Tech and consulting giant IBM recently secured a US patent to produce a drone that will be capable of detecting when people might be need in need of a caffeine hit and serves that need by delivering coffees to them.
How will this drone work?
In paperwork filed by IBM with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the company indicates they have multiple potential plans for their coffee drone.
The filing included text that the drone would be capable of delivering coffee to:
“an area including a plurality of people; scanning the people, using one or more sensors connected to the UAV, the one or more sensors connected to an electronic processing circuit which identifies an individual among the people that may have a predetermined cognitive state.”
The drone, IBM suggests, could also be equipped with with facial or voice recognition software as well as sensors that would have the ability to detect blood pressure, pupil dilation and facial expressions and judge whether people are drowsy. They might even be able to interface with your Fitbit data (if you give them permission). The combination of these sensors, IBM believes, would allow the drone to know when you might need a caffeinated beverage pick-me-up.
Umm.. but would it really know you needed coffee? Couldn’t you just be tired and need sleep?
It’s questionable whether the combination of sensors would be accurate at detecting whether someone needed coffee. Identifying that someone is tired is easy enough. But whether this would translate into a coffee delivering drone providing a useful suggestion for a caffeinated beverage or harassment by a company trying to sell you something is a more difficult thing to know.
Images submitted by IBM as part of their patent filing
One iteration of the patent filing shows a proposed drone that would lower cups to consumers.
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