There's so many hurdles to overcome with this, regulatory is likely the lesser of their worries. Drones now are (To my knowledge) using open spectrum radio waves without encryption, just generic hobby level stuff. Making them exceedingly easy to hijack. As we've already seen this with the parrot drones.
I can see them trying to go with something like 2, maybe 3g cellular for communications. That would be really good for distance, but not if they can't exceed the pilots view.
Then we have to consider the concept of having physical pilots. I find it difficult to believe that paying people to fly drones would be any more efficient short range for small parcels. They could maybe push the 1 day delivery to 1 hour delivery for common items, if you live within 500ft of the Amazon warehouse with a clear view of your house.
Don't get me wrong, drones are really freaking cool, and I totally want them showing up in 10min from purchase with emergency condoms. However, it's going to be a logistical nightmare, at least for the first little while until they can be fully automated with programmed routes and little human interaction.
I don't really feel any better off having read this. It's informative sure, but it makes me wonder how often Ian Hardy was distracted when he wrote it. Just imagine what the life of a pencil pushing journalist working for the BBC within the billboard clustered highrise capital of the world (New York) would actually be like.
I'm going to take a rough guess he's not well off, especially given the quite blatant product placement for "Focus", the music streaming service. Does he go home satisfied every night with the 500 words his boss tell him to push out?
Sorry... I'm being mean now. I do agree, totally, social media is the devil and it's destroying the minds of my family, both senior and junior, professional and unprofessional. It's mind melting gobbledy goop that I wish would die to make way for more intelligent discussion on forums such as this one.
Thanks for the post though, it's got me thinking, not about stuff that I haven't already thought of before. Not even something I necessarily relate to, but it's got me thinking about what not to turn into.
This is really cool, since Portal I've been fascinated by the concept of creating optical illusions and optical phenomena with programming. While I believe that my mathematical knowledge is capable of comprehending this, I don't have any experience with the languages needed to program them. I'd like to though.
I can see them trying to go with something like 2, maybe 3g cellular for communications. That would be really good for distance, but not if they can't exceed the pilots view.
Then we have to consider the concept of having physical pilots. I find it difficult to believe that paying people to fly drones would be any more efficient short range for small parcels. They could maybe push the 1 day delivery to 1 hour delivery for common items, if you live within 500ft of the Amazon warehouse with a clear view of your house.
Don't get me wrong, drones are really freaking cool, and I totally want them showing up in 10min from purchase with emergency condoms. However, it's going to be a logistical nightmare, at least for the first little while until they can be fully automated with programmed routes and little human interaction.