Amazon Reveals "Prime Air", Their Plans For 30-minute Deliveries By Drone

Z80xxc! writes "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed during a CBS 60 Minutes interview that the company is working on a service called 'Prime Air' to deliver packages by autonomous octocopter drones within 30 minutes of hitting the 'buy' button. The plan still requires more testing and FAA approval, but Bezos predicts it'll be available to the public in the next 4-5 years. With a lot of backlash against drones, and some towns even offering bounties to shoot them down, will this technology ever take off, or is this just another one of Amazon's eccentric CEO's fantastical flight ideas?"

Crime?

[AmiMoJo]

It seems like it would be a lot easier to steal from a drone than it would be to steal from a person delivering a package.

I predict...

[Joce640k]

This is just a free-publicity stunt, timed for Xmas to get the word "Amazon" on all the news channels.

Stupid media bait

[Anonymous Coward]

This story nicely demonstrates how the modern media has no time (or desire) to think on their own.

This system is completely impractical. Anyone who has any idea on the capabilities of octocopters can immediately see that this idea is DOA.

- Range is abysmal. If you are not within walking distance of a distribution center, you are not in range of one of these. They could offer 10x better service for those within walking distance of their distribution hub by offering in-situ instant pickup if you are happy to walk to the center.
- Payload is non-existing - 0.5kg is quite a bit for an octocopter. Lets say they make a bigger "cargo" version and manage to quadruple that. 2kg. Too little for anything useful.
- Octocopters are good-weather toys. They cannot be flown in heavy winds. "Sorry, no deliveries today, it's too windy". Yeah. Right.
- The technology just isn't robust enough to be scaled up to meaningful numbers - crashes due to mechanical faults are inevitable, potentially hitting something and as a minimum causing an expensive tech toy wreck for Amazon. Often.

So this is purely a silly story to get Amazon into headlines right around "Cyber Monday" so buyers would remember that Amazon exists.

Re:Crime?

[ceoyoyo]

Or steal the drone....

Re:Hacker's delight

[N1AK]

Roughly as long as it takes for people to start jacking UPS vans when the driver gets out to put the parcel on the porch... Any drone that is going to have permission to do this is going to have tracking and cameras. Some chumps will shoot them or break them but the risk and reward balance is pretty obviously not going to encourage much of it.

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Re:Stupid media bait

[u38cg]

So drive a truck full of octocopters to an area, send them off, ten minutes later they're all back. And something like 80% of deliveries are 2kg. As for wind, obviously it's only useful in suitable climates. But I suspect you're overestimating the amount of wind you get in many majro urban areas.

+1 for "Rainbows End"

[Daetrin]

Yet another thing, along with self-driving cars, Google Books, and Google Glass, that Vernor Vinge's 2006 novel seems to be on track for.

Re:Crime?

[sifi]

Surely the whole point is you wait until you know you're going to in for 30mins and then order it? It wouldn't have to leave it anywhere then.

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