Uber’s Ad-Toting Drones Are Heckling Drivers Stuck in Traffic

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602662/ubers-ad-toting-drones-are-heckling-drivers-stuck-in-traffic/

by CarolineW • 10 years ago

48 26 10 years ago

ilamont• 10 years ago

Local and state governments and their elected representatives in the United States are soon going to get an earful from constituents about stunts like this.

Another thought: The FAA will soon be involved regulating drone advertising. I guess they already have some oversight over skywriters and blimps and airplanes dragging banners, but this takes things to a new level.

bpicolo• 10 years ago

This was in Mexico. Commercial drones do already have a number of regulations here in the US, to be fair.

kevinbowman• 10 years ago

I can't help but feel that this is more for "column-inches" advertising than the direct "eyeballs-on-billboards" advertising. I've not played with drones for a year or two, but consider that drones have a fairly short battery life, don't fly well in breezes, and need fairly close human attention, and this is a huge amount of effort to go to if it's not for the write-ups.

Of course, column-inches are still a good way to do advertising, and this is a clever way to get that.

achamayou• 10 years ago

Until someone on a bike gets seriously hurt, at which point the content of the columns is going be quite awkward for Uber.

rasz_pl2• 10 years ago

This is exactly it. Judging by perfectly framed picture with nice bokeh/dof this whole thing was arranged for that one PR shot.

reustle• 10 years ago

I think this is less about being feasible and more about pulling a marketing stunt.

uw_rob• 10 years ago

I always wondered why they didn't use drones to warn drivers about upcoming construction. If people had miles to merge into one lane instead of hitting a wall, I suspect people may not have to come to a stop to merge, and thus everyone can keep on moving.

FireBeyond• 10 years ago

You underestimate the selfishness of people. Knowledge of upcoming situations is not the issue. Rather it's the "it's more important for me to get where I'm going than it is you" that keeps people from merging until the very last second.

Source: US roads. All day, every day.

Pfhreak• 10 years ago

Merging late, and using both lanes to their fullest actually improves overall congestion (per Washington state, Minnesota, and others.) Merging early can lead to differential speeds between lanes, which encourages lane changing, which causes a general slowdown for everyone.

Use those lanes and zipper at the end!

ChoHag• 10 years ago

It doesn't matter when you merge, it matters how.

zo1• 10 years ago

I think the problem is that you have two sets of people when it comes to this topic. Those that know that the best time to merge is at the end, evenly dividing traffic in a 1:1 ratio. And the other group, which thinks it's best to "merge" early.

So, half the people merge early, creating a vaccum in the soon to be merged lane. And then the other half, fills it, which promptly causes the first half to think that they're taking advantage.

mfarris• 10 years ago

Counterintuitive counterpoint from just a couple days ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/why-last-second-lane-me...

Summary: last-second zipper merging is actually better in many circumstances.

rasz_pl2• 10 years ago

because 15-20 min max battery life. Great for carefully arranged publicity stunt, but nothing much else.

carapace• 10 years ago

How is this not an Onion article?

yoo1I• 10 years ago

This is likely photoshopped. This is what I got when I ran it through[0]

https://i2.uploadit.ga/img/1476562202.jpg

That looks suspiciously like someone edited at least the text into the picture.

[0] https://github.com/sentenza/GIMP-ELA

EDIT: Different picture, same story: https://i3.uploadit.ga/img/1476564394.jpg

Definitely shopped in. At least the text.

chrismcb3• 10 years ago

I'm not an expert. Can you explain why those links indicate it is photo shopped? Is it the bright lines... So the cars are shopped as well?

RickS• 10 years ago

Image data takes on noise/damage when it's compressed, during things like saving and uploading to the web. When you turn that noise way up, it should be even overall. When it's wildly mismatched, it indicates pieces have been chopped in, like when a crappy voiceover has a word that's obviously wrong.

Note the sharp difference surrounding the in-focus drone's text, compared to the background drones, whose signs have a much higher level of consistency across the pages they're carrying.

jrochkind1• 10 years ago

I'm not sure this is for real. Can anyone find any other journalistic or other confirmation?

The OP here links to a Bloomberg article, in which the only mention of drone advertising is the caption on the same photo.

Which yoo1I tells us analyses as photoshopped: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715479

I think someone photoshopped it, then Bloomberg News googled for a photo to use for the story and found it, and just put it in without checking it.

Now other people are going to start 're-blogging' it as news, with Bloomberg as the source, as in OP.

I'd think this would actually be pretty big news if it was going on, but doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else.

Shoddy job, Bloomberg News. If this what happened, and I think it probably is, Bloomberg has failed at journalism.

ralfd• 10 years ago

Technology Review (OP link) uses a different picture than Bloomberg. Bloomberg:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iRzJLFQi2dc...

Bloomberg also dates the picture (17th June in Mexico City) and sources the photographer (Brett Gundlock/Bloomberg).

The explanation that this was a one-time publicity stunt for a nice photo/short video is way simpler and rational, than either the premature claim of a fake ("I see it because of the pixels!") ore the idea of battery constrained drones being used 24/7 as advertising billboards.

chrismcb3• 10 years ago

Right. So kind of like the same noise that is around the cars? Are you suggesting the cars have also been shopped in?

chrismcb3• 10 years ago

Right. So kind of like the same noise that is around the cars? Are you suggesting the cars have also been shopped in?

bitL• 10 years ago

How inspireational! :-D

Can't wait for brain-computer interface to get them fed right into my thoughts...

ryan_j_naughton• 10 years ago

But without any sensible regulation or assignment of property rights to fly commercial drones, advertising drones could be buzzing around everywhere!

To limit the ability of stores to put signs wherever they want, the are both signage/billboard regulations. If a store can't secure a billboard at a desirable intersection, they sometimes pay to put a person with a sign there. That loophole is only acceptable because there is a cost of the employee that creates a natural cap on the use of unregulated signage.

With the advent of drones, the cost of will fall dramatically and the expected result is an exponential proliferation of such drone signs. Yes, current battery technology is woefully incapable of this currently and autonomous technology isn't there yet, but as soon as the drones can be 100% autonomous and can recharge themselves on charges on the roof of a nearby building, then it simply becomes a capital cost of the drones. I think at that point is won't be simply for publicity stunts anymore. Let's hope this isn't the future we find ourselves in.

Uber’s Ad-Toting Drones Are Heckling Drivers Stuck in Traffic

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