cost. There is no one to pay for the time and energy it costs to create petroleum, no one can pretend to ask someone to pay that cost.

          • ... However, to make a profit, your production cost must be lower than your selling cost. There is no one to pay for the time and energy it costs to create petroleum, no one can pretend to ask someone to pay that cost.

            Sure there is.

            You are taking a finite resource that is part of the natural features of the land. While you may "own" the land, that only applies to permission to use the surface for improvement; it does not automatically include taking resources out of the ground.

            Since we already have laws on the books that mandate considering the public and use of the land (it starts with the EPA, which lists something like 13 different specific areas), it is well within reason for the government to say that there is a co

      • IMO tipping in its current form should be outlawed thereby making restaurant operators pay their help at least the state mandated minimum wage. Sure the cost of going out to eat will rise to make up for it but really you're already paying those prices anyway because of tipping but at least food workers will be earning a consistent living.

        As far as the pizza industry is concerned; they absolutely prey on their help. My mom used to work for Papa John's for several years and then Dominoes for a few years, most

      • I'm not really sure what a pizza delivery person does that he/she deserves gratuity for. Because they found their way from the restaurant to your house? In the last restaurant I had with a server, they were able to drive successfully to the restaurant to work their shift but I didn't factor that into their tip.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          A tip isn't for good service anymore, restaurants wanted to save money on labor and expect customers to "voluntarily" make up the difference. Nowadays a tip is what helps prevents your server or delivery driver from adding their own secret special sauce while your food is in transit.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          Tips build goodwill.

          I get my pizza as the first delivery from the shop, before they go on to deliver the other pizzas in the car.
          I don't get battered pizzas.
          I get delivery on days they have no delivery staff.
          I didn't pay extra the time I ordered a pizza, fell unconscious, woke up, rang to ask where my pizza was, found out it was three hours later, and had a new one made and delivered to me.

          It's the little things. They add up. Anyway, pizza, garlic bread and a tip still come to less than Dominos charge for a

      • You know what else delivers its payload with a tether, then flies away?

        For the answer, watch Seven Minutes of Terror [youtube.com] -- the best video ever produced by the U.S. Government.

  • Robot knocks on the door. People open it up with surprise. Then the robot says in Dr Sbiatso voice,"Give me your money human." Sleep(3000 milliseconds) "I have your pizza."

  • The REAL reason for the drone delivery... (Score:5, Informative)

    by richrz ( 1624799 ) on Saturday August 27, 2016 @07:00PM (#52782881)
    This drone program has now generated more PR/advertising than its cost x 100.

  • Now I just need a housecleaning robot who can get the pizza and feed the slices to me. Then I will never need to move again.

    Before a kibitzer responds I missed something, re-read my title.

  • So if I'm in an apartment building I'm going to have to go down to the entrance of the building to meet the drone instead of ringing in the delivery person to bring the pizza up. How convenient.

  • The day a pizza shows up by robot is when I decline the pizza. These jobs are meant for teens or college kids to make extra money. Looks like I stop ordering from Domino's.

  • 'Murica, land of simple, elegant solutions... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phozz bare ( 720522 ) on Sunday August 28, 2016 @02:55AM (#52784063)

    "It doesn't add up to deliver a two kilogram package in a two-ton vehicle"... yes, that's why the rest of the world uses motor scooters for pizza deliveries.

  • The real winners here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Sunday August 28, 2016 @04:17AM (#52784295)
    Are the seagulls. They already attack drones and now they can claim pizza as their reward when they do. I bet it doesn't require much for a bird to tip a drone and send it crashing to the ground.

    Aside from that it seems like a fundamentally expensive and risk laden application of technology. Is it going to be able to deliver at night, or in heavy rain / wind, or to urban buildings like apartments, or be able to detect wires, poles, trees that surround where most people live? Will pizza places have drone pads out front? Will staff be expected to charge / service these drones, and deal with whatever griefing / damage / vandalism they receive? Heaps of issues that it would be necessary to solve when the problem is already solved.

  • I'll send one of the girls to block its path until the 30 minute limit is up, can it read the clock?

  • What do they use to deliver pizza? A SUV? Here in good old Europe(tm) they use bicycles, ebikes and scooters to deliver pizza. This has the additional advantage that I do not need to run X stairs down to the street, pick up the pizza and get back up to my flat. All that before someone else takes the pizza.

  • Can you imagine how people are going to react when they see one of these delivery robots rolling down the sidewalk?
    "Hey look! Free pizza!"
  • This could mean the end of all those other delivery methods that do away with the inefficient driver/vehicle approach, such as rocket mail [wikipedia.org]
  • Maybe the writers of the Terminator series need to reevaluate how Skynet was formed.

    Instead of a virus or a webpage [google.com]: Skynet started when disgruntled Domino's Pizza bots got sick of hearing customer complaints and crappy tips.

  • I suppose if I actually ate this garbage I'd stop in order to protest the loss of jobs. At the very least I'd want to know how much less a pizza would me cost now due to the reduced labor costs and make a decision based on that.

  • Rabbit turd meat in a jiffy.

  • Will it fly in the rain? Snow? What about winds? Can I order one before a storm is about to hit?

  • If pornographic movies have taught me something, it's that the pizza is NOT the relevant part of "pizza delivery man"...

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