Drone-delivered burritos are a real thing, at least for a lucky few
The future is here, and boy is it spicy. Alphabet's Project Wing announced Monday that it will start delivering burritos to hungry customers via drone. That's right, you can soon have heavenly manna slathered in Australian Jack cheese dropped right on your head — that is, if you happen to live in the outskirts of the Australian Capital Territory.
Project Wing, one of Alphabet's "moonshot factories" under the X umbrella, is testing delivery drones and has selected the relatively remote area for its latest voyage into the tinfoil-wrapped unknown. In addition to Mexican food from a chain, the company will also ferry medication on behalf of a pharmacy.
So, one imagines, your Tums and guacamole can be timed to arrive simultaneously.
The company also grabbed headlines in 2016 with drones delivering burritos at Virginia Tech. Apparently, someone at the company has a thing for the densely packed food item with an undeniably high deliciousness-to-weight ratio.
"Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican food chain, and Chemist Warehouse, a chain of pharmacies, will receive orders from our testers who’ve purchased items using the Project Wing app on their smartphones," Project Wing's James Ryan Burgess explained on the company blog. "We’ll dispatch our drones to pick up the order from our partners’ loading sites and then transport and deliver the goods to testers at their residences."
The out-of-the-way Australian location was selected specifically because it is, in fact, so out there. It seems that at least some local residents were down to participate as a way to reduce their time spent in the car.
"Residents near our testing area on the outskirts of the ACT live an idyllic country lifestyle on 10-acre blocks of rolling land spotted with gum trees and horses," added Burgess. "But they face a 40-minute round trip in the car for almost anything, whether it’s a carton of milk, veggies for dinner, or a cup of coffee. Our testers, including young families, busy professionals and retirees, had many suggestions for how our technology could address this fundamental inconvenience."
Ah yes, the fundamental inconvenience of having burritos (and, sure, medicine) far away from wherever you are. Project Wing is clearly focused on making the world a better place.
So, when — if ever — will this lunch-altering tech come to your town and/or hamlet? Burgess doesn't exactly say, but you can rest assured that should the tests go well, the company will likely test the tech again (and again) -- maybe closer to your home.
Until then, you'll just have to stick to terrestrial-based delivery like the rest of us.
Topics Google
