Amazon Prime Air - delivery by drone

Just saw this pop up for discussion in a group I belong to.
Seems pretty interesting, but I'm having trouble imagining widespread use... If this isn't just a big joke.

The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Amazon
60 Minutes

reply to post by trollz
Wow. OK. I looked this up, is on Amazon's official site so seems legit. I order from Amazon all the time, would be great!

Sounds like a brilliant idea. Sit out in the backyard with a BB gun and score yourself some free presents as the drones fly past Also what happens when the resident isn't home. In my area if you left a package at the front door it'll be gone by the time you get home...

Thirdly, who signs for the package? How do they establish proof of identity?

reply to post by trollz


What more drones? This is a terrible idea.

Good thing I have my license.

It's just a clever marketing advertisement. The reality of it is far off, but will probably happen some day.

Aside from the obvious security loopholes in anything like this, it has severe technical problems. Quad drones like this have a flight time of about 15 minutes tops, lest they become huge beasts that could probably kill someone. The other aspect is of course, people would capture the cute little couriers , as they are worth a few thousand bucks.

Perhaps, some day... but not now.

I order from Amazon all the time and I think this would be a fantastic idea if they can manage to take care of all the technicalities. Would cut down the shipping costs and time considerably I would imagine.

Here is one I just finished building. Fully autonomous (gps,comp,bar,gyro,telemetry and video).
It can lift a 3 lb payload
Max flight time, about 12 minutes as configured.
A very dangerous vehicle to fly any where near populated areas. Open fields only.



Not to mention, a lot of bucks lost if it were to get away from me.

Amazon's idea is great, but getting there will have technical and legal hurdles that will take a long time to overcome.

As someone who recently got a job at ups ,yes let's take more jobs from humans. Not only does this idea have so many potential flaws it could lead to thousands of people losing jobs in the long run. This is another idea that sounds great on paper but not in reality.

True, this could be Vapor ware at its finest but still cool stuff. As someone who does not ONE drone in the skies let alone thousands, it just shows that Company's like Amazon reinvent themselves all the time.

I should of bought shares of Netflix and Amazon like 3 years ago. Netflix could of been bought just 1 year ago and you would of made a killen. Netflix was dead.

reply to post by Empte


Well I hate to tell you, nobody is going save jobs for humans as you put it, if it can be done cheaper or more efficiently by machine. That's just the way it is.

Is that going to cause a lot of problems - yes a lot, but nothing is going to stop progress.

Another thing this will do if successful is kill the retail store as we know it completely. If Amazon really can get 30 minute delivery of virtually any product, a ton of stores are going to go out of business because many of their customers will be perfectly happy to order from home. That will mean no in store jobs, no more retail space construction, less trucking cause it will predominately go to distribution centers, less consumer driving etc. Delivery jobs lost are actually a very small piece of the economic impact this could have.

I saw Dominos pizza was also working on drone delivery a few months ago. Robots, autonomous driving cars, drones even artificial intelligence are much closer to becoming major parts of our lives than the average person realizes.

To me I just can't even imagine what the economy will look like 20 years from now, cause the way I see it, half of the current jobs are going to be done by machine.

reply to post by Bassago


Ha! That's great. Gotta get me one of those.


As for drone delivery... Well, it sounds good on the drawing board but I don't see this working well for a few reasons. There would be a low weight limit for a drone that small and a short flight range. Then there are the legal problems involved such as when one crashes into someone or their property, or loses their items or if/when someone decides to take one down and/or take their package. Also, I can already imagine someone hacking them and redirecting packages to where ever they choose.

reply to post by hoochymama23


Well anyone investing money in a company like amazon or netflix needs to be very aware their price is not based on fundamentals, it is entirely based on hype.

That is fine if you understand what you are getting into, just beware the prices of those companies will go down just as fast as the internet companies in the late 90's did when the market implodes - because they aren't and will not be making much profit at all with their current business models anytime soon.

I believe the drone deliveries are done in real-time communication, so the person is home and knows exactly to the second when the package is hitting that front door.. No threats of anyone stealing it and it gets delivered same day by air... I would be down with this just to try it out...

proximo
reply to post by hoochymama23

 

Well anyone investing money in a company like amazon or netflix needs to be very aware their price is not based on fundamentals, it is entirely based on hype.

That is fine if you understand what you are getting into, just beware the prices of those companies will go down just as fast as the internet companies in the late 90's did when the market implodes - because they aren't and will not be making much profit at all with their current business models anytime soon.

They lose money by constantly innovating and entering new markets, which costs money to do. Everyone on Wall Street wants them to stop innovating and enjoy/focus on the revenues they currently make. The only way Amazon can continue is to grow at a loss, but establish a monopoly by putting others out of business. They don't create a new market, but move into them like a predator.

Amazon understands that this race is a marathon, and not a sprint. The last man (company) standing will win.

First they grow. then, the profit will come...

Many of the hurdles can be overcome with a little thought. Everyone has letter boxes now. In the future everybody may have drone landing pads doing the same thing where the package drops down a chute right into your kitchen.

The current problem is batteries to run the drones. Right now they do not have enough flight time AND the recharge time means the drone is sitting around doing nothing while it recharges or someone has a job of changing the batteries over.

You would need a Drone to be able to take more than one package to make the system efficient and that starts a whole new set of problems such as weight distribution.

The cost of the drones is also prohibitive but all of these things is now. Ten years from now, who knows.

Stealing the packages LOL. Steal the Drone, leave the package!

I can see Aerial combat Amazon vs Wallmart, The Drone Wars!

P

reply to post by pheonix358


Drones that work off solar energy?? So as they fly they are constantly charging. If they could pull that off that would be sweet..

They will never do this. A high powered wallmart pellet gun could take one of these down. Tribes of Amazon drone hunters would form, and ipads would be raining down on cities everywhere. I personally think this is a scheme to piss off America and make us paranoid of the future. Something like that. But this will never happen, meaning there is some kind of agenda behind this story.

The main problem with this idea is most definitely going to be "drone hunters". All other problems I have read can be solved but it seems like the problem of drone hunters wont be so easy to solve. They could have loud alarm systems on them so that if they are forcefully taken off course it triggers a loud siren noise and sends out a wireless signal to the police.

Empte
As someone who recently got a job at ups ,yes let's take more jobs from humans. Not only does this idea have so many potential flaws it could lead to thousands of people losing jobs in the long run. This is another idea that sounds great on paper but not in reality.

Would you rather have vacuum tubes at a centered location and an email for notification of arrival?

don't worry, if they manage to get it to work, it will take just as many humans to explain the crashes, mishaps, clean up crew, repair facility and legal department, for the plethora of law suits coming their way. plenty of jobs to be had.