Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#81

Post by edgall » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 12:52 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #50

krschultz wrote: post #37

Cue Amazon's PR firm trying to win 'cyber-monday'. Whether or not Amazon ever delivers packages with drones, the ROI on the drone R&D is massive simply based on how much attention it draws each year on cyber monday.

Amazon is such an interesting company to watch. They do really dumb and goofy stuff, all the time, in very visible ways, but under the radar they've got the largest cloud hosting business in the world chugging along devouring everything in its path that most people don't even know about. I mean, none of my non-technical friends know AWS exists or what it is, and few realize Amazon is one of the most powerful and infl…

It's almost Christmas so it means another video from Amazon on their futuristic drone tech. Sigh.

Most news stations in every country will probably tag this to the end of their broadcasts thus meaning millions saved in advertising for Amazon.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#82

Post by TrevorJ » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 12:53 AM UTC

Thinking about it a lot, and I think the simpler way to solve the same problem would be shipping container sized package 'vending machines'. These could be distributed anywhere a couple parking spaces worth of land could be rented.

You could either pick up your items yourself, or pickups could be handled via an "uber for packages" type model.

The advantage of a system like that would be how quickly it could change based on demand, and it would work well inside all the current shipping infrastructure.

The trick would be stocking the right items in the right locations, but if anyone has the data to be able to do that it's Amazon.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#83

Post by wowzer » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 12:54 AM UTC

While time will tell if we ever actually see this drones in action, imagine how cool it must be for the people working on this project. They get to go to work each day playing with some really fancy model airplanes. Plus, this is Amazon pushing yet another aspect of technology forward. They may overwork their employees, but cool things are coming out of those offices.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#84

Post by cxseven » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 12:55 AM UTC

nimish wrote: post #61

cxseven wrote: post #57

Every neighborhood should have a delivery nexus where packages are to be picked up / dropped off! That'd make more sense than everyone needing a dedicated Amazon landing pad in their backyard. You could also have fresh baked goods and produce economically delivered daily like they did back in the cutting edge of the 1800s.

Like a post office?

Yes, except the idea is to have one within walking distance for most people, and it could possibly be automated and unstaffed.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#85

Post by hiddencost » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 12:57 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #34

They are going to have to go back and update all the movies that attempt to guess the future. Apparently there are going to be a bunch of drones flying around delivering to people in the suburbs. Looks very cool but in the real world so many things can go wrong, I am sure people are going to intercept and either damage or steal the drones.

Haha. You must live somewhere pretty crazy if you expect that much violence and theft. People don't randomly attack everything. Sure, there'll be some losses, but that's true of any business, plus you'll have the theft on camera and just stop delivering to those neighborhoods. Compare the cost of drone loss to UPS' cost due to accidents. It would take an insane amount of effort to steal that many drones.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#86

Post by azernik » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 1:12 AM UTC

TrevorJ wrote: post #82

Thinking about it a lot, and I think the simpler way to solve the same problem would be shipping container sized package 'vending machines'. These could be distributed anywhere a couple parking spaces worth of land could be rented. You could either pick up your items yourself, or pickups could be handled via an "uber for packages" type model. The advantage of a system like that would be how quickly it could change ba…

It's called Amazon Locker, and it's existed for years.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#87

Post by PopePompous » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 1:18 AM UTC

babuskov wrote: post #19

pinkunicorn wrote: post #3

Shit, I thought this was a marketing gimmick. Looks like they might actually be delivering. And it looks quite awesome to be honest. And development in Israel? Wow!

I don't get it. What so special about development in Israel?

That means they'll have onboard countermeasures for surface-to-air missiles.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#88

Post by criddell » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 1:21 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #77

8ig8 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a one time hooliganish teenager, I wonder if these will become targets for slingshots (or more sophisticated surface-to-air weapons).

Not just hooliganism: there is real booty to collect. I suppose the flying altitude should be outside te air gun range, with descent right naivete landing spot.

You can also collect booty from parked UPS and FedEx trucks.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#89

Post by ghaff » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

giarc wrote: post #44

ghaff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not that expensive and are very flexible dealing with the very analog common-sense-requiring situation that is dropping off a package.

They are much, much more expensive then drones. Minimum wage, benefits, delivery vehicle maintenance, insurance, etc etc etc.

Yes, people are more expensive. In that they're paid wages. Others things you list are common to automated platforms. But people are also good in dealing with imprecise situations that are common with package delivery. I actually believe Amazon is seriously interested in pursuing this. I also believe it's largely stupid.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#90

Post by mapt » Mon, Nov 30, 2015, 1:31 AM UTC

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #58

mapt wrote: post #22

Here's what I think is more likely: A small regional airport is taken over by Amazon. They build hangars and warehouses onsite. It's ramped up to land and fly a big turbine-powered mothership every five minutes. The warehouse dispatches packages to stacks of delivery drones like the one pictured in the video. The mothership loads the delivery drones in order. The motherships take off regularly, and then as the mother…

I suspect this will be limited to urban areas, like all of Amazon's premium delivery options. 30 minutes of flight time at 30 mph means you could cover the entire city of Houston (the largest city by area in the U.S.) with about 4 warehouses. I think you're much better off trying to increase the range of your drones than using carriers because your coverage area is quadratic with your drones' range but linear with yo…

Drones have got to get back in addition to getting to the target, and you only get 30 minutes if most/all of your payload is dedicated to battery. The drone has a fairly short range while fully loaded, and a lot longer range while empty.