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Amazon Prime Air

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Re: Amazon Prime Air

#421

Post by xerophtye »

cliffbean wrote: post #327
RodericDay wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast consumer good delivery is pretty far from what I consider the best science fiction can offer.

The best new technology in science fiction might be warp drive. However, that's currently thought to be physically impossible . Fast consumer delivery is merely impractical . It's so impractical, that we often think of it as impossible. But this is where science fiction is at its best: if we think about how cool it would be if this actually worked, we may find it easier to justify the kinds of investment needed to ma…

What about Energy? Loads and loads of it without harming the environment? I thought THAT would be pretty cool sci-fi tech

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#422

Post by VMG »

qwertz123 wrote: post #407
meritt wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kills a dog!? I don't know what sort of half-ass dogs these people have but I'd be vastly more worried about my dog fucking up one of these drones and being held responsible for replacement costs.

My dog would definitely try to take it out but it's the same as with cats: I would be more worried about the old guy losing an eye than hurting the cat. Those rotor blades look pretty dangerous to me.

Stop worrying.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#423

Post by shimfish »

throwaway092834 wrote: post #238
jmduke wrote: post #176

(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…

Human-driven delivery trucks hit and kill dogs, cats, men, women and children every day. On average, 16 people will die in any given day in a truck related crash. One in eight traffic fatalities involves a large cargo truck. Driving vehicles on roads is incredibly dangerous. I don't think it's possible for drones to do a worse job.

The problem is that at some point society became insanely risk-averse, especially for new things.

Cars are OK despite being the most insanely dangerous things on the planet because we grew up with them. American Football is OK despite the ludicrous amount of fatalities and injuries.

Hell, if one of these drones just damages a house plant I'm sure the lawyers will be climbing over each other to take the case.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#424

Post by greeneggs »

lancewiggs wrote: post #240

Responses that I have not yet seen in the comments. 1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof. 2: We could not just set our delivery point up using a app on our smartphones (GPS wtc), but those phones could also broadcast over the various radios to the device and even use the camera to help the UAV navigat…

"1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof."

This is what I would like. Even if they use a regular delivery truck most of the way, it would be great if they could cover the last fifty feet with a drone, to leave the package on my balcony.

(Amazon's switched to using their own courier service in my area. They make one delivery attempt only and won't leave packages at the door. So right now I can't use Amazon any more.)

Technically, this seems really hard, since GPS might not be enough---too much interference close to the building, trees. But maybe it is possible to get enough onboard visual processing to make it doable. Pretty interesting research problem.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#425

Post by radisb »

throwaway092834 wrote: post #238
jmduke wrote: post #176

(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…

Human-driven delivery trucks hit and kill dogs, cats, men, women and children every day. On average, 16 people will die in any given day in a truck related crash. One in eight traffic fatalities involves a large cargo truck. Driving vehicles on roads is incredibly dangerous. I don't think it's possible for drones to do a worse job.

Yes, all that are facts. But out of how many truck related deliveries? With your logic, one could say that even if 100% of drone deliveries resulted in a fatality, it would be enough to do < 16 deliveries a day on average and be able to say "Drones are not doing a worse job"

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#426

Post by bruceboughton »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #346
8bitpony wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what? There are millions of people that can't use rsync + git.

And they're all willing to pay ~$10/month for it to Just Fucking Work. Build things that solve people's problems.

Dropbox is free for the vast majority of people.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#427

Post by XorNot »

dpcan wrote: post #81
ams6110 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait until the first time one shreds a customer's dog, (or face, child, etc.) as it tries to deposit a package on her front porch.

Why does this thing even have to land? Can't it drop each package with a mini parachute from about roof-top level with good accuracy? Or even 10ft, just above the height of most kids, dogs, cars and adults.

Skycrane landing. I've been reading and reading and can't believe it hasn't been mentioned - the drone simply unreels the payload on a cable while hovering until it gets to the ground. Then you either detach the clips, or, use a disposable cable and just clip the wires at the drone-end (saves on possibly tangles).

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#428

Post by chongli »

harryh wrote: post #198
crusso wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like you would with a child Why would we turn off our critical thinking skills when contemplating claims of a leap in technology that transcends what many of us understand to be possible currently? There are times to encourage creative thought, like with children or within the context of a brainstorming meeting. But most of the time we should evaluate claims critically with the best practices of the Scientific Method…

The Scylla and Charybdis of innovation. Open your mind too far and you accept too many wacky ideas. Close it to much and you'll never see what's possible.

The really hard part of critical thinking is training your intuitive, heuristic filters. Applying rigorous critical thinking to everything takes way too long. Conversely, applying critical thinking to nothing at all makes you a gullible idiot. Developing that filter to strike the right balance is a lifelong learning process.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#429

Post by prawn »

lancewiggs wrote: post #240

Responses that I have not yet seen in the comments. 1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof. 2: We could not just set our delivery point up using a app on our smartphones (GPS wtc), but those phones could also broadcast over the various radios to the device and even use the camera to help the UAV navigat…

If range is a problem, a drone could move a package to the next depot and leave it with another drone, or use that stop to replace its battery before continuing.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#430

Post by pjan »

While technologically fascinating, is it just me or are we creating a really sad sad world, where we eliminate all human interaction and pollute or skies with these ugly annoying things. I wholeheartedly hopes this fails as hard as possible.
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