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First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

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Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#41

Post by CraigJPerry »

swalsh wrote: post #35

People say that there's usually about a 10 year lag before tech from the military enters civilian use. Since drones showed up roughly 2003, it stands to reason that 2013 is when we should first starting seeing the tech become civilian viable. In fact that seems to be true, there's a whole lot of DIY material out there, and that's from people who don't have real world experience. I wouldn't be surprised if as military…

These drones owe nothing to military tech.

They're born out of the hobbyist RC scene and were enabled by Chinese investment in cheap RC parts development.

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#42

Post by swalsh »

danellis wrote: post #30
ljd wrote: post #6

It seems obvious to me that Bezos took this one public so early to garner public support so that the FAA can't just sit on it forever. All of Amazon's other initiatives didn't need some federal regulator to OK it before they could start selling it. I think this is an effective solution to getting a notoriously slow agency to move on an item. No one wants to be seen as stopping innovation, not even the FAA.

What worries me is that whatever regulations the FAA come up with will suit Amazon just fine, but will put drones out of reach of hobbyists.

I would be surprised. Amazon has a history of developing tech for its own purposes, and then selling the tech. Their SOA architecture is now the backbone for one of the largest cloud services platform on the internet.

They might be the go to supplier for commercial drones in the not to distant future, so when they work with the FAA to get them approved (which i'm sure they're doing), i'd bet they are keeping alternative applications very closely in mind.

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#43

Post by swalsh »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #41
swalsh wrote: post #35

People say that there's usually about a 10 year lag before tech from the military enters civilian use. Since drones showed up roughly 2003, it stands to reason that 2013 is when we should first starting seeing the tech become civilian viable. In fact that seems to be true, there's a whole lot of DIY material out there, and that's from people who don't have real world experience. I wouldn't be surprised if as military…

These drones owe nothing to military tech. They're born out of the hobbyist RC scene and were enabled by Chinese investment in cheap RC parts development.

Yeah... that's what my post said, but there's obviously some common ground between them, and my speculation is that reduced military funding might encourage people who have that expertise to branch out into the private sector.

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#45

Post by lukethomas »

Personal opinion, but this article should be on someone's personal blog, not promoted through Hubspot. It seems after a quick Google search, Dan Lyons has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the past, and it's probably something I would avoid getting into from a company POV.

http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-wh...

http://parislemon.com/post/17587323277/bat-shit-crazy

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#46

Post by Crito »

noonespecial wrote: post #24

Perhaps it was prior art. I can already feel the ground rumbling with the coming stampede of "X... but with teh drones !" patents.

"The Tacocopter of [Something]" is one of my favorite answers to the "The something of something" startup idea game. "The Tacocopter of Twitter" I think has been my best so far; some sort of telegraph service that delivers your printed telegraph message with a quadcopter instead of a courier.

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#47

Post by criley2 »

ye wrote: post #39
swalsh wrote: post #35

People say that there's usually about a 10 year lag before tech from the military enters civilian use. Since drones showed up roughly 2003, it stands to reason that 2013 is when we should first starting seeing the tech become civilian viable. In fact that seems to be true, there's a whole lot of DIY material out there, and that's from people who don't have real world experience. I wouldn't be surprised if as military…

You're confusing huge ridiculously expensive military drones, which are essentially small planes, with what Amazon is showing us, which are essentially small helicopters. There's no way in the world these tiny drones can fly 10 miles each way, carry 5lbs of payload, deliver the package perfectly on the driveway/doorstep, and cost low enough to not be a financial nightmare. That's not even accounting for dealing with…

Sorry, but who are you? Who are you to stand up and call Amazon's idea unviable?

Why is their idea unviable? Because they have no proof?

Well you certainly proved how unviable the idea is with your lack of proof.

Quite frankly, when it comes to Bezos vs "ye", I have to say that the billionaire owner of one of the most successful stores in our world is SLIGHTLY more credible than "ye", random commenter who has no domain experience and no evidence for literally a single word they said.

I mean honestly, in a conversation about credibility and evidence, you thought providing neither makes for a good argument?

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#48

Post by nhangen »

swalsh wrote: post #35

People say that there's usually about a 10 year lag before tech from the military enters civilian use. Since drones showed up roughly 2003, it stands to reason that 2013 is when we should first starting seeing the tech become civilian viable. In fact that seems to be true, there's a whole lot of DIY material out there, and that's from people who don't have real world experience. I wouldn't be surprised if as military…

Surely the cost of military drones (and the personnel to operate them) is many magnitudes more than Amazon is willing or able to spend on delivery drones.

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#49

Post by gutnor »

benjamincburns wrote: post #13

In all of the criticism, I haven't seen anything remarking on the energy cost for this. I can hear a strawman in the audience saying "But drones are tiny/electric/cheap!" Not at these scales. Consider the (lack of) efficiency of quadcopters, the weights and distances involved, and the total sales volume for this service in even a small test market. I'd buy that flight itself is a viable option over wheeled vehicles w…

What I wonder is why nobody is pointing out that delivering less than 2kg in 30 min in a radius of 10 km can be done freely on a cheap pizza using plain old human labour.

I fail to imagine at what stage Amazon drone become cheaper considering the reliability of drone and the complexity of navigating a dense urban environment (I assume it is to be used there) Also, if it can be done cheaply enough, takeaways will eventually use the same system. I wonder how that will scale ...

Re: First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

#50

Post by jaggederest »

ye wrote: post #39
swalsh wrote: post #35

People say that there's usually about a 10 year lag before tech from the military enters civilian use. Since drones showed up roughly 2003, it stands to reason that 2013 is when we should first starting seeing the tech become civilian viable. In fact that seems to be true, there's a whole lot of DIY material out there, and that's from people who don't have real world experience. I wouldn't be surprised if as military…

You're confusing huge ridiculously expensive military drones, which are essentially small planes, with what Amazon is showing us, which are essentially small helicopters. There's no way in the world these tiny drones can fly 10 miles each way, carry 5lbs of payload, deliver the package perfectly on the driveway/doorstep, and cost low enough to not be a financial nightmare. That's not even accounting for dealing with…

I assumed that they would be gasoline powered. The power to weight ratio of 2-stroke engines is ridiculous, and certainly plenty to handle the demands of this sort of vtol craft.
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