U.S. drone company starts delivering medicine in Japan

Maybe Walmart can speed up their in store service line, instead of relying on self checkout

Good stuff.

America steps up once again!

quote: The zero-emission quiet flights can go as far as 300km.

That must require an incredibly powerful elastic band and a lot of winding.

Great for rural areas, considerable potential for expensive problems in urban areas.

Imagine the day you can get your "medicinal" marijuana dropped to your doorstep, or your balcony. Well, maybe not in Japan in this century, but somewhere in the world.

I agree with GBR48, I can imagine parcels getting snagged in powerlines, trees and roofs of buildings. Stuff like these are perfect for the countryside where airdrops are more likely needed. I'm imagining a day where unmanned quadcopters are strong enough to CASEVAC/ carry and transport patients from far-away places to hospitals.

Soon someone will start complaining about this and that and before you know it they will be grounded. Just like anything else that is imported or new idea that are not Made In japan.

Soon someone will start complaining about this and that and before you know it they will be grounded. Just like anything else that is imported or new idea that are not Made In japan.

I imagine they will start showing pictures of military crash damage and insinuating that these are much too risky without many meetings and careful consideration and carefully collecting input from all local citizens, and if a single obaachan says "Hmmm...(sucks teeth)...chotto....." the project will be stopped. After which the same obaachan will complain about her pharmacy not having her drugs on time.

America steps up once again!

Maybe 50 years ago..

Wake up, the dream is over..

Dropping things from drones IS what America does best afterall.

Seriously though, it is good to see the tech used for something beneficial. It seems particularly useful in remote areas where traditional delivery mechanisms are a lot more limited. Mountains, islands, or other remote inaccessible areas. I doubt we will reach a day anytime soon where we see drones crisscrossing around Tokyo with packages, but for specific use-cases it could be great for people.

If one of these packages lands on one of my dogs or damages a car in the driveway I am not going to be someone anyone wants to be around. They better have good lawyers too !

Drone are in use for the purpose in Japan for several years now. Japanese major drug ditrubutor Alfresa announced to take this initiative in 2016. Surprised that JT reports it as first such operation.

I actually think it's an interesting idea.

I'm a sucker for these Hachette / DeAgostini collections and currently the latter is publishin a 日本の島 series.

You would be surprised at how many islands have small communities depending on most likely either helicopters or ferries for sometimes emergency transport. Also, with depopulation of the countryside gaining speed may this be of help to get emergency goods to isolated communities. It could indeed also help getting more routine goods in time where it is needed and help manage inventories of specific goods.

Now having said that, all of the above is excluding urban areas for obvious security reasons but out in the savage wasteland of the Japan inaka, yeah, seems like an idea worth checking out.

Just one question, why did Japan not come up with this idea? The closest we came to that was that silly flying car thingamabob 2 years ago which (luckily) seems to have disappeared from the radars.

@Doyager

You seemed to have answered my question (while I was writing it).

Isn't this trespassing? I don't want any flyer to record me naked sunbathing on rooftop. I want calm air and sound.

A lot of delivery innovations coming from US-based enterprises

For ex: SpaceX reusable delivery rockets - they're still the only ones able to figure that out, even when other governments have decades of head-start in rockets

This idea needs to be scaled up and used to resupply Ukrainian forces and civilians holed up at the Azovstal Steel Mill.

For ex: SpaceX reusable delivery rockets - they're still the only ones able to figure that out, even when other governments have decades of head-start in rockets

Um, not true. The main rockets of the Space Shuttle were re-used. They were designed to float and were recovered from the ocean. The Space Shuttle itself was likewise reusable. It was considered to be uneconomic to reuse the big main fuel tank. If you think about these re-usable rockets, they are heavier than normal because they must carry enough fuel to launch their payload into space and then have fuel left over to land with. That extra weight cuts into payload and it is not an insignificant consideration when you are launching stuff as heavy as a Space Shuttle.