First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by danabramov » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 9:11 AM UTC

VolatileVoid wrote: post #170

downandout wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Organising something like this in a controlled area like a campus must be a few orders of magnitude simpler than organising something like this across the US. Not necessarily. When a new address comes up, a human operator might takes a look at a satellite image of the address and give the drone an appropriate location to land on the property. That data would then be stored. 15 seconds with a human, one time only, i…

That's not at all the problem. What about navigating TFRs? Class B airspace? What about failures of the rotors whilst flying over heavily populated areas? Will these things be equipped with TCAS to avoid oncoming traffic? What happens if the path-finding algorithm to get from Amazon's warehouse to your house goes batshit insane and flies it in the approach path to LAX? Who files the flight plan for each of these thin…

Thanks for the link, I re-read it with much pleasure.

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

#172

Post by intelliot » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 9:43 AM UTC

durrrrrrr wrote: post #158

foobarian wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke, but why not? Rent a small shop and put a landing pad on the roof, which then feeds a vending machine as the storefront. That also solves the authentication problem since it's easy to require a credit card swipe or a smartphone ping to dispense the package.

Because this is a different invention. The post office.

The post office also ought to use this technology to make mail delivery faster. Today, sending a letter across town takes days, but with drones perhaps it could take minutes.

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

#173

Post by intelliot » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 9:45 AM UTC

tomkarlo wrote: post #113

steveklabnik wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the technology for Duke Nukem Forever was available. People are just as much of a problem with vaporware products. With the drones, Amazon will have to deal with the tech in various forms, the people problem (shooting them down, capturing them, stealing packages, etc), and the regulatory problem. Five years is an _eternity_ in Internet Time.

Yeah, but it's not very long at all in Retail Time. It's taken us 20 years from Amazon coming online to Internet sales eclipsing retail holiday sales (which I believe is projected for this year.)

Excellent point. 5 years ago, bitcoin didn't exist. It has come a long way and it has been a long time in Internet Time. Amazon launched in 1994 but it hasn't been very long in Retail Time.

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

#174

Post by loup-vaillant » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:24 AM UTC

ye wrote: post #116

loup-vaillant wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way in the world these tiny drones can fly 10 miles each way, carry 5lbs of payload Today, there are prototypes that cost $2000, can carry well over 2kg (high definition cameras and such), and have a twenty miles range (that's 40 miles worth of "fuel"). As for perfect delivery… until you can miniaturize self-driving car technology, you can always have a human pilot manually landing the thing and take off…

Link to the prototype.

Can't. I met the guy in person while travelling by train. He had the drone in question in his suitcase. He did tell me however he was involved with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM (Or another such effort —I met him in France.)

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

#175

Post by annnnd » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 12:13 PM UTC

VolatileVoid wrote: post #170

downandout wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Organising something like this in a controlled area like a campus must be a few orders of magnitude simpler than organising something like this across the US. Not necessarily. When a new address comes up, a human operator might takes a look at a satellite image of the address and give the drone an appropriate location to land on the property. That data would then be stored. 15 seconds with a human, one time only, i…

That's not at all the problem. What about navigating TFRs? Class B airspace? What about failures of the rotors whilst flying over heavily populated areas? Will these things be equipped with TCAS to avoid oncoming traffic? What happens if the path-finding algorithm to get from Amazon's warehouse to your house goes batshit insane and flies it in the approach path to LAX? Who files the flight plan for each of these thin…

Not to mention UFOs. And as someone said, the drones would make archery a very popular sport again. ;)

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

#176

Post by johnward » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 1:00 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #22

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.

I agree. Even if Amazon doesn't end up launching its own drones, you can be sure that Fedex and UPS will eventually. That helps Amazon too.

If you've ever worked with or for either of these companies you would know how "old school" they are. They can barely keep an autosorter running, I wouldn't expect them to be able to run a fleet of unmanned drones. Also I'm sure the union at UPS would have some feelings about losing jobs to robots.

Source: I worked for FedEx Smartpost/Ground IT for a few years. It was absolutely terrible.

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

#177

Post by easy_rider » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

Nice, buy a $10 book. Own a $1000 drone.

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

#178

Post by swalkergibson » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 2:31 PM UTC

Crito wrote: post #38

wavefunction wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about "ruthless tyrant?" I'm making a point to shop locally now. I've already seen what supporting Walmart has done to our country.

One would think that you would reserve that sort of terminology to describe warlords with armies of child soldiers, or dictators who have their "democratic opponents" dragged out of their homes with black bags over their heads... you know, "ruthless tyrant" stuff...

Walmart essentially engages in the capitalist equivalent of both of those. Third World labor exploitation and near-extortion of their upstream suppliers. I cannot think of a more ruthless tyrant than Walmart.

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

#179

Post by swalkergibson » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 2:40 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #168

wavefunction wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about "ruthless tyrant?" I'm making a point to shop locally now. I've already seen what supporting Walmart has done to our country.

>I'm making a point to shop locally now. I've already seen what supporting Walmart has done to our country. Given people better prices/more choices? I really don't get this anti-walmart sentiment everywhere.

Because if you shop locally, more of your money stays in your community, resulting in healthier local economies. Instead of your dollar spent at Walmart getting cut up and sent to Madison Avenue and Beijing, it goes to the local PR agency and a local cut-and-sew factory that you may not have even known existed.

Also, those better prices are due to the fact that Walmart's buying power means that they tell the supplier how much they will pay for the item, and leave it to the supplier to figure out how they can manufacture it and still make a profit. You can imagine the corners the supplier needs to cut to make that happen.

Source: http://localfirstaz.com/aassets-lfaz/10-shift/pie-chart-econ...

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

#180

Post by swalkergibson » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #56

nhangen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surely the costs of flying a plane through a war zone with unreliable infrastructure with attached bombs is more than that of flying a plane with an ipad through suburbia with a reliable infrastructure.

Maybe not. If a drone crashes in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, there won't be much backlash. If a drone crashes in downtown San Diego, you can imagine the to-do...