Firm says drones can speed up deliveries and increase the number of culinary choices available to customers.
Uber is looking to the skies for the future of its food delivery service, carrying out a test using drones to speed up the delivery of McDonald’s meals.
The company’s Uber Eats platform is working with the fast food restaurant in San Diego to see how drones could be used to improve deliveries in high-density urban areas, after it was granted permission by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to quick start tests.
Uber says that the project will not only decrease delivery times, but also expand the number of culinary choices available to customers.
The plan is to still include hand deliveries by an Uber Eats driver, who will meet the drone at a drop-off location and bring it to the customer’s door.
In the future, drones could be instructed to land atop of a parked vehicle located near each delivery location through QR code correspondence, the firm said.
“We’ve been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we’re meeting requirements and prioritising safety,” said Luke Fischer, head of flight operations at Uber Elevate, the company’s division focused on revolutionising operations in the skies.
“From there, our goal is to expand Uber Eats drone delivery so we can provide more options to more people at the tap of a button.
“We believe that Uber is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge as we’re able to leverage the Uber Eats network of restaurant partners and delivery partners as well as the aviation experience and technology of Uber Elevate.”
Additional restaurant partners will be added to the trial later this year, including local restaurant Juniper and Ivy.
The development comes after Uber announced that Melbourne would be its third city for testing helicopter-like flying taxis, which are due to set off with trials as soon as next year.
Uber Air plans to take passengers to the sky in a bid to ease congested roads on the ground, for the same price as an UberX trip over the same distance.
The firm is due to start test flights in 2020, before commencing a commercial operation from 2023.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his country would be the one to decide whether and how to respond to Iran’s major air assault earlier this week, brushing off calls for restraint from close allies.
Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s unprecedented attack without saying when or how, leaving the region bracing for further escalation after months of unrest linked to the ongoing war in Gaza.
Israel’s allies have been urging Israel since the attack to hold back on any response that could spiral. These calls were repeated on Wednesday during visits by the British and German foreign ministers.
The diplomatic pressures came as Iran’s president warned that even the “tiniest” invasion of its territory would bring a “massive and harsh” response. Violence meanwhile surged on Wednesday between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, which fired a volley of rockets and drones on northern Israel. The attack wounded at least 14 Israeli soldiers, six seriously, the army said. The military said it struck Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon in response.
Speaking to a meeting of his Cabinet, Netanyahu said he met Wednesday with both visiting foreign ministers and thanked them for their countries’ support. But he said Israel would make the call on its own on how to respond despite “all sorts of suggestions and advice” coming from Israel’s allies, some of whom — including the United States, the United Kingdom and France — helped Israel repel Iran’s drone and missile assault.
“I want to be clear: we will make our decisions ourselves. The state of Israel will do whatever is necessary to defend itself,” Netanyahu said.
Despite the tough rhetoric, Israel appears unlikely to attack Iran directly without at least the support of its top ally, the U.S. But it could resort to more covert methods such as targeting senior Iranian commanders or Iran-backed groups in other countries, or launching a cyber attack.
It’s unclear how Iran would then respond, given the heightened tensions — any miscalculation by either side risks setting off a regional war.
President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday said it would place new sanctions on Iran and has worked to coordinate a global rebuke of the attack while urging all sides to de-escalate. U.S. officials said earlier this week that Biden told Netanyahu that Washington would not participate in any offensive action against Iran.
Over the weekend, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in response to an apparent Israeli strike on Iran’s Embassy compound in Syria on April 1 that killed 12 people, including two Iranian generals.
Israel says it and its partners successfully intercepted nearly all the missiles and drones. A 7-year-old girl was wounded in the attack, which did not cause any deaths or major damage.
Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for decades, but the strike over the weekend was the first direct Iranian military attack on Israel.
With tensions surging, Israel’s allies have reinforced a message of restraint. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock each appealed for calm while on separate visits to the region.
Cameron said “it’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act” against Iran, but he hoped they would do so “in a way that is smart as well as tough and also does as little as possible to escalate this conflict.” He spoke after meeting with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, whose office is mainly ceremonial.
Baerbock said Germany stands “in full solidarity with Israel” but called on it to exercise restraint.
“Everyone must now act prudently and responsibly. I’m not talking about giving in. I’m talking about prudent restraint, which is nothing less than strength,” she told reporters. “Because Israel has already shown strength with its defensive victory at the weekend.”
The ministers said they would push for further international sanctions on Iran.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned Israel against any retaliation as he addressed an annual army parade, which had been relocated to a barracks from its usual route and was not carried live on state TV — possibly because of fears that it could be targeted.
In remarks carried by Iran’s official IRNA news agency, Raisi said the weekend attack was limited, and that if Iran had wanted to carry out a bigger attack, “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime.”
Regional tensions have soared since the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Palestinian militant groups supported by Iran. The attack killed some 1,200 Israelis, and the militants took around 250 hostages. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military onslaughts in recent history, killing nearly 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count but say most of the dead are women and children.
Israel has withdrawn most of its forces from Gaza after major offensives that left its two biggest cities — Gaza City and Khan Younis — in ruins. But Israeli officials say the war is not over and that they plan to send ground forces into the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half the territory’s population of 2.3 million people have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.
Hamas is still holding around 130 hostages, a quarter of whom are believed to be dead, and international efforts to broker a cease-fire and hostage release have made little progress.
Hezbollah, another close Iran ally, has traded fire with Israel along the border on a near-daily basis since the war began, in a low-intensity conflict that risks igniting all-out war. Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have also launched attacks, and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have targeted international shipping in the Red Sea, portraying it as a blockade of Israel.
Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Jill Lawless in London and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.
