So much of the technology we take for granted today started out as military research, then weaponry, and finally…
…guided mystery-meat delivery systems:
Taco-hungry Americans could order and pay for tacos on their smartphones, which would supply GPS coordinates to the drone. Once ordered, the tacos would be delivered as long as the customer remained in the ordering location.
I think that’s more likely after the food is delivered, if you catch my drift.
But I digress:
It exists in the Bay Area — in concept, at least. For now, the Tacocopter, which has existed since July 2011, has been grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration, as would be any unmanned commercial drone. According to FAA regulations, “unmanned aerial vehicles” cannot currently be used for commercial purposes.
There are other minor problems with the project, such as its ability to navigate dangerous terrain or to keep the food it carries warm.
That hasn’t stopped the Tacocopter’s creators from dreaming big, though. They hope the Tacocopter website will serve as fodder for discussion of the future of food delivery — think of the implications for tailgating or outdoor barbecuing, for example.
Yet another example of senseless regulation stalling progress!
Bwahaha! Reminds me of the time in ’84 when some CS nerds teamed with the EE nerds on the floor below them and we wired up a Coke machine to this new-fangled thing called a LAN with CAT-5 Ethernet running at a blazing 3MHz. We hacked the wiring in the Coke machine while the CS AI guys wrote the network code to accept orders via this funny TCP/IP protocol — from your Sun workstation you typed “coke [type of soda]” at the command line and the machine dispensed the soda you ordered. Worked like a champ and kept many a late night session going on longer than it would have otherwise.