Starting today, eager customers of the US pizza restaurant chain Papa Johns living in one corner of southern North Carolina will have the opportunity to receive their food from the sky, thanks to a new collaboration with Alphabet’s drone company, Wing. But Papa Johns’ signature pizzas won’t be on offer. Instead, drone-loving North Carolinians will have to choose between three kinds of sandwiches, a newer product for the fast-food chain: Philly cheesesteak, chicken bacon ranch, or steak and mushroom varieties.

Drone deliveries are popping up in more communities across the US and the world. Questions about the long-term economics and regulatory picture around unmanned aerial vehicles persist, but Wing boasts partnerships with Walmart, Panera, and DoorDash and is delivering through the sky to customers in four metro areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston. (In 2019, Wing received the US Federal Aviation Administration’s first certificate allowing a drone delivery company to operate in the country.) Competing drone companies, including Zipline, Amazon Prime Air, and Flytrex, fly packages, medical supplies, and Chipotle burritos in select communities across countries like Ghana, Japan, and the US.

But until very recently, drone operators have struggled to fly full-size pizzas. For companies hoping to break into the food delivery space, this is unfortunate: 11 percent of the US population eats a slice on any given day, according to the US Department of Agriculture. In a fast-diversifying restaurant industry, getting them to customers is still big business. But the realities of physics, engineering, and the restaurant business conspire to make pizzas a challenge for drones.

Flying Pizzas

Traditionally, pizza is the experimental tech delivery of choice. The familiar and cheap cheese-sauce-bread combo has been loaded onto self-driving cars and autonomous sidewalk delivery vehicles and has been assembled by robots. It’s a fast and satisfying option, especially for busy families tight on time. And theoretically, a great fit for automated drones, among one of the faster delivery options—people love fresh, piping-hot pizza.

But transporting one by drone requires some extra work, says Wing CEO Adam Woodworth. “Pizza comes in a very different box, with a big, flat surface area,” he says. They’re not naturally aerodynamic. Also, “you don’t want a pizza tilted.”

Wing’s relatively lightweight drones are engineered to carry three specific package sizes; right now, pizza boxes aren’t one of them. Woodworth says a new design is on the horizon. “I want to see pizzas coming at me from the sky,” he says.

Flytrex, an Israel-based drone delivery company, announced late last month that it had finally solved the problem. In collaboration with rival pizza chain Little Caesars, the company began delivering via drone up to two large pizzas (16 inches each), plus sodas and bread, in Wylie, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The leap comes courtesy of a much bigger new drone, capable of carrying up to 8.8 pounds for four miles.

Utility operator South Staffordshire Plc and its subsidiary South Staffordshire Water Plc have been fined a reduced rate of £964,900 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), following improvements made after a Cl0p ransomware attack that led to the personal data of over 600,000 people being leaked onto the dark web.

The cyber attack itself came to light in August 2022, and was at first the source of some confusion when the Cl0p gang misidentified its victim and claimed it was attacking and extorting Thames Water. The cyber criminals even published a lengthy rant against Thames Water and accused it of ignoring them, and not caring about its customers. The hapless cyber crooks’ erroneous claims were widely repeated across the UK media at the time.

The exposed data included personal details of South Staffordshire customers, such as full names, birthdates and gender information, account information including credentials for online services, financial data including bank account numbers and sort codes, and contact details including email and postal addresses, and phone numbers.

A small percentage of customers listed on the Priority Service Register had information exposed from which medical information may have been inferred, and a small number of employees were also affected by a leak of human resources data including National Insurance numbers.

The ICO said the incident exposed “significant failures” in its approaches to data security, and left both its customers and employees vulnerable for years.

“Customers do not have the choice over which water company serves them – they are required to share their personal information and place their trust in that provider,” said Ian Hulme, ICO interim executive director for regulatory supervision.

“It is therefore essential that water companies honour that trust by taking their data protection responsibilities seriously.”