Drone is ready to deliver your takeout to you

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Ele.me, China’s online food delivery app owned by Alibaba, announced its first authorized delivery routes for the drone, marking the commercial application of the drone in the food delivery industry.

People can now expect their food to be sent to their doorstep after pushing the button on their smartphone within 20 minutes, according to the people related to the news.

The authorized 17 drone routes are all located at an industrial zone in Shanghai, covering 58 square kilometers and serving over 100 restaurants.

Ele me & Baidu Map /VCG Photo

This announcement has triggered heated discussions on the social media platform; many people are curious about how those little technologies replace human and perform their tasks.

“I was told that our food can be delivered by drones in our workplace, so I placed an order on the app and wanted to have a look, but when I checked the logistic information online, I found my meal was first handled by the personnel, then the drone, finally back to another staff. It turned out the whole procedure still cannot be totally human-free,” a company employee complained to the reporter.

But using drones to delivery meals undeniably reduces the operating cost for the platform, as the average delivery time and route have been largely shortened.

A drone on display for the media before a news conference by Chinese food delivery company Ele.me on its drone delivery service, in Shanghai, China, May 29, 2018. /VCG Photo

Only one person is needed to gather orders from the food vendors and place them into the cargo hold of each drone, then the other colleague at the other side of the delivery point is able to distribute the food directly to the customers’ addresses.

Now with the two-way cooperation, two people are expected to take over five people’s workloads, which means a huge amount of people may risk losing their jobs when the mass application is available on the market.

But Job loss is not the only problem concerning the public, as security always remains the top priority in every industry. Imaging a hot pizza suddenly comes down from the sky hitting your head, that will be a total disaster.

So how to prevent them from accidentally dropping down from the sky and hurting the passerby? How to ensure the criminals or the pranksters won't hijack the drones? How to ensure the camera equipped with the drones won’t capture people’s secrets on the street?

It seems like before we finally have this convenient technology around us, there is still a way to go.

1063km