The next time you order a takeaway, it might be flown directly to your door. Today, Deliveroo has launched its first drone delivery service for customers in Ireland. Drones travelling at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour (80 kph) will carry food from restaurants to customers in as little as three minutes. Upon arrival, the drone will hover above the customer's home and gently lower the food to the ground on a tether before returning to the delivery hub. Launching in Blanchardstown, on the outskirts of Dublin, the trial will cover a 1.8-mile (3km) radius, reaching up to 150,000 people.

For many islanders, delays to the postal service are an inescapable part of life. But that should no longer be the case for those living in Orkney, after it became the first place in Britain to have mail delivered by a drone. The new Royal Mail service will see post transported from the Kirkwall delivery office to the village of Stromness, where drones will then transfer items to posties on the islands of Hoy and Graemsay for their regular routes. Currently, mail arrives at Kirkwall Airport before being sent by plane or ferry to Orkney's 19 inhabited islands. But the challenging geography and weather conditions often result in delivery disruptions.

Whether it's turning off lights when not using them or bringing a reusable water bottle instead of buying a plastic one, many of us try to take measures to reduce our carbon footprint. Now, Sainsbury's has opened a new store that even makes your weekly food shop more eco-friendly. The'ground-breaking' store in Hook, Hampshire, is Sainsbury's most energy-efficient supermarket yet. It has several impressive features, including doors on chilled cabinets, 700 solar panels on the roof and even floor sensors that adjust the LED lights in response to natural light. 'This is a really proud moment for Sainsbury's as we launch a brilliant new supermarket that puts our commitment to reducing our impact on the environment into clear focus,' said Ryan Cox, Sainsbury's Hook Store Manager.

Royal Mail is building a fleet of 500 drones to carry mail to remote communities all over the UK, including the Isles of Scilly and the Hebrides. The postal service, which has already conducted successful trials over Scotland and Cornwall, will create more than 50 new postal drone routes over the next three years as part of a new partnership with London company Windracers. Drones, or UAVs (uncrewed aerial vehicles), can help reduce carbon emissions and improve the reliability of island mail services, Royal Mail claims. They offer an alternative to currently-used delivery methods that can be affected by bad weather – ferries, conventional aircraft and land-based deliveries. They can also take off from any flat surface (sand, grass or tarmac) providing it is long enough.

Walmart has been America's biggest retailer since the 1990s, its focus on low costs and ultra-efficient logistics helping it edge out competitors and keep customers coming back. But Amazon has been gaining on Walmart, and the pandemic gave the online retail giant a huge boost. Both companies are continuously searching for ways to cut costs while meeting consumer needs. It seems one of the needs that's steadily increasing is delivery. Whether due to busy schedules, health or safety concerns, or simply avoiding the stress of steering a loaded shopping cart up and down countless aisles, more people are trading in-store shopping for online shopping.

Japan is paving the way for autonomous delivery robots to become part of everyday life as the social distancing drive for the coronavirus pandemic makes the push all the more vital. The coronavirus crisis has increased the appeal of services that allow for reduced human contact and Japanese firms are counting on the potential of robots that can deliver a range of products from nearby warehouses or shops to consumers. In August, an autonomous delivery robot by ZMP Inc. dubbed DeliRo will deliver soba dishes to customers for a trial run in Tokyo. Customers can place orders via tablet computers during the trial from Aug. 12 to 16 near JR Takanawa Gateway Station, make a cashless payment and have their food delivered by robot within a designated area. "We want to explore what kinds of autonomous delivery services are possible and what the DeliRo can offer at a time when new lifestyles are called for amid the coronavirus outbreak," a ZMP official said.

Scientists have developed a quadrotor helicopter, or quadcopter, that can learn to fly acrobatic manoeuvres that would challenge even a human operator. The drone, developed with US tech giant Intel, uses a navigation algorithm that allows it to autonomously perform tricks using on-board sensor measurements. In demonstrations, researchers flew power loops, barrel rolls and matty flips, during which the drone was subject to high thrust and extreme angular acceleration. A drone with the ability to perform tricky stunts will be more efficient in conventional operations, the research team say. It can be pushed to its physical limits, make full use of its agility and speed and cover more distance within its battery life.

BEIJING – Toyota-backed self driving company Pony.ai said Friday it would provide an autonomous delivery service to residents of Irvine, California, as demand for online orders has surged because of the COVID-19 lockdown. Some 90% of U.S. shoppers are under stay-at-home orders, and a jump in demand for package and grocery delivery has left e-commerce platforms struggling to cope. In response, Amazon has said it plans to hire 75,000 more people for jobs ranging from warehouse staff to delivery driver positions. Pony.ai said in a statement it would use autonomous electric vehicles to deliver packages from local e-commerce platform Yamibuy to customers in Irvine, California, which has a population of more than 200,000. The autonomous fleet comprises 10 electric Kona sport-utility vehicles made by Hyundai.

While the coronavirus is hurting many companies in china, on in particular is thriving because of the disease. Neolix, a driverless delivery service, has experienced a spike in demand as it helps reduce physical contact and fills in at a time of labor shortages – many workers in the country have been quarantined. The autonomous vans are being used to deliver medical supplies, disinfect streets and delivery food to people who are in the heart of the outbreak. The startup has booked orders for more than 200 vehicles in the past two months and before that, it had only produced 125 units since last May, founder Yu Enyuan said in an interview with Bloomberg. The tiny vans, which are essentially four-wheeled robots outfitted with trunks for storage, are capable of navigating their environment without any human pilot.

A fleet of Amazon'Scout' delivery robots will roam the streets of Southern California as part of the firm's largest trial of automated'last mile' delivery. Last-mile delivery is the last stage of getting a package from a warehouse to your door, traditionally completed by a van or truck. Retailers and courier firms are racing to automate this process through the use of drones, either by land or by air. Amazon's latest roll-out follows a successful trial conducted in a small neighbourhood in Washington state earlier this year. Each Scout robot is a squat, bright blue device that gets around on six wheels.