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Watch Out, Amazon: DHL Tests Drug-Delivery Drone

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-will-hunt-your-drones-for-sport dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Amazon is apparently not alone in its desire to use miniature drones to deliver packages. On the morning of Monday, Dec. 9, employees at the Bonn, Germany headquarters of package-delivery giant DHL challenged Amazon's plan for dominance of the skies by having medicine delivered from a local pharmacy via a mustard-yellow package-carrying helicopter the Germans dubbed 'Paketkopter.' The quad-rotored mini-drone flew a box of medicines from a launching point near the pharmacy, above traffic and across the Rhine River to DHL's headquarters just over a kilometer away. It made the flight in about two minutes, was unloaded quickly and returned to the launch team near the pharmacy. Amazon has owned total mindshare of the still-imaginary drone-based package delivery market since CEO Jeff Bezos gushed about his plans for Amazon PrimeAir during a TV interview last week. The plan generated immediate controversy due to the negative image of drones following heavy use for surveillance and targeted anti-personnel strikes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Within the United States, the FAA, FTC and a host of consumer-protection groups objected to the possibility that thousands of autonomous drones would be hovering over U.S. cities, potentially invading the privacy and endangering the lives of those who might run afoul of either cameras or rotors."

4 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Laugh =) by koan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a drone that I am marketing, it specializes in robbing delivery drones.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Laugh =) by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 5, Informative

      You may be joking, but Samy isn't:

      Today Amazon announced they're planning to use unmanned drones to deliver some packages to customers within five years. Cool! How fun would it be to take over drones, carrying Amazon packagesor take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones. Awesome.

      Using a Parrot AR.Drone 2, a Raspberry Pi, a USB battery, an Alfa AWUS036H wireless transmitter, aircrack-ng, node-ar-drone, node.js, and my SkyJack software, I developed a drone that flies around, seeks the wireless signal of any other drone in the area, forcefully disconnects the wireless connection of the true owner of the target drone, then authenticates with the target drone pretending to be its owner, then feeds commands to it and all other possessed zombie drones at my will.

      SkyJack also works when grounded as well, no drone is necessary on your end for it to work. You can simply run it from your own Linux machine/Raspberry Pi/laptop/etc and jack drones straight out of the sky.

      --
      I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
  2. Re:Have the legal questions been tested? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    If a ship sinks on my property, then what?

    The cargo belongs to Spain.

  3. Re:Delivery Trucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Imagine 2 ton steel vehicles hurtling through cities mere inches from unprotected human beings.

    It's far too dangerous to imagine. It could never happen.