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Amazon Prime Air

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Re: Amazon Prime Air

#341

Post by MikeCodeAwesome »

fosk wrote: post #278
storborg wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Two guesses: cellular location services and custom radio telemetry systems. Maybe that's one guess.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#342

Post by wpietri »

hnriot wrote: post #301
esusatyo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.

Dropbox is for people that can't use rsync+git. For the unix-competent, it's not particularly difficult and we managed for many years with the previous tools, rsync+svn or even rsync+cvs

I can use rsync and git, and use it for some things. But I'm perfectly happy to use Dropbox too. I like it because it Just Fucking Works on every platform I'm on.

The way I look at it, I've got limited time. I can spend it fucking around duplicating infrastructure, or I can spend it on something that matters more to me.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#343

Post by gambogi »

diminish wrote: post #333
goronbjorn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? You must be new to Hacker News…

The truth is, drone delivery was discussed already here on HN. A lot of the details were already envisioned and suggested. A lot of the commenters on this thread think it's a new idea or its's new here on HN. This is a good PR move for Amazon(edit: equal to Google's self driving car in PR power). It's likely they got inspired by some of the HN discussions. I hope they don't invent silly patents around it, such as "on…

there is no evidence hacker news had anything at all to do with this idea. Also, just because people are excited about an idea doesn't make them naïve about it's freshness.

I'm certain drone delivery has been discussed by many countless people, most of whom the acronym HN means nothing to.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#344

Post by wetmore »

stefan_kendall wrote: post #211
tcohn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Bezos is wondering how society will respond. It is up to us. Some will welcome this as an improvement in delivery efficiency and service. Some will say it will make our cities crowded and noisy not only on the streets with cars and trucks, but in the sky too. I like my blue silent sky. I recall scenes of sci-fi worlds like the 5th Element. I suggest we tax externalities. If you order by sky, you'll create vis…

You must live nowhere near anywhere. My sky is plenty filled with buildings, airplanes, helicopters, and even the occasional hot air balloon. You keep your taxes to yourself. I have a package that needs delivering in under 30 minutes by drone.

"needs"

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#345

Post by MaysonL »

esusatyo wrote: post #233
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…

Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.

Hell, CmdrTaco on iPod...

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#346

Post by toomuchtodo »

8bitpony wrote: post #318
hnriot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox is for people that can't use rsync+git. For the unix-competent, it's not particularly difficult and we managed for many years with the previous tools, rsync+svn or even rsync+cvs

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.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#347

Post by andrewaskins »

saryant wrote: post #94

My personal theory is that Amazon hates being reliant on UPS and FedEx. I can't see Bezos being thrilled that so much of his empire relies on the Teamsters. Note that UPS's labor agreement with the Teamsters expires in the next few years. That poses a big risk to Amazon's infrastructure if there's labor unrest during the negotiation. I've long suspected they were working towards a point where they could handle the la…

I'm really curious about how FedEx and UPS will handle this. If the legislation changes then I think there could be room for one of these two, or possibly a new competitor, to create their own fleet of drones to offer local deliveries for businesses everywhere.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#348

Post by MaysonL »

diminish wrote: post #333
goronbjorn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? You must be new to Hacker News…

The truth is, drone delivery was discussed already here on HN. A lot of the details were already envisioned and suggested. A lot of the commenters on this thread think it's a new idea or its's new here on HN. This is a good PR move for Amazon(edit: equal to Google's self driving car in PR power). It's likely they got inspired by some of the HN discussions. I hope they don't invent silly patents around it, such as "on…

Heck, Bruce Sterling had delivery by drones (albeit drone pogo sticks[think regenerative bouncing]) back in the '90s.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#349

Post by wpietri »

javert wrote: post #46

I don't understand how this would work without having distribution centers that fully cover the nation to within 30 minutes, and having every item they sell at every such center. Even if you just want to cut UPS out of the last 30 minute radius and not stock everything at every distribution center... that's still distribution centers everywhere.

Nah. I'm sure they won't promise perfect availability to every customer for every product, at least not initially. There will be a gradual rollout.

But it's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. They're already able to deliver all their things on a reliable schedule to every house in the US. That's the hard part. To do this, they just need to squeeze some more waste and latency out of the system. They've already proven to be very good at that.

Remember, our current logistics systems already move basically all the goods Americans need to within a 15 minute drive already; they just make customers do the final pickup themselves at distribution centers (which we call stores). This is just switching the last-mile burden from buyers to the seller.

If Amazon gets this working well, there will be plenty of empty big-box stores to serve as local caches.

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