Have
you heard about the new "Drone-to-Home" DVD movie delivery service being
offered by Netflix? Springboarding off an idea floated by Amazon.com
last year, Netflix plans to use quadcopter drones to ship DVDs to customers
anywhere, any time, "within mere seconds of you adding it to your queue."
Netflix produced a video demonstrating the system's capabilities, and
also includes some of the research and development that went into its
implementation. "Unlike other companies trying to rush unproven technology
to market, we have literally spent days working out most of the bugs,"
says narrator Hank Breeggemann, General Manager of the DVD Division.
To
the left is a screen capture from the commercial dramatically showing
Netflix Drone-to-Home automatons exiting the order fulfillment warehouse
en masse on their way to customer locations.
Other recent attempts
at using multi-copter platforms for product deliveries, including ferrying
six-packs of beer to ice fishermen during the Super Bowl, have been
nixed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Amazon.com received a
lot of flack and has had at least one rather gory satirical video published
to demonstrate the potential hazards of such systems.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail"
when a new message arrived...
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