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Amazon Set To Launch Drone Delivery in California (cnet.com) 54

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The drones are coming as Amazon announces Monday that it's launching a fleet of delivery drones. The retail giant will test its new Amazon Prime Air delivery system in Lockeford, California, the company said. From a report: Amazon worked with the Federal Aviation Administration and local officials in Lockeford, a small town south of Sacramento, to gain permission for the drones to take flight. "Lockeford residents will soon have access to one of the world's leading delivery innovations," California State Assemblyman Heath Flora said in a release. "It's exciting that Amazon will be listening to the feedback of the San Joaquin County community to inform the future development of this technology." The company has been developing drones for years. It gained FAA approval for the drones in 2020, before scaling back the project the following year. The drones use sense-and-avoid systems in order to operate safely. The drones can reliably avoid obstacles including other aircraft, people and pets, Amazon said.
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Amazon Set To Launch Drone Delivery in California More

Amazon Set To Launch Drone Delivery in California

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  • Let us give the pirates more vectors.

    • Re:Ah yes (Score:4, Interesting)

      by aitikin ( 909209 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @11:32AM (#62615528)

      Delivery to the backyard might make porch pirates less opportunistic.

      Delivery via drone might make shotgun owners more opportunistic.

      A wash in the end?

      • Commercial drones aren’t cheap. You won’t be getting off with a fine.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        Delivery via drone might make shotgun owners more opportunistic.

        They are going to start in the densest markets and work their way down, there's not going to be a lot of people shooting down drones in most cities. And once they identify areas where that's likely, they just won't make deliveries to those areas, nor fly through them. It's a problem, but one which can be addressed. Also, the products will be slung beneath the drones as per usual, so shooting them down will carry a high risk of destroying any payoff.

        • Re:Ah yes (Score:4, Interesting)

          by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @11:57AM (#62615612)

          Delivery via drone might make shotgun owners more opportunistic.

          They are going to start in the densest markets and work their way down, there's not going to be a lot of people shooting down drones in most cities. And once they identify areas where that's likely, they just won't make deliveries to those areas, nor fly through them. It's a problem, but one which can be addressed. Also, the products will be slung beneath the drones as per usual, so shooting them down will carry a high risk of destroying any payoff.

          I would think it's the opposite - start in a much less dense area where people have big yards for the drone to drop a package in. The town they have chosen, Lockeford CA, has only 420 people/sq mi

          • Well, you make a good point, perhaps suburban sprawl is the most logical area to cover, as it will have the most back yards. But you can make drone deliveries in cities, too, where people have roof access, or on the top of people's cars, etc.

            • Well, you make a good point, perhaps suburban sprawl is the most logical area to cover, as it will have the most back yards. But you can make drone deliveries in cities, too, where people have roof access, or on the top of people's cars, etc.

              Having grown up in NYC, most people in apartments don't have access to the roof. Landlords don't want the risk of injury or roof damage.
              As for delivery on top of cars, that's never going to happen. Too much risk of damaging the car, too hazardous for people in the vicinity, and the odds of your package getting stolen are extremely high. You're lucky if they don't take the entire car.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )
        And drug traffickers are soon going to be replaced by drones.

        • Uh, that is asking for them to get caught. All that is needed is one addict's family member to tell the police and they will track the drones back to the source.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbialac ( 320955 )
            Maybe, maybe not. Traffickers used to fly planes to the US from Columbia and sink the planes in the ocean. Cheap 3D printing and cheap electronics will allow them to do one way runs with little tracking.

      • How common is that? Besides, when the first few people who do that get hauled off to jail, the fun of drone-popping will go away. Besides, I am pretty sure people most people order stuff online nowadays and would prefer drones rather than getting their packages stolen or delivered expensive. Worst case, amazon drones can just avoid trailer parks.

        • Besides, when the first few people who do that get hauled off to jail, the fun of drone-popping will go away.

          Exactly. Look at how people stealing packages from other people's porches has stopped when the first few people were caught and punished.

          Or how rape has stopped once the first few men were caught and sent to jail. Or how people are no longer robbing stores, stealing cars, or committing murder after the first few people doing the same were caught and punished.

          • Well, in this case, the shooters would be on camera with a GPS fix on their exact location if they're daft enough to shoot thing down from their yard. If they're not in their own yard, their car may be on camera (Every car in the area will be, anyway. So they'd have had to trek a why's aways from their car before taking their shot. And, on that case, another drone could be re-tasked to follow them from outside shotgun range.) and depending on the angles there's a decent chance their license plate is vis

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            All those other crimes are motivated by things like poverty or anger.

            Shooting at drones is not a good way to steal things, since the product will probably get hit by some of the shot and then fall to the ground and get smashed to pieces.

            There is much less motivation to risk prosecution when the dumb thing you are doing is just for fun. There will be some incidents involving idiots and drunk people, but not many.

        • I disagree that punishment is a deterrent. Source: Rising crime rate globally.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Jeremi ( 14640 )

            I disagree that punishment is a deterrent. Source: Rising crime rate globally.

            How did that compare to the alternative scenario, where there are no punishments?

        • Go away? Yeah. 4-chan says "hold my beer".
      • Backyards have a way of being rained upon. I also forsee all manner of problems with fences, utility lines, volleyball / badminton nets, clotheslines, utility lines, pools, and off-by-one errors.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Hack into the drone network, redirect them all to some place where you have a pickup waiting!

  • I am all for drone delivery, but I feel like my neighbors would hate the noise.

    • Unless they are even more incompetent than one would expect, it's going to be quieter than a truck, for a shorter period. Unless they've deployed EV delivery vans to your area already, I guess.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kackle ( 910159 )
      Add me and the citizens of my quiet town to that list.

      I don't think people realize how often Amazon deliveries occur around them. Further, if they think this is going to be quieter than just another vehicle driving down the street, they either have never dealt with drones or don't recognize how much more powerful delivery drones will have to be to carry packages.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      Better than the neighbor mowing their lawn, and people seem to tolerate that.

  • If this goes nation-wide every kid with a BB gun is going to have a field day. A never ending supply of maker parts for the taking.

    • Do you think Amazon is going to allow that to happen? They'll be caught on video and put in jail, charged as an adult no doubt. Drones can avoid trailer parks from then on as added punishment.

    • BB gun? Why bother. A ball of yarn or a garden hose would do just as well and give them one less thing to charge you with instead of discharging a weapon inside city limits.

      Or just put up a plastic dog house and put a modified microwave, wave guide, and feed horn inside to blast the drone with RF energy. The neighbors might notice their WiFi hiccuping for a few seconds, but they'll much more interested in the drone crash in the street.

      (The above advice is for a thought experiment only and should not be t

  • Northern California has worked to keep drones out of the hands of private citizens to reserve the airspace for commercial interests.

  • After the dramatic announcement in 2013 by Bezos, how come the first company approved by the FAA to do commercial delivery is a small startup from Israel that probably spent two orders of magnitude less money than Amazon?

  • all those delivery driver jobs? Be specific. It's 1.3 million in the US alone. It's not great work, but it pays enough to keep a roof over your head.
    • They aren't going to replace the drivers. Cut it out.
      • Because right now the driver has to get out of his car and deliver all those packages. If I can put 10 drones all fluttering about in a truck I can get those package deliveries done in a fraction of the time and therefore need a fraction of the number of drivers. And that's before we talk about self-driving cars which are already being used for taxi services. Self-driving Long haul trucks aren't far off either with just a need for a driver to finish the final miles.

        You don't have to eliminate all the jobs
        • What's going to replace all those jobs? Are they all going to get masters degrees in biotech? Is every single one of those guys going to be a welder and an HVAC guy? Because those seem to be the two answers I get

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Amazon isn't responsible for keeping everyone employed. Sorry, they just aren't.

    • This is exactly why your politics don't work. You want progress benefiting 99% of the population to be halted because it inconveniences 1%.
      • How does this benefit anyone but the Amazon execs? They get to save on labor costs. It doesn’t benefit me, the consumer. I already get my packages within a perfectly reasonable amount of time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Same thing that replaced all the jobs that were lost when ATMs were invented, or when stables were shuttered in favour of gasoline powered vehicles, or when human computers were replaced with digital ones.

  • why they are targeting this wide spot in the road on the other hand is a mystery

  • Flown a lot of RC aircraft in my life and I don't care how good the quality of the components are in your flying machine, a servo, ESC, motor, prop, or something is going to fail. And when it does someone might get hit.

    I personally don't want an unattended drone flying anywhere near me.

  • Drone delivery is going to be a class action lawsuit bonanza. Dropped the package next door. Dropping the package in a pool or garden or a creek/river/lake/ocean. Damaged the property on landing or takeoff. Injury to pets. Complete destruction of the drone in encountering such as a Pit Bull.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      Injury to pets would be the only one of those I could see working. All those other things are already happening and there isn't a crippling flood of lawsuits. If you report the issue and the shipper or seller makes you whole, you have no cause of action, and Amazon tends to be pretty good about taking care of buyers. If you go straight to a lawsuit without trying to fix it some other way, I think courts take a dim view of that.

  • ....Fine unless you live near an airport, or military base, or tall buildings, ... or anywhere else Drones cannot fly

    (Hint: that's the majority of people)

    You also need a place to land, so don't bother if you don't have a lawn or drive

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      Doesn't really matter if it's most people, as long as there are enough Amazon customers elsewhere to support it. Probably only Amazon knows this, but with so many people living in suburbs, it wouldn't surprise me.

  • California is a big place. The new drone delivery will cover like 5 acres of customers.

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