To every person who thinks this won't work out...
...neither will your amazing photo sharing website.
Amazon Prime Air
271–280 of 604 posts
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#272(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not for anything related to this. This is the first time I'm learning of Prime Air.) I'm somewhat disheartened by the skepticism of a lot of comments from HN, Reddit, and Twitter. Not stuff like "I wonder how they'll handle adverse weather" (which I think is intellectually interesting) but stuff like "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for". What merit is there in rootin…
This is not a good idea. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...
The victim in your link, if you look at the picture, was flying a single-rotor helicopter with what looks to be a 4+ foot wingspan.
The prototype in the Amazon video is an 8-rotor helicopter with little 4 to 6 inch wingspans. Anything that goes to production will have to pass FAA approval, so they will probably end up with some sort of hoop guard at the least.
Negativity for the sake of negativity?
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a good idea. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...
This is not a toy helicopter. This is a delivery vehicle equipped with the best collision detection technology Amazon can find, approved by some of the best profit-motivated, liability-averse lawyers in the world.
That wasn't a toy helicopter either.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#274(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not for anything related to this. This is the first time I'm learning of Prime Air.) I'm somewhat disheartened by the skepticism of a lot of comments from HN, Reddit, and Twitter. Not stuff like "I wonder how they'll handle adverse weather" (which I think is intellectually interesting) but stuff like "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for". What merit is there in rootin…
This is not a good idea. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...
Is the current model better?
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/1-killed-after-bus-deli...
That's just a story I found after 10 seconds of Googling. The broader point is that having your packages delivered fast-moving multiton machines controlled by fallible people and sharing space with pedestrians and other people-controlled machines is a very dangerous state of affairs. That there are risks in alternative means is true enough, but it's important to measure those risks relative to the status quo and not just assume they're purely additive.
But because we're human, we're bad at that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#275Here is a TED talk which discusses this technology, its cost, and how it is already being used in Africa. http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_...
Thanks for the link, that was awesome. I think autonomous, helpful drones will be in our future one way or another.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, you know, Bezos is a pretty smart guy. So maybe he knows something about this technology that the rest of us don't. Maybe he has an upper hand over the current state-of-the-art.
Or maybe he's just orchestrating a little extra PR for Amazon on 60 minutes?
Or he wants to create public demand for this service to use as leverage for getting the regulations through.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#277(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not for anything related to this. This is the first time I'm learning of Prime Air.) I'm somewhat disheartened by the skepticism of a lot of comments from HN, Reddit, and Twitter. Not stuff like "I wonder how they'll handle adverse weather" (which I think is intellectually interesting) but stuff like "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for". What merit is there in rootin…
It's a good decision to try to stay on the right side of history. I wonder how many people were certain that it would be ludicrous and impossible to roll people around at 70 mph on smooth paths or thrust people through the air at hundreds of miles per hour.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#278http://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…
I'm also "intimately familiar" with multi rotors, and I don't think any of these issues you've identified are valid, with the exception of regulations (which Amazon admits won't happen). > Battery recharge time - out for 15 mins flight? Recharge for 2 hours. So? Swap out batteries. The whole drone doesn't have to be grounded for 2 hours. > Flight time / payload - pick one. (20 mins with no payload is a stretch. Add b…
What are other good alternatives to GPS?
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#279Will there be pirate drones that fly around looting the Amazon drones?
Yes. An it will be awesome.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#280Pretty neat concept. But if the goal is to deliver within 30 minutes, I wonder why does amazon need a drone? Domino's certainly dint need a drone to deliver pizza's. Given the cost of research and manufacturing of the drone, I bet this would be just a fancy R&D project. Plus dont forget the lack of accuracy the drone would have, there has to be a manual interception thus questioning the original concept itself. Musk…
Who says amazon won't also deliver pizza?