Alphabet's Drones Delivered 10,000 Cups of Coffee, 1,200 Roast Chickens In the Last Year

Alphabet's drone company Wing delivered 10,000 cups of coffee, 1,700 snack packs and 1,200 roast chickens to customers in Logan, Australia, over the last year, the company said Wednesday in a blog post outlining its progress. CNBC reports: Wing was launched in 2019 in Australia, following a series of drone tests that began in 2014. The service, which was initially part of Alphabet's experimental research division, allows users to order items such as food through a mobile app and is fast approaching 100,000 deliveries since its launch. Wing hopes to one day deliver products to people all over the world without having to rely on drivers or delivery trucks like other companies.

The company works with more than 30 partners globally, including local coffee shops and national brands such as Walgreens, according to a February blog post. Local businesses can also reach out directly to the company to get involved. In 2020, Wing partnered with a Virginia school district to deliver library books during the pandemic.

Where's...

[Type44Q]

Where's a ten gauge when you need one??

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Drones of this nature aren't cheap. You'd get a nice felony charge.

Re:

[Opportunist]

You trespass on my property, you get pelted. Stay on the road and you're fine.

Re: Where's...

[bn-7bc]

Depending on the altitude de drone is at when it passes above your property the drone might not be trespassing at all blz refer to you lical/state/ federal laws /regs or contact the FAA

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[ls671]

Where's a ten gauge when you need one??

Just make sure and use a four-gauge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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[quenda]

Where's a ten gauge when you need one??

For Logan? I think you'll need a nuke to take care of that place.
Lots of drugs, vandalism, violent crime. The whole city council was sacked for corruption.
Not quite Detroit, but still a shithole.

https://google.com/search?q=lo... [google.com]
https://www.myschool.edu.au/sc... [myschool.edu.au]

Cocky

[registrations_suck]

Google is getting cocky.

Bonus Round!

[rmdingler]

Right now I would love a chicken and snack pack, topped off with a fresh, steaming coffee. It's perfect I tell yo... fucckin' Australia! That's about right.

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[Ostracus]

This would work nicely for rural areas that currently drivers don't want to do. Or if one lives in the bad part of town, it would be safer having it delivered to one's window. Come Christmas even Santa could rent these out for deliveries.

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[AmiMoJo]

Interesting that it's Alphabet doing this and not Amazon though. I was worried that Amazon might monopolize drone delivery very quickly, but it seems that there is decent competition available to even smaller businesses.

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[Presence Eternal]

It's Alphabet. So, service to be discontinued permanently in six months. Amazon monopoly still quite possible.

And the next Google project to be canceledâ&#

[Maury Markowitz]

⦠is there any question?

Re:And the next Google project to be canceledâ

[Anonymous Coward]

'Tis better to have scaled up and get cancelled, than to never be funded at all..

Re:And the next Google project to be canceledâ

[Too Late for Cool ID]

I'm not using it, so it may last.

Just wait

[Krishnoid]

"Yes, I'm a stork and I'd like to work for Wing as a delivery flier. What kinds of things do you deliver? Coffee, mmm, great, and ... WHAT?"

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[drinkypoo]

Everything loves to eat a bird, and birds love chicken. I used to have a sun conure and it was probably her favorite food. Even deer eat nests full of baby birds. Crunchy!

Looks like fake news

[chotahead]

No beer? No Vegemite? No Tim Tams? No beetroot? No meat pies? Not the Australian "cuisine" I know. Must be fake news.

Dear Logan,

[kiwioddBall]

Northside is still > than Southside

Just sayin'

Get dressed! And walk your happy butt outside!

[Iamthecheese]

Who else is looking forward to not getting food delivered unless they submit to a privacy stealing "app"? Who else is tired of having the delivery brought straight to your door by a person who can read instructions like "ring the bell and wait two minutes"? I don't know about you, but I think it's boring to have all those last minute details seen to by a human. When I order food delivered it's a sad tragedy that I get no exercise at all out of it.

I need a delivery service that WON'T bring it to my door. In

GPS does not seem accurate enough for delivery

[rapjr]

GPS can be off by 10 meters or more, which can be the difference between one house front and the next. For home delivery via drone to work a much more accurate global localization service is needed with resolution down to at least a meter, preferably less. Until that happens I do not see this service as being practical. Once it does happen then people will use the service to get delivery to where ever they happen to be at the moment. That means Google (or Amazon or the postal service or ?) will have hig

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[ras]

From novatek [novatel.com]:

RTK GPS Accuracy: What accuracy is RTK? RTK is used for applications that require higher accuracies, such as centimetre-level positioning, up to 1 cm + 1 ppm accuracy.

RTK is relative. The position is relative to an RTK base station, which must be within 40km. It also needs an excellent view of the sky - no trees or anything else. In other words a drone + RTK is a match made in heaven.

Re: GPS does not seem accurate enough for delivery

[bn-7bc]

Well they might use 2 frequency Galileo, I'ver thad even open service Galileo gets down to .5m avvuraskcy at keast horizontally with abbot 95% confidence no extra ground infrastructure needed. Or do rhey use GOS ( incorrectly) as a catch all for any GNSS?

Re: GPS does not seem accurate enough for deliver

[trillion]

even with 4G mobile, these drones would have a precise enough vector space to position accurately

So... 1 cup of coffee per hour?

[chas.williams]

They plan to scale to ten times that, so 10 cups of coffee per hour. That's nowhere near the amount of coffee going across the Starbucks counter during a typical day. Not to mention it's a $5 item or whatever they use down in Australia, kangaroos I guess. Delivering low-value items doesn't seem profitable. Delivering drugs via drones with a big "Walgreens" sticker on the side feels like they might be making themselves targets.

Seriously??

[BAReFO0t]

You need a *drone* to bring you your cup of liquid "Work harder in your hamster wheel!" drug??

If there ever was an example of both its uselessness and the end stage of degeneration we're living in...

Re: Seriously??

[bn-7bc]

Or it is a nice demo of the tech, ( container size an total weight in a narrow range of values etc). To be scaled up ln both regards later when all the kinks and regs have been worked out.

I'll be impressed...

[groobly]

I'll be impressed when they start delivering babies.