Uber's Plan To Deliver McDonald's Hamburgers By Drone (dailyherald.com) 111
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
The company's new initiative -- a collaborative effort between its Uber Eats and Uber Elevate divisions -- began with tests in San Diego using fast food meals from McDonald's, but could expand to include a local fine-dining restaurant called Juniper and Ivy, the company said. Uber intends to roll out commercial food delivery using drones in the same city this summer, with a fee structure that mimics Uber Eats current pricing, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, which first reported the company's plan...
"We've been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we're meeting requirements and prioritizing safety," Uber Elevate's Luke Fischer, the company's head of flight operations, said in a statement. "From there, our goal is to expand Uber Eats drone delivery so we can provide more options to more people at the tap of a button. We believe that Uber is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge as we're able to leverage the Uber Eats network of restaurant partners and delivery partners as well as the aviation experience and technology of Uber Elevate."
How will Uber's drone delivery service work? After a restaurant loads a meal into a drone and the robot takes to the air, the company's technology will notify a nearby Uber Eats driver at a designated drop-off location, the company said. The driver will pick up and hand deliver the meal to the customer the same way the service currently operates. But in the future, Uber said, the company would like to land drones atop parked vehicles near delivery locations "through QR code correspondence." Once that happens, the last-mile leg of delivery would be completed by the Uber Eats driver who would hand-deliver the order.
"We've been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we're meeting requirements and prioritizing safety," Uber Elevate's Luke Fischer, the company's head of flight operations, said in a statement. "From there, our goal is to expand Uber Eats drone delivery so we can provide more options to more people at the tap of a button. We believe that Uber is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge as we're able to leverage the Uber Eats network of restaurant partners and delivery partners as well as the aviation experience and technology of Uber Elevate."
How will Uber's drone delivery service work? After a restaurant loads a meal into a drone and the robot takes to the air, the company's technology will notify a nearby Uber Eats driver at a designated drop-off location, the company said. The driver will pick up and hand deliver the meal to the customer the same way the service currently operates. But in the future, Uber said, the company would like to land drones atop parked vehicles near delivery locations "through QR code correspondence." Once that happens, the last-mile leg of delivery would be completed by the Uber Eats driver who would hand-deliver the order.
Re:How much does it cost? $25 for a burger? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the thing I don't get either. We use food delivery services(not Uber), particularly and it makes some sense for certain restaurants - but Mickey Dees? Apart from the fact it's shit in a wrapper, how can anyone possibly profit on flying cardboard food around? I've even seen 7-11's on the list so I can pay someone to send me slurpees? No business sense at all.
Re:How much does it cost? $25 for a burger? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uber's business model:
1. Find new fad.
2. Get VC funding.
3. Realize it's really hard/impossible.
4. GOTO 1
Remember their self driving cars? It's like that.
Re: How much does it cost? $25 for a burger? (Score:2)
But duuuuuude, it's like, flying robots! Bringing me a shitburger! With an app!!
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Remember their self driving cars? It's like that.
Except it's nothing like that at all. Self driving cards is physically difficult to design and implement but has a GINORMOUS profit potential. Taking a product that is incredibly poor quality, has very little profit margin on it, is already available ubiquitously, and then adding the overhead of a delivery services is not hard or impossible, it just outright doesn't make business sense in any form.
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Wow. A cold burger and fries. How appealing.
How is that any different from the quality you get when you place an order in person?
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"Is it like pizza delivery, where the pizza itself costs like $10, but after taxes and delivery fees and tips it's closer to $25 in total?"
When you see it coming, you switch on the jammer until the 'free after 30 minutes' limit is reached.
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Not "human degeneration". It is only a certain part of humanity that is degenerate.
All hail the Profit Motive.
gee that's innovation! (Score:2)
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Uber is adding so much to our culture!
Uber is adding so much to our financial industry!
"Uber's Plan To Deliver Debt to Investors By Drone"
Re: gee that's innovation! (Score:2)
How else are the investor class going to spend all that free public money Bushbama gave them?
Why do Millennials inject so much complexity? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do Millennials inject so much complexity into everything they're involved with?
Look at software UIs. The ones created by the Greatest Generation, the Boomers, and Gen X were simple and easy to use. Then Millennials started working on them and we got the awkward, complex, horrible UIs like that of Firefox and GNOME 3.
This delivery approach is another example. Other generations would just go get the food themselves. But instead of doing that, Millennials need to involve a flying robot and a third worlder on a bike! It's almost comical when you think about it.
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The older generations also didn't build spyware into every single thing they made. TVs. Cars. Refrigerators. Whatever.
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Ditto. They could have simple and advanced UIs for users.
Re: Why do Millennials inject so much complexity? (Score:2)
A truly well thought out simple UI is the best. But making one is very, very hard. Probably impossible in a company that imposes the AGILE(tm)!!!!1!! mismanagement regime on its workers.
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Why do Millennials inject so much complexity into everything they're involved with?
Look at software UIs. The ones created by the Greatest Generation, the Boomers, and Gen X were simple and easy to use. Then Millennials started working on them and we got the awkward, complex, horrible UIs like that of Firefox and GNOME 3.
This delivery approach is another example. Other generations would just go get the food themselves. But instead of doing that, Millennials need to involve a flying robot and a third worlder on a bike! It's almost comical when you think about it.
Meh, this Millennial doesn't even like paying a delivery driver to bring me pizza... the proposed service isn't for me.
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Someone probably said the same thing when pizza delivery was new. This is actually an extremely obvious improvement - replace an expensive an inefficient human delivery system with a robot. Drones are easier than self-driving cars in this application.
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You don't consider the third worlder on a bicycle who takes the food from the drone's drop off spot to the customer to be a human?
Third worlder, college student, or failed programmer, they're still human. But there's less human involvement with the journey overall. They don't have to go to assorted restaurants to make pickups, the food comes to a central location and then they deliver it. This can enable multi-restaurant orders.
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This can enable multi-restaurant orders.
That's assuming a level of coordination among the restaurants that isn't going to happen in the real world. This leaves the Uber driver idling waiting for the food that's lagging and/or the food that arrived first getting cold.
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This is actually an extremely obvious improvement - replace an expensive an inefficient human delivery system with a robot.
They're not replacing anything -- TFA says they're just dividing the delivery route into two legs: one by drone, and the second by the same old human driver:
How will Uber's drone delivery service work? After a restaurant loads a meal into a drone and the robot takes to the air, the company's technology will notify a nearby Uber Eats driver at a designated drop-off location, the company said. The driver will pick up and hand deliver the meal to the customer the same way the service currently operates.
You may be able to make a case that net overhead goes down with this scheme, but it seems like you have to sharpen your pencil considerably to do that. Apparently you also need to factor in the cost/loss of use of the real estate that's now a drone pad/Uber parking zone.
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Well... Should have RTFA.
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Look at software UIs. The ones created by the Greatest Generation,
The software UI the greatest generation gave us was front panel switches and blinkenlights.
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If you'd ever used a PDP-8 you'd be realise that they definitely thought about ergonomics when laying out the front panel switches. But generalising based on generations is stupid - which generation brought us fatal UI failures like THERAC-25?
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awkward, complex,
I'm not sure you know what those words mean.
*looks at the separate search bar in old Firefox*
*look at the magic bars which do everything in new Firefox*
Other generations would just go get the food themselves.
That is complete and utter horseshit and the delivery model has been around since making food for other people were a thing. But just like with your other examples all that has happened here is that someone took an existing concept (perhaps created by a boomer or a GenX, maybe even earlier) and expanded it, made it more ubiquitous, faster, and orders of magn
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Noise (Score:1)
One of the things that I dislike about Manhattan is all the noise. I wonder how much noise drones will add.
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One of the things that I dislike about Manhattan is all the noise. I wonder how much noise drones will add.
Small delivery drones? Nothing worth mentioning. Air taxis, on the other hand... Still, if I were running air taxis around NY, I would only permit them to land on the tops of buildings anyway, and then you still won't hear them. Or at least, the multicopters they will use will be quieter than singlecopters.
Re: yuck (Score:2, Interesting)
We don't go to McDonald's for the burgers. We go for the fries, which are impossible to imitate at home. The burger is basically a condiment for the fries, to add some variety to the meal. The fries are the true heart of McDonald's meals.
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I don't get it either. Before the saturated fat scare, McDonalds did indeed have great fries. Now, they have terrible ones. Actually, damned near everywhere has terrible fries, now, except actual restaurants, and most of them have lousy fries too. Most of them are breaded with something (potato starch?) in order to make them crispier, but it gives them an odd texture. The way In and Out makes fries is terrible in every way, but a lot of people seem to like those, too.
Re:yuck (Score:5, Interesting)
these burgers are only "good" for the few minutes after they come out of the kitchen.
This has been bugging me for a while and I am happy that you used scare quotes because I don't consider those burgers good even when they are "fresh" from the kitchen.
But it isn't just McD. Almost any hot foot after being dragged through the air for 15-20 minutes is going to end up cold and soggy. I have heard more about tacos by drone than this but same thing. The delivered "hot" food that survives transit most is pizza and I think that is one reason why it is such a popular delivery item. Chinese food also does pretty well.
But this drone fetish is just dumb. Even if it works -- ESPECIALLY if it works you will start having ordinances banning it due to the noise alone. Then add a few "unfortunate outlier incidents" and it will be pretty much done.
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But this drone fetish is just dumb.
It's entirely about their desperate determination to put people out of work and [collect those paychecks for themselves].
It's actually pretty amusing to watch.
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But it isn't just McD. Almost any hot foot after being dragged through the air for 15-20 minutes is going to end up cold and soggy.
I think you're looking at this backwards. McD is about the only food you can drag through the air for 15-20minutes and it will be just as "good" as it is when it's freshly made.
This is the end. THE END OF EVERYTHING (Score:3)
Just yesterday we had stories posted about how eating fast food is linked to dimentia [medicaldaily.com].
Now we have Uber delivering this world-ending poison directly to homes. This will obviously cause all smart-phone wielding Uber users to go insane, gradually at first, but eventually, totally batshit crazy. Mark my words, this is the end, THE END OF EVERYTHING.
There's no telling what a dementia-addled human will order, to be delivered by Uber, right over our heads. There'll be 'shrooms in the sky, pot brownies, hamsters, and big floppy DILDOS, hanging from drones, flying over my head! THIS IS THE END, THE END OF EVERYTHING!
And cigarettes will be 90% filter. [youtube.com]
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Just yesterday we had stories posted about how eating fast food is linked to dimentia
No need to invoke dementia, McDonalds has already killed more people than Hitler.
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...and big floppy DILDOS, hanging from drones, flying over my head!
And just our of your reach!! (Your poor, unsatisfied asshole...)
Do you want fries with that? (Score:1)
Downtown San Diego is close to the airport (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone who lives in Downtown, I'm actually a bit surprised they'd pick Juniper and Ivy as an allowed restaurant.
For those who aren't familiar, San Diego's airport is pretty much adjacent to downtown and the flightpath is literally under 1000 feet over certain buildings on the approach. It's actually not a pleasant landing for arriving pilots because the tolerances are so low.
If Uber wanted to do some experimentation in San Diego then fine, it's a big region. But it feels odd that the FAA would allow all these drones launching and leaving so close to approaching planes.
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But it feels odd that the FAA would allow all these drones launching and leaving so close to approaching planes.
Fear not; they'll be flying much lower... the height of your throat to be exact.
Remote Pilot in Command? (Score:5, Informative)
The FAA requires commercial UAVs to have a remote pilot in command. This is someone who is watching the aircraft at all times and either controlling or ready to take manual control at any time. None of these schemes are addressing the elephant in the room of the 14 CFR part 107 requirements. They just think they're going to get waivers to cover their delivery area. But as it is today a drone cannot fly in fog or precipitation. Never mind that most aren't powerful enough to handle a decent headwind either. Seems to me the desire for drone delivered dinner would skyrocket when there's a snowstorm.
I took a quick practice flight yesterday evening, hoping to get some pictures of the high water in the river. The swallows were out in force, and they didn't like my drone "invading" their turf at all. How many deliveries will never make it because the drone happened to fly over a nesting pair? Bird strikes are going to happen often. Even with the few drones in the air now they are pretty common, and for sure every remote pilot has a story about birds.
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But as it is today a drone cannot fly in fog or precipitation.
What? Who told you that?
Never mind that most aren't powerful enough to handle a decent headwind either.
They won't use most drones.
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14 CFR part 107.51, Operating limitations for small unmanned aircraft. [ecfr.io]
(d) The minimum distance of the small unmanned aircraft from clouds must be no less than:
(1) 500 feet below the cloud; and
(2) 2,000 feet horizontally from the cloud.
I suppose I was wrong about precipitation, but fog for sure is right out.
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They'll stay pretty high, cruising at 400' until they're ready to land.
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Indeed. I've always been amused that the reason "they" allowed a six story parking structure to be built across the street from the end of the runway at Lindbergh field is that if a plane doesn't clear the parking structure, it'll run into the hill behind it anyway. While presumably true, I found that less than reassuring.
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Never mind that most aren't powerful enough to handle a decent headwind either.
Eventually most of 'em will be hybrids (VTOL with lifting body) and that'll end up a non-issue.
What's That Smell? (Score:3, Insightful)
It smells exactly like guerrilla marketing bullshit.
Pilot proof of concept (Score:1)
Birds of prey (Score:2)
Try flying a Big Mac on a drone here in Austin and watch the flocks of Grackles take it down.