On December 02 2013 12:56 FabledIntegral wrote: Feel like it would make things easy to steal...
How would it be different than leaving a box in front of your door while you aren't even home?
Wait what? Do they just leave your stuff in front of the door if you aren't at home in the US?
I've actually had the ups drop the package at my neighbors house when I wasn't home, and I don't even know my neighbor. I called them up and bitched them out good for that one.
This has happened to me multiple times. One time it wasn't even a neighbor on the same street but was a few streets down. Luckily they were good people and gave it to me when they had a chance. The other times the package has just been lost. Lost packages worth hundreds of dollars that way. It's pretty stupid.
I actually would trust drones using GPS more than the human error factor involved in a deliveryman. At least it'll end up in the general vicinity of my house.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
... I don't think you know how a radius works T_T
Does it really make a difference? The point is that this is all pie in the sky, perhaps literally, and conveniently spoon fed to media outlets the day before cyber-monday. This is nothing more than a marketing video.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
... I don't think you know how a radius works T_T
Does it really make a difference? The point is that this is all pie in the sky, perhaps literally, and conveniently spoon fed to media outlets the day before cyber-monday. This is nothing more than a marketing video.
well yes, the difference between 960 and over 30000 is at least noteworthy.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
... I don't think you know how a radius works T_T
Does it really make a difference? The point is that this is all pie in the sky, perhaps literally, and conveniently spoon fed to media outlets the day before cyber-monday. This is nothing more than a marketing video.
well yes, the difference between 960 and over 30000 is at least noteworthy.
It really isn't though. That amount is just a drop in the bucket compared to the total amount of land area they'd need to cover to make this venture worthwhile. Discussing the mathematics of something that doesn't exist is equally inconsequential.
You are missing a key point : it's really cool. I would definitely advise my neighbors to use it so I can see it into action. I would not pay for it though.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
On December 02 2013 12:56 FabledIntegral wrote: Feel like it would make things easy to steal...
How would it be different than leaving a box in front of your door while you aren't even home?
Wait what? Do they just leave your stuff in front of the door if you aren't at home in the US?
I've actually had the ups drop the package at my neighbors house when I wasn't home, and I don't even know my neighbor. I called them up and bitched them out good for that one.
This has happened to me multiple times. One time it wasn't even a neighbor on the same street but was a few streets down. Luckily they were good people and gave it to me when they had a chance. The other times the package has just been lost. Lost packages worth hundreds of dollars that way. It's pretty stupid.
I actually would trust drones using GPS more than the human error factor involved in a deliveryman. At least it'll end up in the general vicinity of my house.
That actually happens rather frequently here too, heh. Amazon is so lovable.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
US education system hard at work.
Somehow I knew that one was coming!
In regards to the drones, I would consider FAA regulation to be a much bigger hurdle compared to actual feasibility. It is amazon after all, and they are willing to sacrifice all their profit to expand their infrastructure.
Having said that, people in the US are much more aware of terrorism potential and terror-related fear is more prevalent. I think the practical ability of drones to be used against commercial airlines is a fear of the FAAs that far outweighs the importance of amazon delivery speed/innovation.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
US education system hard at work.
Yea, I know, there's a good reason I didn't study engineering.
Sounds like some pretty high end BS to me. How can they cover enough areas? What about the weather? how many 10000 deliveries will a drone make to pay for itself? Why wouldn't I take a drone down to get spare parts for mine? What about a crash? If they want to make 30min deliveries, why don't they just deliver with motorcycles?
Where does the drone land for people living in flats? How the drone even know where to land? What about bad weather? What if you're not home? and finally what's the point if this only serves the people living close to a distribution center? Especially the range thing seems to make this pointless for something like amazon, I can't imagine the range being improved so much. I suppose it runs on gasoline and those engines are hardly improving anymore nor can i imagine the efficiency of the design improving by more than a factor 2. If anything this seems more suitable for quick short range delivery, for example pizza's. Food delivery is always close to the restaurant and speed and saving on personal delivery could be a thing. Also seems to have the weight ideal for this sort of thing.
10 miles radius would cover my city of a million people (Munich, Germany) Jeff Bezos believes it could be profitable even in its current form. It just works like a pizza delivery. Plus I believe theres still a lot of room for improvement. I watched that video how flexible those drones can fly and dodge stuff. Im pretty impressed. If they fly high enough i think they would be pretty hard to hit.
I just thought about delivering pizza that way :D i think its feasible
cant believe that people on a fan forum for a scifi game are so pessimistic about new technology. I still know when people said how useless tablets would be.
On December 03 2013 03:26 Markwerf wrote: Where does the drone land for people living in flats? How the drone even know where to land? What about bad weather? What if you're not home? and finally what's the point if this only serves the people living close to a distribution center? Especially the range thing seems to make this pointless for something like amazon, I can't imagine the range being improved so much. I suppose it runs on gasoline and those engines are hardly improving anymore nor can i imagine the efficiency of the design improving by more than a factor 2. If anything this seems more suitable for quick short range delivery, for example pizza's. Food delivery is always close to the restaurant and speed and saving on personal delivery could be a thing. Also seems to have the weight ideal for this sort of thing.
Well if you ordered something to arrive in 30 minutes, from your home and aren't at home when the delivery arrives I'd be inclined to call that your fault. Doesn't look like gasoline at all to me, actually, maybe it is inside that box, I just assumed it's not because of something else in the OP. The entire "I don't think this can be improved" part in your post is an entire load of nonsensical crap. I HIGHLY doubt this thing is maxed out on what it can do. The point is that you need to start somewhere. Maybe it's going to be a thing maybe it's not but saying that you think this has no future because you think there's no way to improve this any further is just stupid.
On December 02 2013 13:02 TheFish7 wrote: Amazon only has something like 30 fulfillment centers in the US. Even if they were to have this service available at all of them, that would leave the vast majority of households out of range. This idea only becomes viable if you can somehow increase the range of the drones without also increasing the cost of delivery.
Clearly says they have 96 in the OP.
That's only 960 miles out of the entire world
... I don't think you know how a radius works T_T
Does it really make a difference? The point is that this is all pie in the sky, perhaps literally, and conveniently spoon fed to media outlets the day before cyber-monday. This is nothing more than a marketing video.
well yes, the difference between 960 and over 30000 is at least noteworthy.
It really isn't though. That amount is just a drop in the bucket compared to the total amount of land area they'd need to cover to make this venture worthwhile. Discussing the mathematics of something that doesn't exist is equally inconsequential.
Except population isn't evenly distributed, and their centers are more likely to be located near to larger population hubs, therefore...
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pQXL81K.png)
