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Amazon Prime Air

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Re: Amazon Prime Air

#351

Post by chongli »

bjt wrote: post #322
chongli wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? I don't think everyone that expresses skepticism is rooting for failure. I think there's a very strong feeling of cynicism about the bureaucratic, anti-intellectual, regressive culture of the established corporatocracy.

Corporatocray is a weird word to use in this context. Amazon is a corporation wanting progressive regulation here, not resisting it. The fact that the FAA is in charge of the regulations gives me reason for optimism. Having a consistent policy across the US will be a lot simpler than if each state, or worse, each municipality, were creating its own regulations.

Amazon is practically a startup compared to the existing, entrenched corporatocracy. They aren't old enough to have established the revolving door between their board room and the white house/congress/3-letter regulatory agencies.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#352

Post by scoot »

storborg wrote: post #247
scoot wrote: post #124

http://www.amazon.com/primeair When will I be able to choose Prime Air as a delivery option? A: We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time. Sorry, but not a chance. I'm intimately familiar with the flight controller, motor and batter technology behind multi-rotors, and I can state unequivocally that this is just not ready for 'prime'-time (so-to-speak :) There…

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…

The multirotor you cited has a no-load hover time of about 15 mins - hover n/e forward flight. It has a loaded flight time of about 5 mins. Like I said - pick one.

I didn't say wind, I said weather. That said, forward flight in even moderate wind draws considerably more current.

The motors are open for cooling and weight efficiency. They aren't waterproof. Try flying in snow, or dusty / sandy environments and see what happens!

If GPS accuracy randomly ranges between perfect and nonfunctional, then you have described unreliable. Please cite all these alternatives.

What do you imagine might happen if one were to 'brake the motors below a certain altitude'?

And I didn't say 'can't be made', I said the technology isn't there yet, nor by 2015 as Amazon suggest. I also said it will be eventually.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#353

Post by chongli »

jasonwocky wrote: post #319
chongli wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human-driven delivery trucks hit and kill dogs, cats, men, women and children every day And gasoline-powered vehicles of all sorts catch on fire all the time in collisions, yet one or two of Tesla's catch on fire and all hell breaks loose. Our mass media has an extremely regressive, anti-intellectual, pro- status quo bent.

Status quo bias is a condition of humanity, not just the media. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias

Right, but this particular societal institution has a rational preference for the status quo. This is mentioned as an exception right on the page you just linked.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#354

Post by nwh »

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?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#355

Post by jordanthoms »

This is awesome - It'll probably take someone like Amazon pushing things to make this happen, and now the pressure is on the FAA to allow this (and figure out how to regulate it).

Can't help but notice they announced this just before Cyber Monday, no doubt it'll drive a lot of traffic - Bezos is a crafty one indeed.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#356

Post by bobbles »

toyg wrote: post #63
fragsworth wrote: post #26

Brick-and-mortar stores are doomed. I can only see a few types of products remaining in brick-and-mortars: Clothes that you want to try for size, fruits and vegetables that you want to sample, and restaurants... any others?

Furniture is still a bit difficult to evaluate online, and quite complex to deliver.

If I could drone in some furniture and land it on my balcony it would open up a hell of a lot more options than having to get it up my microscopic 3 story staircase.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#357

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #295
flyinglizard wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can work with minor interruption to everyday life if the drone are confined to the paths of major highways. It will reduce their noise pollution (and be marginally safer in a crash). The bigger impact would be on smaller retailers, that don't have this service. This service is an absolute killer, making it faster to order a toothpaste from Amazon compared to picking it up at a shop outside your house.

The bigger impact would be on smaller retailers, that don't have this service. This service is an absolute killer, making it faster to order a toothpaste from Amazon compared to picking it up at a shop outside your house. This would be an incredible benefit to human economy. Imagine the millions of retail jobs completely obsoleted by drones. Consider the price difference between wholesale and the corner retail shop -…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#359

Post by seshakiran »

Guys, this is science fiction getting real and this is kick ass. This is awesomeness. Kudos to JB. And I think this would work without having any big issues. Reasons are:

1. Amazon will wait for the FAA approval before deploying this . This means, the max. weight a copter can carry at any given time would be limited. As some one said, if AMZ starts shipping heavier packages beyond a certain limit there is a risk that it might be dropped and causes injury or death.

2. AMZ would not deliver it across cities. Pls. see the video. It's mentioned that it would be within 30 mins of pressing buy button. This means the radius of the delivery is controlled and monitored from either the fulfillment centers or a central control center.

3. Consider attaching a video camera for delivering the goods. It would also record the whole delivery process for many aspects. It would have a visual footage of who picked it up, whether it was delivered to the correct location etc. This covers legal aspects as well.

4. People would love to have this way of things delivered to them since they would save a lot of time going to the store, spending on gas, waiting in lines etc. oh..btw, this is good environment too. Less gas usage.

Now, the question is how would UPS, FedEx and USPS react to this? They would still be delivering the goods via road to drone inaccessible locations. What if the weather doesn't permit? Would not AMZ have a back up plan of delivering only to the places where weather is not bad? Why would they send the drone into a tornado effected area? Think my fellow HN readers. Think.

Now, the next aspect is security. Can someone spoof the GPS location and re-route the packages? May be. If that's the case, the video recording would help as mentioned earlier.

Walmart, you listening?

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#360

Post by MichaelGG »

stefan_kendall wrote: post #227
backprojection wrote: post #101

Will there be pirate drones that fly around looting the Amazon drones?

Yes, just like there are pirate cars that drive around looting UPS trucks.

I recall reading about shipments of Pentium (II?) processors being hijacked from trucks. I believe some people were even killed. The value of a truckload of new Intel processors is rather high though. Enough that someone may decide the risk in an armed robbery is worth it.
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