141–150 of 604 posts
Apart from the Scifi-ness of having drones work well in the best of conditions, the back-up infrastructure required to support bad conditions would seem to make the whole venture unrealistic. Let's say that a little drone could reliably carry a package to doorsteps 10 miles away. Let's assume that it can navigate past trees and power lines and kite strings and so forth. So Amazon builds up these service centers with…
Apart from the Scifi-ness of having drones work well in the best of conditions, the back-up infrastructure required to support bad conditions would seem to make the whole venture unrealistic. Let's say that a little drone could reliably carry a package to doorsteps 10 miles away. Let's assume that it can navigate past trees and power lines and kite strings and so forth. So Amazon builds up these service centers with…
I don't think that rain, snow, or modest winds should be problematic for any properly equipped drone.
They won't be able to handle a great deal of weather adversity.
I wonder how they'll stop this from being abused. From shooting them down with pellet guns to capturing them as they land.
I don't understand how this would work without having distribution centers that fully cover the nation to within 30 minutes, and having every item they sell at every such center. Even if you just want to cut UPS out of the last 30 minute radius and not stock everything at every distribution center... that's still distribution centers everywhere.
Wal-Mart and other big chains already has much of that infrastructure in place.
Since this service would defeat the purpose of Wal-Mart, I can't see Wal-Mart supporing it, unless there were a merger with Amazon.
But the fact that there are so many Wal-Marts suggests that it might be possible to build sufficient infrastructure that mostly covers the continental US, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Because that costs thousands of dollars more for a wardrobe than trying on off-the-rack clothes, and I'm certain it takes longer.
Um, $165 isn't bad for a cashmere sweater (though to be honest I don't know anything about the quality of the stuff on this site). I took note because I don't know of a custom shirt place in Boulder, and I miss the 3 or 4 that were near my place in Houston. I hear professional women really appreciate having nice custom shirts as well.
http://www.amazon.com/primeair When will I be able to choose Prime Air as a delivery option? A: We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time. Sorry, but not a chance. I'm intimately familiar with the flight controller, motor and batter technology behind multi-rotors, and I can state unequivocally that this is just not ready for 'prime'-time (so-to-speak :) There…
Maybe he has an upper hand over the current state-of-the-art.
Apart from the Scifi-ness of having drones work well in the best of conditions, the back-up infrastructure required to support bad conditions would seem to make the whole venture unrealistic. Let's say that a little drone could reliably carry a package to doorsteps 10 miles away. Let's assume that it can navigate past trees and power lines and kite strings and so forth. So Amazon builds up these service centers with…
It's just another option to add to the mix. Not everyone chooses next-day delivery, not everyone will choose 30-min delivery; the classic delivery infrastructure will likely remain in place. The service will just periodically be disabled: "due to severe weather in your area, PrimeAir is currently not available. Please check back later, or choose standard delivery."
That costs money.
[edit: typo fixed]