Amazon Prime Air
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- utopian0
Pipe Dream®
- lvl_130
Not soon enough. And it will be on such a limited scale (literally both on availability and size constraints).
But imagine this! Full heli-drones delivering all of us 90inch LED televisions to our door step. Fuck yeah fatties. Fuck yeah.
And the side bonus would be the choppers might cut off the heads of the people that actually leave their households. Double win for fatties!
- Wouldn't people just use these drones as target practice?SrSamaurai
- you realize that 90 inch LEDs come to peoples doorsteps now... right?epac21
- via drone? um, no.lvl_13
- who cares how it comes, drones don't mean any less effort for the "fatties"epac21
- utopian0
Jeff Bezos reminds me of Steve Jobs in many ways...
- PonyBoy0
ha... just bumped scary cool tech thread w/this.
- sublocked0
DRONES OVER SF
- SrSamaurai0
"Drone! go get me another big mac large combo! nom nom nom and some twinkies and some beer nom nom nom."
- shaft0
Brilliant! No chance of FAA approval in the next decade or so because even a child will point out obvious issues, but everyone and their mother talks about how Amazon is the future of everything on Cyber Monday. This is a commercial.
- utopian0
Brilliant marketing and PR stunt. Amazon Prime Air is the frontpage story in every newspaper, just in time for the holidays...
- akrok0
^
yes.
- GeorgesIV0
copied from reddit
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1) The drones can only deliver a few packages at a time before having to return to base and pick up a new package? A delivery van can transport hundreds at once.2) A delivery drone will not be able to operate safely in windy/rainy weather, and has a fairly limited range - a delivery van avoids most weather issues.
3) If drones fly too low - People could easily capture/shoot down delivery drones and steal the packages, especially if the drones do not record and transmit live footage (like the Amazon Air drones in the video). If they fly too high, they risk [1] causing manned planes to crash.
4) Cats, dogs and birds will likely interfere with the drones, going as far as destroying them when they land in peoples yards. (Could be avoided by dropping packages I suppose? Risking damaging them).
5) Big privacy concerns - If the drones have cameras that record footage (which will definitely be needed to minimize the other problems listed), then are people are going to be pissed when buzzing drones fly over their homes videotaping their kids in their paddling pools?
6) Many technical problems with current generation drones - they have a high crash rate, limited battery power, and their proximity sensors are generally not sensitive enough to see thin branches and power lines in time to avoid them. (Could be fixed in time with new technology).
7) Drones can be easily [2] hijacked by spoofing signals, using fairly cheap equipment. A hacker could easily take control of a drone, and use it for malicious purposes, including terrorism. - (anonymous Pipe-bomb delivery system anyone?)
8) Fast deliveries will only be possible to people who live close to an Amazon storage/drone facility that stocks the item they want. Even if they set up hundreds of these facilities, they will still only be able to offer this 30 min service to like 5% of the US landmass.
9) Americans who are concerned about the constant erosion of civil liberties, and being spied on will justifiably [3] shoot down and destroy drones that enter their airspace.
10) A single drone currently costs more to produce and maintain than a delivery van - at least for the foreseeable future. Taking into account drone losses from causes listed previously, it is obvious that large scale delivery drone systems would be a huge financial disaster.
So, are we meant to believe that Amazon didn't consider these problems?
Or is there a more sinister reason for pushing this pro-drone propaganda?
I'm sure the recent [4] 600 million dollar Amazon-CIA contract has absolutely nothing to do with it, right guys? /s
"Drones might currently be associated with military use, but that won't be the case for long. Sure, the FAA hasn't approved the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles yet and that likely won't happen until 2015 or after, but Amazon is just one of many companies and organizations beginning to think about using the pilotless-aircrafts in different ways. Welcome to the future." - [5] Quote from an ABC news article
It is OBVIOUS that this is not a new "technological paradigm", as many are claiming, but a carefully constructed PR campaign aimed at changing public opinion towards being more accepting of spy drones in the USA, strategically released the night before the biggest day in E-Commerce, "Cyber Monday", to also take advantage of millions of dollars in free advertising.
- BusterBoy0
This is so ridiculous. Surely we won't have to put up with these stupid fucken things buzzing around all over our neighbourhoods.
If you need something that urgently, go and pick the friggin thing up.
- yurimon0
I think this is great if you could do it international. However I think this the future for silkroad type stuff. I predict who ever comes up with a drone with decent range delivery capacity will have eCommerce edge in the future.The future belongs to those that can bypass borders and customs paperwork.
- pango0
how about the weather and pet attacking drone problem?