Since I don't quite like LinkedIn , here's the direct video link [0] . Works with no authentication on browsers. Tried to do a wget but got a 403 forbidden.
This 'Wing' drone delivery is actually an Alphabet (Google) company, and they have "found success in Australian suburbs, recently hitting 100,000 deliveries milestone." [1]
Anyone from Australia care to tell how much it costs to deliver a (or multiple) cups of coffee using this service?
I am shaking my head. Is this the future we are entering? Drones delivering coffee? Super-annoying sound to further drown any hope of tranquility in the mornings. There are certainly many meaningful uses of drones, but delivering coffee is not one of them.
I'm a four hour drive from the test area but I tried to look into costs. It seems they do quite a few things beyond just coffee: https://wing.com/en_au/australia/canberra/
All the stores listed appear to only show their on-premises offerings, with some saying "download the app now" for a delivery price. The fact I apparently can't place an order or even see a price on a desktop has to hurt sales.
It almost seems that the original post is a humblebrag promo about the Wing delivery service, to get us aware about some newfangled product/service via some quirk or curiosity.
Some speculation into the pricing reveals that they are doing deliveries well below cost and perhaps free as an investment to get their number of successful deliveries up. Google is vying to gain license to be the de-facto ubiquitous drone flight traffic control service.
I used to work with small fixed wing drones [1] and had birds of prey remove the battery pack from the aircraft while in flight. I always wondered whether they knew or if they just instinctively went for the "head" of the plane and got lucky that the battery was right there.
There were also reports from customers in Australia where eagles would just shred the drone to pieces almost every flight. Putting big googly eyes stickers on the wings seemed to help to some degree.
Once a raven got ran over by a car near my home and sadly died. A group of ravens were "guarding" the body and not letting any human near it. They were exhibiting highly sophisticated social behaviour, it almost seemed like... a funeral?
Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal behaviour, it was not a funeral but I would like to get an explanation from someone who knows about this topic. What were those ravens doing?
(Edit: it was very impressive they were doing a type of vocalisation that they don't usually perform, and they were close to the ground and near the body, not up among the trees where they usually spend most of their time).
(Edit2: the birds were not on the ground, but near the ground, on top of a low fence and on top of a couple of parked cars)
> 4) Why do crows gather around their dead? Certainly one reason is that the death of a crow can offer a “teachable moment” that other crows use to learn that the place and responsible party is dangerous. You can read more about this behavior here: https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/09/26/why-crows-gather-arou...
Closer to a post-mortem. They apparently do a threat assessment so this particular cause of death can be avoided in future - though standing in a group on the road is maybe not the brightest idea.
> Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal behaviour
I'm not holding this against you in any way :), but I wanted to say I'm getting tired of this "don't anthropomorphise animals" trend. Some bird species are clearly highly intelligent, and I feel that this 'opposition to anthropomorphising' is used to downplay this fact, and animal intelligence in general.
Regarding the crows funeral or vigil, I suspect this has been observed a long time ago by humans, and is the reason for the association of crows with death in some cultures.
According to Wikipedia, European Magpies have been observed performing funeral rites (alas, the link to the study is gone). It's not impossible you witnessed a similar but undocumented phenomena.
I've seen grackles in Austin, Texas, USA do something similar around one of their own that had flown into a window and was badly stunned. It did seem to prevent any feral cats or other predators from being tempted to come by, and the noise might have been an attempt to wake up the stunned one (who wasn't there when we came back from lunch, so I assume survived).
I'm glad that awesome ballsy bird didn't get injured by the blades on that ridiculous noisy irritating gimmick. I mean, a cup of coffee, not even a pound of ground coffee so you can make your own and only force this intrusion on your neighbors once a week instead of every day.
Ravens are among the smartest birds out there. The fact that it was not injured is probably not a matter of luck. It most likely understood to some degree the danger of spinning blades.
They're also pretty skilled at flight. A wildlife photographer snapped a few great shots with a raven landing on an eagle's back _in flight_.
lately there have been a couple drones flying around my neighborhood and hovering in front of, and behind, houses. they instinctually feel creepy and intrusive. it seems we need to extend the legal expectation of privacy a little further.
Wait until one of the raven manage to actually shut down a drone. These birds are very intelligent and absolutely capable of sharing their attack strategy with each other. Even better if there is a big payoff (food) as reward.
I'm hoping somebody is staying on top of this because if it gets to the point the business model will get threatened, there will be pressure to "mitigate" or "solve" the problem somehow. I'm hoping the solution will be to tell the business (Google, in this case, apparently) to go do something else.
They've been seen using things as tools, I'm waiting for the next video where they realise they can shove a stick into the props to take the drone down.
I wouldn't be surprised if that already happens, and they're calculating a loss factor to 'environmental' circumstances. I wouldn't be surprised if they mass-produce these planes to a low price point because of the loss factor.
I’ve been flying all types of radio-controlled aircraft for decades. I’ve had two encounters with birds. In both cases it was while flying thermals with gliders. In both cases the birds went for the tail section.
The first was a hawk. I was going up a thermal on my own. The hawk came into the same thermal and decided it wanted to own it. It flew incredibly fast towards my plane and grabbed it from the latter quarter of the fuselage. This was a strong and fast kevlar/carbon fiber F5B competition class motorized glider, 2.4 meter wingspan.
The hawk could not destroy it but sure did with it as it wished for a few seconds. When it let go I went to full throttle and climbed straight up like a rocket (high power/weight ratio) to get away. After that I landed safely without damage.
The second case was a raven. Similar situation. It went for the tail and ripped it right off. All I could do was watch it crash.
The nest must be near. Instead of torturing the birds every single day because you want your coffee(or you just enjoy torturing birds) you can change your reception point 20 meters or so and probably the attacks will stop.
I have done speleology on things like old mines and had attacks from small birds to big ones like vultures and eagles that make their nest on the mine. I have marks on my helmet from that.
It is very interesting how small birds will pretend to have a broken leg or wing just to divert your attention from the nest.
I also have seen eagles attack friends' macaws in the open space or a group of magpies attacking an enormous eagle.
The animal world is not as peaceful as some people believe.
You can’t actually choose your landing zone - it’s assigned by Wing. And I have spoken to them and they are pausing operation for a few days while their bird expert gives them advice, they told me.
It's somewhat baffling to me that there's such a large pushback against getting coffee delivered via drone, and I don't see many reasons expressed as to why, exactly, this is iniquitous--could somebody explain this in greater detail to me, please?
[+] [-] vmurthy|4 years ago|reply
[0]https://dms.licdn.com/playlist/C5605AQHVTN_fA4rRcg/mp4-720p-...
[+] [-] achow|4 years ago|reply
This 'Wing' drone delivery is actually an Alphabet (Google) company, and they have "found success in Australian suburbs, recently hitting 100,000 deliveries milestone." [1]
Anyone from Australia care to tell how much it costs to deliver a (or multiple) cups of coffee using this service?
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/25/22640833/drone-delivery-g...
[+] [-] mongol|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technion|4 years ago|reply
All the stores listed appear to only show their on-premises offerings, with some saying "download the app now" for a delivery price. The fact I apparently can't place an order or even see a price on a desktop has to hurt sales.
[+] [-] xattt|4 years ago|reply
But I could be cynical.
[+] [-] echelon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seldom0|4 years ago|reply
Some speculation into the pricing reveals that they are doing deliveries well below cost and perhaps free as an investment to get their number of successful deliveries up. Google is vying to gain license to be the de-facto ubiquitous drone flight traffic control service.
[+] [-] seoulmetro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] froj|4 years ago|reply
There were also reports from customers in Australia where eagles would just shred the drone to pieces almost every flight. Putting big googly eyes stickers on the wings seemed to help to some degree.
[1] https://www.sensefly.com/
Edit: Found the blog post about the eagles in Australia https://www.sensefly.com/blog/bird-drone-attacks-avoid-threa...
[+] [-] mastazi|4 years ago|reply
Once a raven got ran over by a car near my home and sadly died. A group of ravens were "guarding" the body and not letting any human near it. They were exhibiting highly sophisticated social behaviour, it almost seemed like... a funeral?
Of course we shouldn't attempt to anthropomorphise animal behaviour, it was not a funeral but I would like to get an explanation from someone who knows about this topic. What were those ravens doing?
(Edit: it was very impressive they were doing a type of vocalisation that they don't usually perform, and they were close to the ground and near the body, not up among the trees where they usually spend most of their time).
(Edit2: the birds were not on the ground, but near the ground, on top of a low fence and on top of a couple of parked cars)
[+] [-] modernerd|4 years ago|reply
> 4) Why do crows gather around their dead? Certainly one reason is that the death of a crow can offer a “teachable moment” that other crows use to learn that the place and responsible party is dangerous. You can read more about this behavior here: https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/09/26/why-crows-gather-arou...
[+] [-] rozab|4 years ago|reply
This is well documented in a variety of corvid species.
I think it's unfair to dismiss this as anthropomorphising. Our grief, too, has an evolutionary purpose.
[+] [-] dwd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BiteCode_dev|4 years ago|reply
Why not? Our behavior emerged from a primitive animal state. It's not crazy to think it can happen again.
The only mistake would be to pretend it's the definitive answer, but unless we got one, it can be one of the theories.
[+] [-] drclau|4 years ago|reply
I'm not holding this against you in any way :), but I wanted to say I'm getting tired of this "don't anthropomorphise animals" trend. Some bird species are clearly highly intelligent, and I feel that this 'opposition to anthropomorphising' is used to downplay this fact, and animal intelligence in general.
Regarding the crows funeral or vigil, I suspect this has been observed a long time ago by humans, and is the reason for the association of crows with death in some cultures.
[+] [-] fogihujy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 867-5309|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comprev|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medo-bear|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brokenmachine|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrumper|4 years ago|reply
Obviously I still need _my_ morning coffee.
[+] [-] drclau|4 years ago|reply
They're also pretty skilled at flight. A wildlife photographer snapped a few great shots with a raven landing on an eagle's back _in flight_.
See: https://iso.500px.com/the-story-behind-the-incredible-photo-...
[+] [-] clairity|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ed_elliott_asc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Fiahil|4 years ago|reply
They might even put the entire business at risk.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobar1962|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] platz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dqpb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] high_5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] null_object|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erickhill|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robomartin|4 years ago|reply
The first was a hawk. I was going up a thermal on my own. The hawk came into the same thermal and decided it wanted to own it. It flew incredibly fast towards my plane and grabbed it from the latter quarter of the fuselage. This was a strong and fast kevlar/carbon fiber F5B competition class motorized glider, 2.4 meter wingspan.
The hawk could not destroy it but sure did with it as it wished for a few seconds. When it let go I went to full throttle and climbed straight up like a rocket (high power/weight ratio) to get away. After that I landed safely without damage.
The second case was a raven. Similar situation. It went for the tail and ripped it right off. All I could do was watch it crash.
They own the skies.
[+] [-] InsomniacL|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparsely|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bumbada|4 years ago|reply
I have done speleology on things like old mines and had attacks from small birds to big ones like vultures and eagles that make their nest on the mine. I have marks on my helmet from that.
It is very interesting how small birds will pretend to have a broken leg or wing just to divert your attention from the nest.
I also have seen eagles attack friends' macaws in the open space or a group of magpies attacking an enormous eagle.
The animal world is not as peaceful as some people believe.
[+] [-] ravendroneguy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kar1181|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nights192|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrweasel|4 years ago|reply
Would it help if the drones where less noisy? If the birds don’t get them, the complaint from neighbors will.
[+] [-] melbourne_mat|4 years ago|reply
https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/goodliving/posts/2017/08/m...
[+] [-] LightG|4 years ago|reply
I'm more suprised to see the drone delivery. Didn't realise that had already started.