51–60 of 247 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an idea that is DOA. It will never work because it will never be economical, nor safe. If you think about it for a few minutes, you'll realize it's a joke-- like an April Fools joke.
do you mean to say drone's are more expensive than people ?
The problem in this area is finding someone you trust and is competent. I don't see how this solves that.
For lower skilled work I guess there might be something here.
The is certainly space for a "Uber/Airbnb for home services", but I am not sure Amazon will be it. What startups are in this space, and do they have any traction?
Task Rabbit is pretty good and well known, and now there's Magic which sits on top of it. There's a lot more but they're smaller.
I've seen a couple other startups like Magic too. It's basically paying people to google for you. That might disrupt the personal assistant space but probably not the market for home services.
The is certainly space for a "Uber/Airbnb for home services", but I am not sure Amazon will be it. What startups are in this space, and do they have any traction?
Task Rabbit is pretty good and well known, and now there's Magic which sits on top of it. There's a lot more but they're smaller.
Remember Amazon Menus? (Scanned menus of local restaurants) Remember Amazon Movie Listings? Remember the "drone delivery"? (It makes no sense on the face of it, and will never happen. But it was a big press release.) Remember Amazon scanned catalogs (eg: Mail order catalogs selling things in competition with Amazon, that you could search) Remember A9? (Amazon's answer to google, biggest mainstream mention was being u…
> Remember the "drone delivery"? (It makes no sense on the face of it, and will never happen. But it was a big press release.) You mean the drone delivery they're actively testing in the UK? The drone delivery they're fighting with the FAA about? The drone delivery they just testified before Congress about? They're spending an awful lot of time, money, and political capital on something that makes no sense, will neve…
Textbook drone delivery: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-d...
Cake drone delivery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1020621...
Pizza drone delivery: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-r...
Parcel delivery drones: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-chin... http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/25/german-dhl...
Beer delivery drones: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/...
Taco delivery drones: http://tacocopter.com/
Burrito delivery drones: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/12/17/burrito-bo...
Sushi delivery drones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKX...
Rubber shoe delivery drones: https://www.techinasia.com/crocs-japan-drone-delivery-crash/
General delivery drones: http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11210026/Drone-on... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/02/project_wing_google_...
I think a certain amount of scepticism is warranted :)
The is certainly space for a "Uber/Airbnb for home services", but I am not sure Amazon will be it. What startups are in this space, and do they have any traction?
The is certainly space for a "Uber/Airbnb for home services", but I am not sure Amazon will be it. What startups are in this space, and do they have any traction?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon drone delivery WILL happen. This will be completely disruptive to how stuff is consumed. Amazon being able to reach any point in an urban environment from its outskirts, at any time of day, within minutes and at a cost of just cents, will completely change consumption patterns (at least for existing Amazon users). Once something has such a strong financial implication, any other obstacle in its way is going to…
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon drone delivery WILL happen. This will be completely disruptive to how stuff is consumed. Amazon being able to reach any point in an urban environment from its outskirts, at any time of day, within minutes and at a cost of just cents, will completely change consumption patterns (at least for existing Amazon users). Once something has such a strong financial implication, any other obstacle in its way is going to…
It's an idea that is DOA. It will never work because it will never be economical, nor safe. If you think about it for a few minutes, you'll realize it's a joke-- like an April Fools joke.
1. Safety: drones - multirotors, specifically - are very safe devices, inherently. They are incredibly simple (4-8 motors and no other moving parts). If they are dangerous, it's only because of lack of investment by the manufacturers to make mission critical hardware/software. That's the next step in the drone ecosystem though, as commercial use is gaining traction (multirotors are barely 6 years old now, IIRC. Mission critical flight systems haven't had time to develop). Furthermore, octocopters (8 motors, and there are variants with more) have built in redundancy (assuming a reasonably intelligent flight controller) against the loss of each motor.
2. Cost: An Amazon drone could be manufactured for few thousand dollars - $3k is the RETAIL COST of a DJI drone that can fly 10kg overall weight (drone, payload, batteries). That means at scale, and without retail margins, Amazon could make them for less than $10k, even if they are much larger and more sophisticated. The only wearable is the battery, and these can do many cycles (500+) before needing replacement, when properly managed. Other than that, the cost of maintenance are simply nonexistent.
3. Flight time: Simply irrelevant on an urban delivery service. An off the shelf commercial drone today can fly 10kg AUW for 20 minutes easily, lets say 12 minutes if flying at 40km/h - that means it has a range of 8km (and that's basing on simple off the shelf stuff, not purpose built and optimized systems). Manhattan is 3.7km wide and 21km long, meaning that with a handful of automated battery replacement hubs you can cover the its entire span.
4. Fleets and carrying weight: These drones will fly non stop, carrying up to 10kg at each payload. That covers 95% of the typical Amazon order and probably 99.5% of the things that you need just this second. The drones will fly non stop - I can't imagine needing more than a few dozens to cover a large city.
Bottom line: the technology is definitely within reach; I'd argue it's there, just needing some rich commercial entity to tie all parts together, test and certify. Nothing here awaits a scientific breakthrough to be made possible, and I'd say that technologically, it's easier (and probably safer) than self driving cars (which no one doubts).
Really hate when web sites assume you live in the US. Don't make me click around menus and finally ask for US Zip code (And don't assume Zip codes have 5-digits only).
Amazon.com is their US site. If you're there, you've effectively walked into a store in Seattle. If you want a store not tailored to the US market, you'll need to visit one of the sites they've made for other countries (where this is probably not available yet).