I have two remarks or questions.
The person who receives the package doesn't have to (or cannot) sign for it apparently.
How difficult is it to shoot down such a drone to get the loot, if you will. Might become a sport for some folks.
Amazon Prime Air
51–60 of 604 posts
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they're not entirely unsuitable for urban areas. Instead, their (relatively) short range means that they're unsuitable for anything except urban areas. If designed poorly, they would be very unsafe, but there are plenty of ways to increase the safety. For example, notice that the drones have more than 4 rotors. This gives a bit of redundancy so that a motor can fail without causing the drone to crash.
Can't wait until the first time one shreds a customer's dog, (or face, child, etc.) as it tries to deposit a package on her front porch.
so install a drone landing pad on the roof..
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#53I 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.
You would only roll this out to certain areas at a time. Not the entire planet at once.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they're not entirely unsuitable for urban areas. Instead, their (relatively) short range means that they're unsuitable for anything except urban areas. If designed poorly, they would be very unsafe, but there are plenty of ways to increase the safety. For example, notice that the drones have more than 4 rotors. This gives a bit of redundancy so that a motor can fail without causing the drone to crash.
Can't wait until the first time one shreds a customer's dog, (or face, child, etc.) as it tries to deposit a package on her front porch.
As the regulatory and commercial frameworks evolve, I can see how buildings would have dedicated landing zones (likely on roofs)… the XXI century equivalent of mailboxes.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#55Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out) He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go. The biggest challenge…
>> why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations?
My guess: if the public is clearly excited, it puts more pressure on regulators to approve it.
Which is otherwise a hard sell, especially when you think of what it means for security if autonomous drones are a normal sight.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#56Brick-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?
bookstores, where one can browse more than the cover and a few pages
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#57Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out) He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go. The biggest challenge…
I have a feeling they are doing it to garner support for drones in general, which will help them with the FDA when it comes to getting approval.
FDA? FAA?
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#58Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out) He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go. The biggest challenge…
I have a feeling they are doing it to garner support for drones in general, which will help them with the FDA when it comes to getting approval.
I hope you mean FAA.
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#59In the 60min piece, Bezos mentioned 85% of their sold products are 5lbs or less... (wonder if that includes the digital stuff?)
Re: Amazon Prime Air
#60It doesn't seem like the battery density exists for anything except fairly short distances with very small packages. For the vast majority of deliveries, this could only be a "last mile" mechanism, with the bulk of each delivery happening via more traditional transport. 30-minute delivery from the warehouse? Not going to be possible for 99% of purchases, even those that are under the weight limits.
Moreover, you can't just have hoardes of flying vehicles randomly over populated areas (and if this was at all practical, every company and its dog company would be trying to do the same thing), so you'd need fairly strict regulations on where they actually fly, and a system for managing them (e.g. limiting the number of flights by all companies). They'd probably need to do things like limit the paths that could be followed, maybe above public roads (which would reduce the delivery radius). Whatever happens, the (necessary, because it involves public safety and contention for a limited common resource) regulation and government control is going to slow the process down, probably a lot more than Amazon's timeline suggests...
Even if they could grind through all the problems, get government support, and setup a system to do final delivery of very small purchases by air... is the investment required to do all this worth it to be able to deliver a vanishingly small proportion of packages more quickly?
What this really looks like is an unintentional leak of Amazon's next April 1st gag...