News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by justinmeiners on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @08:41PM (#22809042)
No traffic and direct paths?
Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by taborj on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @09:21PM (#22809236)
Yeah, but there are big problems to solve that potentially offset those two benefits.

Legality: how high above your property do you own? Would a drone flying at 50 feet be trespassing? 100? 200?

Loss: how do you recover a crashed drone? Or one intentionally downed?

Range: how much power can you pack onboard without compromising payload capacity?

Payload capacity: how much can you reasonably lift?

Cost: dollar for dollar, is it more cost effective than trucks (even robotic ones)?

And so on.

Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by hermitdev on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @10:07PM (#22809434)
Another factor could be weather conditions. Heavy rain/snow/wind could all affect range or even accuracy (heavy precip can interfere with GPS to some degree). Drones also probably work better in a suburban environ, but less in a dense urban area or less dense rural area. Also, maps can be terribly slow to update. My home is in a Chicago suburb, about 8 years old now. Google maps still cannot accurately plot my address. Personally, I dont look forward to "we dropped off your package where we think your address is" and yet the package is a few hundred yards away. I'm also reminded of one of my favorite fuckups, this by USPS: my Mom misquote "street" instead of "drive" on my address, street number, name, city, state and zip otherwise being correct, and the overnight package landed in Florida instead of Illinois...
Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by vkou on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @11:41PM (#22809829)
You forgot the most important thing - noise.

Drones are loud. Incredibly loud.

Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by taborj on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @09:30AM (#22812750)
Excellent point
Re:Amazon to suspend delivery service that competes with UPS... by justinmeiners on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @09:34PM (#22809281)
Probably. I don't necessarily believe it's around the corner or ever will be feasible. But the motivation is clear.