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Businesses Transportation

Uber's Plan To Deliver McDonald's Hamburgers By Drone (dailyherald.com) 111

Posted by EditorDavid from the billions-and-billions-served dept.
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.
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Uber's Plan To Deliver McDonald's Hamburgers By Drone More

Uber's Plan To Deliver McDonald's Hamburgers By Drone

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  • Uber is adding so much to our culture!

  • Why do Millennials inject so much complexity? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16, 2019 @09:58AM (#58771266)

    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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The older generations also didn't build spyware into every single thing they made. TVs. Cars. Refrigerators. Whatever.

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by That YouTube Guy ( 5905468 )
        The older generation had to fill out postcards to get warranty service for every product. TVs. Cars. Refrigerators. Whatever. And some people wondered why they get junk (snail) mail all the time.
    • UIs keep getting dumbed down and options removed in the name of simplicity and user choice. I'd take a good complex and powerful UI over that any day.

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

      • 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.

    • 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        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?

    • 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

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • One of the things that I dislike about Manhattan is all the noise. I wonder how much noise drones will add.

    • 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.

  • This is the end. THE END OF EVERYTHING (Score:3)

    by DanDD ( 1857066 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:27AM (#58771362)

    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]

    /sarc

    • 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.

    • ...and big floppy DILDOS, hanging from drones, flying over my head!

      And just our of your reach!! (Your poor, unsatisfied asshole...)

  • How can I get the drone to fly over the beach? I like salt on my fries.

  • Downtown San Diego is close to the airport (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:51AM (#58771446) Homepage

    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.

    • Pilots refer to it as landing in a teacup.

    • 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)

    by grumling ( 94709 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:51AM (#58771448) Homepage

    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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:59AM (#58771474)

    It smells exactly like guerrilla marketing bullshit.

  • Small scale pilot or trials useful for development. FastFood aside if viable could streamline delivery. Pickup takes time, gas , plus a line. Delivery services do not need dine in facilities and drones can speed up delivery if weather ok. McD competes with pizza delivery in many suburban and urban areas. Drones fanning out to drivers can cut time to restock improving through put. I think there are better use cases but if fast food willing to fund debugging then medicine and groceries can eventually piggy ba

  • Try flying a Big Mac on a drone here in Austin and watch the flocks of Grackles take it down.

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