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Amazon Prime Air
31–40 of 604 posts
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#32Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out)
He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go.
The biggest challenge (again, according to Bezos) is the redundancy, "making sure it doesn't land on people's heads."
My question is: why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations?
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#33UAV quadcopters are kinda amazing and getting amazing-er by the year. (I spent too long looking over http://www.helipal.com this weekend.) You can buy one for under $400 with auto-hover, GPS return-to-home, and built in cameras (or a gopro gimble attachment). Sadly, they only get about 5 to 10 minutes of flight time.
I've been checking them out too. Really cool tech. I spent a couple hours watching people's Phantom2 drones get lost/damaged on YouTube today. Convinced me when I eventually decide to get one, it won't be that model unless they've fixed its tendency to attempt a get-away.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=phantom+2+flies...
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#34[deleted]
It's a R&D project and the video footage shown on 60 Minutes was a combination rendering and marketing video, so we shouldn't really assume that this future is already written. You're seeing mockups.
I think it's safe to assume that Amazon is publicizing this now to help get the public on their side in any future regulatory disputes.
As a society we are going to have to figure out a lot of rules regarding drones, safety and privacy very quickly. I hope we are up to that task.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#35Cool tech, but I question the practicality of it. This seems fraught with problems that a human on a bike wouldn't have. They're also entirely unsuitable for urban areas.
Landing on roofs? Balconies? Amazon mini-helipad mounted outside your window? :-). buildings built to accommodate drone delivery (usable by usps/fedex/ups/drugstores/pizza, food delivery?)
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#36Vernor Vinge described a similar rocket-based delivery system in his short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High", which eventually became the novel Rainbows End. Crazy to see this actually happening in the real world.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#37I feel like this is the definition of "having too much money."
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#38Dibs on Drone-Santa-Claus-as-a-service startup.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#39If it's not a joke, the city of the future just got quite a bit noisier.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they're not entirely unsuitable for urban areas. Instead, their (relatively) short range means that they're unsuitable for anything except urban areas. If designed poorly, they would be very unsafe, but there are plenty of ways to increase the safety. For example, notice that the drones have more than 4 rotors. This gives a bit of redundancy so that a motor can fail without causing the drone to crash.
Urban areas but don't you have to exclude apartments too.
Good point. I come from a low-rise city (Christchurch, New Zealand) so I'd forgotten about that. I suppose you could designate a safe spot, perhaps on the roof of the apartment?