The world has a very bad and serious case of cooties – and no one wants to catch it. That means many people have turned into hermits, avoiding contact at all costs. But this is the 21st century, so today’s recluse needs stuff, lots and lots of stuff. Naturally, e-commerce continues to soar (as Amazon […]
This is the time of year where we make wild predictions about what’s going to happen in the coming 12 months of the new calendar year. It’s exactly like astrology except that we use chicken bones and goat’s blood MBA-powered research to back up our claim. In this article, we want to talk about how […]
One of the challenges involved in writing about emerging technologies for investment opportunities is that, well, you’re waiting for the technology to emerge at a stage where it is viable, scalable, and profitable. In the case of flying delivery drones, the issue is compounded by regulatory issues in the United States of operating aircraft – […]
A couple of years ago, we told you about two companies that had developed what could be best described as Star Wars droid couriers. It seemed pretty niche at the time. Now we learn that there are more than a half-dozen startups offering delivery robot services, which seems to be part of a larger trend […]
Drone delivery is one application of drones that’s already happening in niche applications, but it remains to be seen if drones buzzing around dropping off packages will become as ubiquitous as smartphones are these days. Right now the consumer drone exists because of improvements in materials, compact video cameras, and better performing lithium batteries. We […]
In a recent article, we talked about what it would take to develop a security drone. A key component of building a security drone that can provide round-the-clock surveillance is the ability for drone battery swapping to take place “on the fly” such that the drone can fly almost continuously without human intervention. Most applications […]
We came across a number of articles in popular media outlets this past week that wrote about how an Australian drone company called Flirtey has apparently been delivering Slurpees for 7-11. In researching Flirtey, it seems like a great deal of their “achievements” are around events that seem grander than they actually are. Now we’re not […]
The miniaturization of drones has been enabled by the rapidly decreasing cost of batteries, small sensors that can detect obstacles, and an increasing acceptance and trust in automated vehicles. This has led to the emergence of “drone delivery” solutions. We’ve looked at air drones that deliver medicines in Africa, larger drones that want to transport […]
In a previous article, we discussed the use of flying drones for delivery and highlighted a company called Matternet which has flying delivery drones that are strong enough to transport 1 kilogram over 20 kilometers on a single battery charge. These delivery drones are being used now to distribute medicine in various emerging market countries […]
This past week we saw Amazon stir things up by exciting the imagination of their customers with the promise of Amazon Prime Air, a future service that will deliver packages up to five pounds in 30 minutes or less using small drones. We’ve been teased by the idea of delivery drones for a while now, […]