Category: UPS News

New algorithm lets drones monitor their own health during long package-delivery missions.

In the near future, the package that you ordered online may be deposited at your doorstep by a drone: Last December, online retailer Amazon announced plans to explore drone-based delivery, suggesting that fleets of flying robots might serve as autonomous messengers that shuttle packages to customers within 30 minutes of an order.

To ensure safe, timely, and accurate delivery, drones would need to deal with a degree of uncertainty in responding to factors such as high winds, sensor measurement errors, or drops in fuel. But such “what-if” planning typically requires massive computation, which can be difficult to perform on the fly.

Now MIT researchers have come up with a two-pronged approach that significantly reduces the computation associated with lengthy delivery missions. The team first developed an algorithm that enables a drone to monitor aspects of its “health” in real time. With the algorithm, a drone can predict its fuel level and the condition of its propellers, cameras, and other sensors throughout a mission, and take proactive measures — for example, rerouting to a charging station — if needed.

UPS slashed its earnings forecast a few weeks ago, and Cramer couldn’t be happier. Really.

And, no, it’s not just because he’s a buyer and the revision sent shares lower. Cramer honestly thinks the lowered forecast is quite bullish.

And he says if other investors had sifted through the specifics and noted all the details, they’d feel the same.

United Parcel Service of America Inc. is pre-empted under federal law from breach of contract and other state law claims in connection with the loss of $150,000 in missing packages containing specialty gold and silver coins, says an appeals court in upholding a ruling against Lloyd’s of London syndicates.

A total of 27 shipments of packages shipped with UPS by Wilmington, Delaware-based First State Depository L.L.C., which provides customer, shipping and accounting services for coins and special metals, were lost or stolen during an eight-week period in early 2012, according to Tuesday’s ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia in Certain Underwriters at Interest at Lloyd’s of London et al. v. United Parcel Service of America Inc.

CNBC’s Kelly Evans speaks to Myron Gray, UPS president of U.S. operations, about the state of the U.S. economy and the possibility of drone delivery.

FROM THE late 1950s through 1970, UPS massively expanded its operations and workforce across the U.S.

Forbes magazine dubbed UPS the “Quiet Giant” of the shipping industry in 1970 because of the stealth-like manner that it captured a huge section of the “parcel post” market from it chief competitor, the United States Post Office. During this era, UPS came into view as the company we recognize today, with its massive fleet of distinctive dark brown trucks that are omnipresent in America’s commercial districts and residential neighborhoods.

“Big Brown” was the popular nickname coined at the time for UPS. It captured the company’s well-crafted image as a powerful, efficient and profit-driven machine.

However, inside hubs across the country and for its drivers on the streets, UPS”s aggressive management, relentless drive for higher productivity and peculiar, cult-like culture put enormous pressures on workers. Management’s goal was nothing less than to become the world’s biggest shipping company.