Jeff Bezos is nothing if not a showman. Amazon's CEO loves a good reveal, and took the opportunity afforded by a 60 Minutes segment to show off his company's latest creation: drones that can deliver packages up to five pounds, to your house in less than half an hour. They're technically octocopters, as part of a program called "Amazon Prime Air." The drone sits at the end of a conveyer belt, waiting to pick up a package — Bezos says 86 percent of Amazon's packages are under five pounds — and can carry them up to ten miles from the fulfillment center.
The segment focused primarily on holiday shopping, particularly the annual shopping extravaganza that is Cyber Monday. It's a huge day for Amazon — more than 300 items will be ordered each second — and does much to reveal the company's true ambitions. Amazon doesn't just want to reinvent the way we shop for and buy things, it wants to upend every step of the process — including how our purchases come to us.
Charlie Rose spoke to a number of Amazon executives and employees, and toured one of the company's 96 massive warehouses, known as "fulfillment centers." Amazon's burgeoning same-day delivery infrastructure was on full display, and Rose explored the company's sprawling moves into fashion, groceries, web hosting, tablets, and strange political shows starring John Goodman.
But Jeff Bezos was predictably the star of the segment. He talked about how, 18 years ago, he'd drive packages to the post office himself, and dreamed of one day owning a forklift. (Things have changed a bit since then.) He says we're four or five years from drones being able to deliver small packages right to your house.
As Bezos said it is still in R&D stage but after a few years it could easily, I imagine, move farther out than 10 miles. I just wish they would expand Amazon Fresh into other major cities across the country and even start competing with Google in terms of High Speed Internet.
Pet dogs would be my biggest concern. If one of them tried to land in my garden while our dog was outside it would probably not end up leaving again :p
I could potentially see it working on a smaller scale in areas with tightly packed inhabitants though. University dorms, military bases or some apartment complexes, things like that with compact, homogeneous housing.
Not sure how many distribution Centers there are in the USA but in Europe there are maybe a total of 10? (2 I know of for sure in Germany). So how exactly is 10k range going to help there? Unless they plan to completely revamp their distribution chain it will remain a nice gimmick for people living very close to a center, but 90% of their customers won't be in range.
I suppose the cost of manufacturing a drone has to be smaller than the cost of the shipping method.
I mean, it is a 30-min delivery system. I'd be fine to pay a lot for that, as long as it is a really quick delivery and other, cheaper, options were still available.
The externalities of having all these drones buzzing about bothers me. I am 90% sure I value a drone free airspace over one filled with the buzzing noise dropping in and out of every house or hell just simply not seeing the sky poluted by the sheer number of drones.
That's all ignoring the inevitable disguising of spy drones (for private firms) as delivery drones.
On December 02 2013 11:42 Sabu113 wrote: The externalities of having all these drones buzzing about bothers me. I am 90% sure I value a drone free airspace over one filled with the buzzing noise dropping in and out of every house or hell just simply not seeing the sky poluted by the sheer number of drones.
That's all ignoring the inevitable disguising of spy drones (for private firms) as delivery drones.
All they need to do is make a law requiring the flight path of a drone to stay on a road. I doubt it'd be much louder than your average traffic.
Interesting idea. Not sure how good the implementation will end up being though seeing as there are roadblocks to it like Sabu113 mentioned or how does a drone know that they should land on the front yard and not the back or roof? What about animals? What if your pet runs towards it, the blades could technically hurt the animal so does the drone have a sensor or can it detect body heat? etc...
So a few things right off the bat based on information from this thread since I did not watch the original program,
1) Cost for this delivery method is going to be enormous, the loss of those neat plastic totes and potential loss of those drones will add a hefty premium for sure.
2) If the range is limited to ten miles from the fulfillment center you would be better off telling them the item will be a customer pick up and driving there to get it yourself (I actually don't know if Amazon allows this, my previous companies have).
3) The size of said totes leaves only very small items like phones to be worth using this for.
I would be amenable to drones going on normal car routes. Admittedly, there's a lot to be sussed out but I am definitely on the more suspicious than positive side at the moment.
On the consumer side, even within the 10 mile range, I think more people would be more than happy to drive to the warehouse/fulfillment centers than have to pay extra or take the risk of the drones safely and securely transporting their goods.
On the business side, it seems quite expensive and steeped with potential regulatory landmines (airspace, neighborhood policies, mail handling) just to serve folks within a 10 mile radius.
I don't think Amazon is seriously planning this method of delivery to be THEIR delivery of the future. As they say, it's in the research and development phase, and like many R&D stages, they'll probably acquire something even more practical and efficient solutions on the way.
Besides nobody thinks the drones max range will always be 10 miles I'm sure they will expand, besides i'm sure Bezos plans to build fleets of them and maybe even have the leap from distribution center to distribution center.
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.
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?
Most packages are left at the door because that massively increases efficiency. Certain items, like expensive stuff that would be a liability for a consumer to lie about not being delivered, must be signed for.
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?
Most packages are left at the door because that massively increases efficiency. Certain items, like expensive stuff that would be a liability for a consumer to lie about not being delivered, must be signed for.
That's interesting, seems kinda risky though. They never do this here. Who is liable if the packet just disappears?
On December 02 2013 13:07 skunk_works wrote: 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.
Haha, well that's the standard procedure here. The neighbours have to sign, so it's fine I guees. Better than walking to the next post office.
UPS can do a "Driver Release" where the driver releases the package either on site, preferably someplace hidden from view from street traffic, or a neighbor. Its mostly about not slowing the driver down so he can make as many stops as possible. They don't want you coming back with any packages if possible, and customers generally just want their shit, they don't want to have to wait an extra day for it.
Certain items can't be released. If its declared to be worth over X amount, if its a firearm or booze. Those things must be signed for by someone of age to be in possession of them. If a certain house/apartment/building has a few driver releases reported stolen that place will be black listed from being allowed to DR at because it's obviously not safe to just leave something there.
But between giving a driver as many stops as humanly possible, not wanting anything brought back to the warehouse, people wanting their stuff ASAP its VERY common practice to knock once and just DR the thing instantly and get back on your route. If you leave it somewhere odd you're supposed to leave a post it, which are scanned so they can confirm that a notice was left. If its undeliverable like they need a signature you get 3 chances for delivery and it's sent back to the place it came from. UPS can afford to just DR shit and hope the right person gets it, they might take some items on the chin sometimes if they get stolen but the fact that their driver's can just launch a box by the garage service door and GTFO means a more productivity, means more money so they don't really care.
On December 02 2013 13:33 OuchyDathurts wrote: UPS can do a "Driver Release" where the driver releases the package either on site, preferably someplace hidden from view from street traffic, or a neighbor. Its mostly about not slowing the driver down so he can make as many stops as possible. They don't want you coming back with any packages if possible, and customers generally just want their shit, they don't want to have to wait an extra day for it.
Certain items can't be released. If its declared to be worth over X amount, if its a firearm or booze. Those things must be signed for by someone of age to be in possession of them. If a certain house/apartment/building has a few driver releases reported stolen that place will be black listed from being allowed to DR at because it's obviously not safe to just leave something there.
But between giving a driver as many stops as humanly possible, not wanting anything brought back to the warehouse, people wanting their stuff ASAP its VERY common practice to knock once and just DR the thing instantly and get back on your route. If you leave it somewhere odd you're supposed to leave a post it, which are scanned so they can confirm that a notice was left. If its undeliverable like they need a signature you get 3 chances for delivery and it's sent back to the place it came from. UPS can afford to just DR shit and hope the right person gets it, they might take some items on the chin sometimes if they get stolen but the fact that their driver's can just launch a box by the garage service door and GTFO means a more productivity, means more money so they don't really care.
Thanks for the explanation. So UPS just pays in the rare case something gets stolen, but it's nothing compared to the time and money they safe by DR. And then the house just gets black listed, smart.
On December 02 2013 13:33 OuchyDathurts wrote: UPS can do a "Driver Release" where the driver releases the package either on site, preferably someplace hidden from view from street traffic, or a neighbor. Its mostly about not slowing the driver down so he can make as many stops as possible. They don't want you coming back with any packages if possible, and customers generally just want their shit, they don't want to have to wait an extra day for it.
Certain items can't be released. If its declared to be worth over X amount, if its a firearm or booze. Those things must be signed for by someone of age to be in possession of them. If a certain house/apartment/building has a few driver releases reported stolen that place will be black listed from being allowed to DR at because it's obviously not safe to just leave something there.
But between giving a driver as many stops as humanly possible, not wanting anything brought back to the warehouse, people wanting their stuff ASAP its VERY common practice to knock once and just DR the thing instantly and get back on your route. If you leave it somewhere odd you're supposed to leave a post it, which are scanned so they can confirm that a notice was left. If its undeliverable like they need a signature you get 3 chances for delivery and it's sent back to the place it came from. UPS can afford to just DR shit and hope the right person gets it, they might take some items on the chin sometimes if they get stolen but the fact that their driver's can just launch a box by the garage service door and GTFO means a more productivity, means more money so they don't really care.
Thanks for the explanation. So UPS just pays in the rare case something gets stolen, but it's nothing compared to the time and money they safe by DR. And then the house just gets black listed, smart.
Yup. They really milk their drivers, especially in holiday season. They deliver so much stuff its insane and your shift isn't over till you've delivered everything. They have an expected time average so they figure you should be able to knock out all your stops in 9 hours but sometimes that doesn't happen through no fault of the driver. They might send another driver who already finished his load to grab some stuff from you and help you finish up. But they track everything so if you're slacking off and running over time your ass is toast. They even have a "wall of shame" where they'll post the GPS route a driver took from stop A to stop B if it's a completely retarded route, like why did you drive around the block when you could have taken a U turn here and saved 30 seconds? Though its generally just for busting someone's balls about being an idiot, efficiency is everything. Granted if one driver has had the same route a while he's got it nailed down pretty good, knows where to leave stuff, knows who will sign for things, knows a certain client isn't even at his office on fridays so he can skip that one, etc. But they know how to run their drivers ragged and squeeze the maximum out of them.
Also some drivers that have a regular route will give their client's their cellphone number. If I deliver to your building everyday at 9AM and you're not there till 10AM every day you give me a call, I'll tell you to meet me at the McDonald's parking lot since I'll be passing through there in 5 minutes as part of my route and I'll just give you your packages there and you can throw them in your car.
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 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
Haha, to be fair I didn't catch his mistake at first either...
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...
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
Let's assume that range is not an issue, and that Amazon has a distribution warehouse in the middle of central park and every major city. You still have all of the engineering feats that would need to take place to program these drones to not only automatically navigate themselves to an address, but also avoid other drones and the occasional skyscraper along the way. Assuming that can be done through some clever AI, these drones still need to run on some type of energy source, which would need to be only marginally more expensive than current methods despite the immense diseconomies of scale involved in moving from truckloads to one 5 pound package at a time. These drones will need to be maintained, which will require technicians to be trained in the how. Guys who were stealing packages have now suddenly moved up to stealing drones. Amazon has special agreements with the USPS to deliver packages, if you're taking business from that now you're pissing off your vendors. The list of business requirements for a project like this is extremely long, even for a pilot program in a single city. 4-5 years is not feasible, and the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Amazon's marketing team is incredibly clever.
These things will have cameras, GPS (probably multiple redundant systems), and other things... stealing them is pretty much painting a target on yourself.
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
Let's assume that range is not an issue, and that Amazon has a distribution warehouse in the middle of central park and every major city. You still have all of the engineering feats that would need to take place to program these drones to not only automatically navigate themselves to an address, but also avoid other drones and the occasional skyscraper along the way. Assuming that can be done through some clever AI, these drones still need to run on some type of energy source, which would need to be only marginally more expensive than current methods despite the immense diseconomies of scale involved in moving from truckloads to one 5 pound package at a time. These drones will need to be maintained, which will require technicians to be trained in the how. Guys who were stealing packages have now suddenly moved up to stealing drones. Amazon has special agreements with the USPS to deliver packages, if you're taking business from that now you're pissing off your vendors. The list of business requirements for a project like this is extremely long, even for a pilot program in a single city. 4-5 years is not feasible, and the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Amazon's marketing team is incredibly clever.
Navigating and avoiding things including thieves is just a matter of time programming, they alleready have the know how for all of that.
Also maintainance can pretty much be done on thousands by a single person so this won't prove a challenge. Not knowing enough about making and coding drones I can't say if 4-5 years is feasible, I can only say my current understanding of it says that it is.
Only concern you have that I am not sure about other than the time is how effecient they are compared to the current methods, I can only assume they are an improvement based on their choice to go this route.
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
Let's assume that range is not an issue, and that Amazon has a distribution warehouse in the middle of central park and every major city. You still have all of the engineering feats that would need to take place to program these drones to not only automatically navigate themselves to an address, but also avoid other drones and the occasional skyscraper along the way. Assuming that can be done through some clever AI, these drones still need to run on some type of energy source, which would need to be only marginally more expensive than current methods despite the immense diseconomies of scale involved in moving from truckloads to one 5 pound package at a time. These drones will need to be maintained, which will require technicians to be trained in the how. Guys who were stealing packages have now suddenly moved up to stealing drones. Amazon has special agreements with the USPS to deliver packages, if you're taking business from that now you're pissing off your vendors. The list of business requirements for a project like this is extremely long, even for a pilot program in a single city. 4-5 years is not feasible, and the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Amazon's marketing team is incredibly clever.
It seems these drones are for quick delivery only (30 mins) at least I get that kind of idea when watching that clip. I think some people are more than happy to get stuff very quickly and pay extra dollars for it.
Even if its not much of an improvement cost wise between just sending something through your standard fedex/ups/usps having a 30 minute delivery time (or comparable very fast time) would probably hugely boost impulse buying which could make it worthwhile. If someone can get that PS4 game flown to them in 30 minutes instead of going to best buy to pick it up, or if someone can get some silly gadget before they have time to actually realize they don't actually need it it could drive a lot of sales they might not normally get there way. On top of that if they're able to use these 24 hours a day that'd be huge. I want a new video game, it's not on steam and no stores are open at 2am but I really want to play! Amazon to the rescue! That assumes there's someone there to fulfill the order obviously, but there should be no technical reason you couldn't have them flying in the middle of the night.
Would it need a camera though? It should be able to get where it wants to go through GPS coordinates. That would theoretically get it to the right house wouldn't it? You might need something like radar just to make sure it didn't get too close to a tree or something that it doesn't know about. But I'd figure there's more than one way to skin a cat. I don't know that it would need a camera recording everything if there are other options to get it to location and make sure it doesn't crash into stuff. I obviously don't know for sure though.
I wonder how these things will dodge power lines, trees, other aircraft, etc. How can you be sure they won't land on the customer's head once they get there?
Is someone remotely piloting them or are they automatic? So many questions.
1. Being chased by gangster. 2. Take out phone 3. Go to Amazon 4. Buy a gun and get it delivered by drone. 5. Continue running for 30 minutes. 6. Gun got delivered. 7. Profit.
On December 02 2013 13:33 OuchyDathurts wrote: UPS can do a "Driver Release" where the driver releases the package either on site, preferably someplace hidden from view from street traffic, or a neighbor. Its mostly about not slowing the driver down so he can make as many stops as possible. They don't want you coming back with any packages if possible, and customers generally just want their shit, they don't want to have to wait an extra day for it.
Certain items can't be released. If its declared to be worth over X amount, if its a firearm or booze. Those things must be signed for by someone of age to be in possession of them. If a certain house/apartment/building has a few driver releases reported stolen that place will be black listed from being allowed to DR at because it's obviously not safe to just leave something there.
But between giving a driver as many stops as humanly possible, not wanting anything brought back to the warehouse, people wanting their stuff ASAP its VERY common practice to knock once and just DR the thing instantly and get back on your route. If you leave it somewhere odd you're supposed to leave a post it, which are scanned so they can confirm that a notice was left. If its undeliverable like they need a signature you get 3 chances for delivery and it's sent back to the place it came from. UPS can afford to just DR shit and hope the right person gets it, they might take some items on the chin sometimes if they get stolen but the fact that their driver's can just launch a box by the garage service door and GTFO means a more productivity, means more money so they don't really care.
Thanks for the explanation. So UPS just pays in the rare case something gets stolen, but it's nothing compared to the time and money they safe by DR. And then the house just gets black listed, smart.
Yup. They really milk their drivers, especially in holiday season. They deliver so much stuff its insane and your shift isn't over till you've delivered everything. They have an expected time average so they figure you should be able to knock out all your stops in 9 hours but sometimes that doesn't happen through no fault of the driver. They might send another driver who already finished his load to grab some stuff from you and help you finish up. But they track everything so if you're slacking off and running over time your ass is toast. They even have a "wall of shame" where they'll post the GPS route a driver took from stop A to stop B if it's a completely retarded route, like why did you drive around the block when you could have taken a U turn here and saved 30 seconds? Though its generally just for busting someone's balls about being an idiot, efficiency is everything. Granted if one driver has had the same route a while he's got it nailed down pretty good, knows where to leave stuff, knows who will sign for things, knows a certain client isn't even at his office on fridays so he can skip that one, etc. But they know how to run their drivers ragged and squeeze the maximum out of them.
Also some drivers that have a regular route will give their client's their cellphone number. If I deliver to your building everyday at 9AM and you're not there till 10AM every day you give me a call, I'll tell you to meet me at the McDonald's parking lot since I'll be passing through there in 5 minutes as part of my route and I'll just give you your packages there and you can throw them in your car.
Very interesting. It sounds like you have quite a bit of personal experience
On December 03 2013 06:27 canikizu wrote: 1. Being chased by gangster. 2. Take out phone 3. Go to Amazon 4. Buy a gun and get it delivered by drone. 5. Continue running for 30 minutes. 6. Gun got delivered. 7. Profit.
Holy shit, you just broke life. I've never heard a better plan ever.
On December 03 2013 06:18 ElMeanYo wrote: I wonder how these things will dodge power lines, trees, other aircraft, etc. How can you be sure they won't land on the customer's head once they get there?
Is someone remotely piloting them or are they automatic? So many questions.
Trees and power lines can be dodged with sufficiant altitude when your position isn't where you start or where you land I guess? Same can be said for bridges and stuff like that. Skycrapers could possibly be made into a map on whatever coordinates those things but as long as you fly over streets that shouldn't even be required. Avoiding other aircraft shouldn't be that probelmatic either. If you're talking about planes, they're not going to be flying that high. If you're talking about other amazon-drones it shouldn't be a problem to have some kind flight surveillance for those things alone, based on their GPS data I guess? Wouldn't be suprised if that'd be a necessity if you want to make something like that.
Where to land is a bit tricky I guess but having to register a GPS-spot where that stuff can land (as in, nothing like a tree is in the way if said drone is right above the spot and just lowers it's altitude) could be possible but probably a bit techy for most of their customers?
On December 03 2013 06:18 ElMeanYo wrote: I wonder how these things will dodge power lines, trees, other aircraft, etc. How can you be sure they won't land on the customer's head once they get there?
Is someone remotely piloting them or are they automatic? So many questions.
they will be automatic, look up some videos of what drones can do and you will see dodging power lines, trees other aircrafts and customers will not be a problem.
On December 02 2013 13:33 OuchyDathurts wrote: UPS can do a "Driver Release" where the driver releases the package either on site, preferably someplace hidden from view from street traffic, or a neighbor. Its mostly about not slowing the driver down so he can make as many stops as possible. They don't want you coming back with any packages if possible, and customers generally just want their shit, they don't want to have to wait an extra day for it.
Certain items can't be released. If its declared to be worth over X amount, if its a firearm or booze. Those things must be signed for by someone of age to be in possession of them. If a certain house/apartment/building has a few driver releases reported stolen that place will be black listed from being allowed to DR at because it's obviously not safe to just leave something there.
But between giving a driver as many stops as humanly possible, not wanting anything brought back to the warehouse, people wanting their stuff ASAP its VERY common practice to knock once and just DR the thing instantly and get back on your route. If you leave it somewhere odd you're supposed to leave a post it, which are scanned so they can confirm that a notice was left. If its undeliverable like they need a signature you get 3 chances for delivery and it's sent back to the place it came from. UPS can afford to just DR shit and hope the right person gets it, they might take some items on the chin sometimes if they get stolen but the fact that their driver's can just launch a box by the garage service door and GTFO means a more productivity, means more money so they don't really care.
Thanks for the explanation. So UPS just pays in the rare case something gets stolen, but it's nothing compared to the time and money they safe by DR. And then the house just gets black listed, smart.
Yup. They really milk their drivers, especially in holiday season. They deliver so much stuff its insane and your shift isn't over till you've delivered everything. They have an expected time average so they figure you should be able to knock out all your stops in 9 hours but sometimes that doesn't happen through no fault of the driver. They might send another driver who already finished his load to grab some stuff from you and help you finish up. But they track everything so if you're slacking off and running over time your ass is toast. They even have a "wall of shame" where they'll post the GPS route a driver took from stop A to stop B if it's a completely retarded route, like why did you drive around the block when you could have taken a U turn here and saved 30 seconds? Though its generally just for busting someone's balls about being an idiot, efficiency is everything. Granted if one driver has had the same route a while he's got it nailed down pretty good, knows where to leave stuff, knows who will sign for things, knows a certain client isn't even at his office on fridays so he can skip that one, etc. But they know how to run their drivers ragged and squeeze the maximum out of them.
Also some drivers that have a regular route will give their client's their cellphone number. If I deliver to your building everyday at 9AM and you're not there till 10AM every day you give me a call, I'll tell you to meet me at the McDonald's parking lot since I'll be passing through there in 5 minutes as part of my route and I'll just give you your packages there and you can throw them in your car.
Very interesting. It sounds like you have quite a bit of personal experience
He probably does. I remember having a case study on UPS way back in business school. They had some examples of the way they engineer the efficiency out of their drivers but nothing this detailed. The drivers put up with it because they are paid well.
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
Frankly it's MORE useful for people living in the middle of nowhere. There is almost no additional cost just driving them around in major cities since there is somebody you need to deliver to on every street corner anyways.
The real use and power of this technology is NOT getting it to the guy living downtown, but the guy living in the middle of nowhere. Why have a truck go 500 miles out of the way when a drone can do that in a fraction of the time? Once the drone technology gets better that will be the prime use (that is until drones do everything).
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.
A 10-mile radius covers 314 sq miles.
New York - 302.6 sq miles Los Angeles - 469 sq miles London - 607 sq miles Tokyo - 845 sq miles
They don't need to cover people living in the middle of nowhere.
Let's assume that range is not an issue, and that Amazon has a distribution warehouse in the middle of central park and every major city. You still have all of the engineering feats that would need to take place to program these drones to not only automatically navigate themselves to an address, but also avoid other drones and the occasional skyscraper along the way. Assuming that can be done through some clever AI, these drones still need to run on some type of energy source, which would need to be only marginally more expensive than current methods despite the immense diseconomies of scale involved in moving from truckloads to one 5 pound package at a time. These drones will need to be maintained, which will require technicians to be trained in the how. Guys who were stealing packages have now suddenly moved up to stealing drones. Amazon has special agreements with the USPS to deliver packages, if you're taking business from that now you're pissing off your vendors. The list of business requirements for a project like this is extremely long, even for a pilot program in a single city. 4-5 years is not feasible, and the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Amazon's marketing team is incredibly clever.
The engineering behind navigation isn't that hard. Google has had cars driving while surrounded with unpredictable moving objects for a long time now.... a static building is easy.
I am more curious about how it handles with weather and winds
I have a friend who owns a small business, they basically have a fleet of drones that they use to take pictures and videos of places and events like golf courses and weddings. They have some pretty big and expensive drones because they have to carry high definition cameras and an arm that tilts and pivots and whatever else.
Anyway, he says that you have to have a pretty damn big and expensive machine to be able to deal with winds above 40 mph. We're talking multiple tens of thousands, and those kinds of machines can injure and kill people. Obviously that's nothing like what we see in the video but the point is, those little drones can only reliably fly on calm weather days.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The 'why' in its current form is that they got a 60 Minutes news story that everyone is talking about, right in the middle of holiday shopping season.
The longterm 'why' is that, as expensive as drones are, so are delivery drivers and trucks, as is operating through a third party and the third party's limitations (as they currently do with UPS.)
The other benefit is that as difficult as it is for Amazon, it's even more difficult for their competitors.
After Amazon's Jeff Bezos announced that his company wanted to deliver packages with small unmanned aerial vehicles, many people have questioned the viability and wisdom of the idea.
Yesterday, we got one optimistic perspective from Andreas Raptopoulos, an entrepreneur who founded Matternet, which is developing drone-delivery technology.
But there are many other ways to answer the questions that I posed to Raptopoulos. So, today, we bring you an interview with the University of Washington's Ryan Calo, who has become a leading authority on the ethical and policy implications of emerging technologies. Specifically, he's focused on the problems at the nexus of drones and privacy in recent months.
To offer the most intriguing parallels, I tried to keep my questions to Calo as similar to the ones as I posed to Raptopoulos as possible.
What rationale do companies like Amazon and Matternet give for creating drone-delivery networks? Some people are saying Mr. Bezos made this announcement with no intention to carry through. I disagree. I think companies like Amazon and Matternet like drone delivery for a few reasons. The trend is toward immediate consumer gratification. We are actually behind China, for instance, where I understand hundreds of delivery services translate into fast, low-cost delivery in urban environments. A second, underappreciated reason Amazon might incorporate drones into their business model is to attract talent and investment. There is no denying that innovation is a currency in the tech world today.
Is there actually an efficiency bonus? (Or can one be imagined with some sort of system in the future?) Today, drone delivery would not be efficient. Even if operated by a human being, drones cannot travel far with a payload. Amazon and Matternet are banking on gains in performance and lower costs over time.
Given your research, how close are we to this kind of future? How quickly could the Amazon Prime AIR future happen? I am a law professor, not an engineer. But I do talk to roboticists quite a bit. There is a range, but many believe we could see what Mr. Bezos described within four years. Note that the first DARPA Grand Challenge involving driverless cars was in 2004. No team completed the challenge that year. Fully autonomous cars came within a half-decade, and are now within a couple of years of being commercialized (if you believe the statements of multiple car-markers).
What are the major challenges? I see three categories of challenges. The first category, as we've alluded to, is technical. For drone delivery to work, you would need better energy sources, better software, and likely improvements in physical design. But note that companies and universities are working on these problems, as are thousands of hobbyists (ask Chris Anderson of DIY Drones).
The second category is regulatory. Mr. Bezos appears to have autonomous delivery in mind. The Federal Aviation Administration's roadmap to integrate commercial drones into domestic airspace specifically says (at page 33) that "Autonomous operations are not permitted" outside line of sight of the operator. Amazon and others would have to work with the FAA on this and other issues. There are related challenges around litigation including trespass, negligence, nuisance, and other potential lawsuits from angry citizens.
Which brings me to a third category: social forces. Many people find drones unsettling. They understandably worry about being hurt or watched. How people come to see this technology will drive adoption and legal risk. I will say that Mr. Bezos probably did the image of drones a favor just by delinking the technology to a degree from targeted killing.
What about range? Range is a big issue, both because of the energy source, and due to the complexity that attends navigating more, and more diverse terrain. The further you have to go, the more that could go wrong.
How about reliability? I think this is a very real, but again, likely solvable issue. The FAA is about to select its testing sites for drone use. Hopefully these six sites will help drone manufactures and operators make considerable gains in reliability. Note that technology need not be perfect to see widespread adoption. Hundreds of people die every year from falling out of beds.
How should we think about litigation around commercial drone flights? I believe there will be two waves of litigation attending commercial drones. The first will involve tort claims related to various commercial applications. People will say a drone user trespassed on their land, violated their privacy, created a nuisance, or even physically injured them. I think the common law, being versatile by design, is up to the task of addressing these claims. I described the second wave of litigation in my article Open Robotics: drones will one day function as the equivalent of flying smart phones. Consumers will buy a drone from one party and download an app from another. This will pose a significant challenge, I argue, for product liability law.
Should certain reliability measures be required? Yes, and this could take several forms. The FAA itself could require a certain amount of testing before issuing a commercial license to use drones, the way the state of Nevada does with driverless cars. Or courts could look to industry standards in determining whether a given accident falls below the requisite standard of care.
Won't people shoot them out of the sky? A few people in Colorado might. I don’t think the phenomenon will be widespread, any more than vandalizing a vending machine is. Shooting drones out of the sky, except in defense of a person or maybe property, is illegal. The shooter could face criminal charges or a lawsuit from, in Amazon’s case, a well-resourced company. That is a pretty good disincentive. The greater fear may well be hacking drones—this technology will have be secure enough that bored teenagers cannot go shop-downing.
What does the US regulatory situation look like to you? The use of drones for a commercial purpose is not allowed today. But Congress has directed the FAA to fashion rules to integrate commercial drones by 2015. The FAA has yet to give details on how a company like Matternet would go about securing permission to operate drones for delivery or another purpose. They have given some hints, however, about what technical challenges would need to be address and what restrictions might be in place, including around civil liberties.
What are the implications of this kind of drone network, if it scaled up? I think it is important to consider the bigger picture. Drones won’t just deliver goods to your door. They will be used to deliver goods over a long haul. Or between stores. Imagine if you’re shopping at Best Buy and you ask after an out-of-stock item. How great would it be if Best Buy could fly one over from the next nearest store while you wait. If this proves to be economical and a competitive advantage, then I think the marketplace will (try to) deliver it.
You've specialized in privacy and drones. How do retail delivery networks figure into the overall privacy-drone nexus? There are problems, but maybe not unique ones. Drones greatly increase the capacity for surveillance, including by corporations. But delivery drones are not necessarily architected to observe. Still, you could imagine abuses. What if, for instance, law enforcement were to ask Amazon for all of the drone footage in a given area? Or even require Amazon to alert law enforcement if its drones saw something unlawful? My hope is that the FAA will follow the advice of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (where I’m on the advisory board) and require meaningful privacy safeguards before issuing certificates of authorization. And I’m encouraged that the recent FAA road map does repeatedly mention privacy, albeit without offering too many specifics
Google grows more and more like Amazon with each passing month, transforming itself into an honest-to-goodness online shopping company, and this evolution is increasingly overt. But things got really cool today with the news that the web giant is posed to challenge Amazon with an army of robots.
In an excellent piece of reporting, The New York Times’ John Markoff reveals that, led by the former head of its Android mobile operating system, Google is quietly buying up robotics startups for a project that appears more than just experimental.
“If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones,” Markoff writes, “is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package?”
The difference between Amazon’s drone stunt and Google’s retail robot skunkworks, run by Andy Rubin, is that it seems far more serious. While Amazon released an unrealistic marketing video that had little to do with how its operations really work, Markoff’s sources say that Google is taking incremental steps to automate steps all along the consumer-product supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping.
Delivery would seem to be the process where Google has made the strongest advances, though its self-driving cars predate Rubin’s project. Speculation that autonomous vehicles would someday power Google’s new same-day delivery online shopping service arose almost simultaneously with the announcement of the service itself. But delivery — the so-called “last mile” — is only one piece of the process that gets products from manufacturer to consumer.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
Google grows more and more like Amazon with each passing month, transforming itself into an honest-to-goodness online shopping company, and this evolution is increasingly overt. But things got really cool today with the news that the web giant is posed to challenge Amazon with an army of robots.
In an excellent piece of reporting, The New York Times’ John Markoff reveals that, led by the former head of its Android mobile operating system, Google is quietly buying up robotics startups for a project that appears more than just experimental.
“If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones,” Markoff writes, “is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package?”
The difference between Amazon’s drone stunt and Google’s retail robot skunkworks, run by Andy Rubin, is that it seems far more serious. While Amazon released an unrealistic marketing video that had little to do with how its operations really work, Markoff’s sources say that Google is taking incremental steps to automate steps all along the consumer-product supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping.
Delivery would seem to be the process where Google has made the strongest advances, though its self-driving cars predate Rubin’s project. Speculation that autonomous vehicles would someday power Google’s new same-day delivery online shopping service arose almost simultaneously with the announcement of the service itself. But delivery — the so-called “last mile” — is only one piece of the process that gets products from manufacturer to consumer.
On December 02 2013 11:42 Sabu113 wrote: The externalities of having all these drones buzzing about bothers me. I am 90% sure I value a drone free airspace over one filled with the buzzing noise dropping in and out of every house or hell just simply not seeing the sky poluted by the sheer number of drones.
That's all ignoring the inevitable disguising of spy drones (for private firms) as delivery drones.
All they need to do is make a law requiring the flight path of a drone to stay on a road. I doubt it'd be much louder than your average traffic.
Then again think of how much the noise will increase by having flying machines AND cars going. And the skyline disappears even further.
I suppose the problem of vandals could be solved by having cameras on them (only increasing the surveillance problem) which send back the feed to a database.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
On December 02 2013 11:57 BigFan wrote: Interesting idea. Not sure how good the implementation will end up being though seeing as there are roadblocks to it like Sabu113 mentioned or how does a drone know that they should land on the front yard and not the back or roof? What about animals? What if your pet runs towards it, the blades could technically hurt the animal so does the drone have a sensor or can it detect body heat? etc...
The cheapest way might be to have an iPhone app where you can specifically give it a gps location to drop it at.
Even then the technology to see where to land is already available, if its altitude is higher than ground level when it lands its obviously a problem. A bunch of metrics shouldn't make it too difficult to know where to land.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
Not going to happen but it would be cool.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
On December 02 2013 11:09 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Innovation. I wonder if GPS tech is precise and detailed enough for this to be reliable, though.
The commercial GPS used for tomtom etc, maybe. But the kind of gps they use in Commercial Jets? Yes. A passenger plane basically flies itself from take off to landing these days. High end GPS can pin point down to a few centimeters and you would only need accuracy of a few meters to land in the correct garden or outside the correct front door.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
Not going to happen but it would be cool.
I read a magazine article detailing Bezos' plans for Amazon's future and one of the biggest points he made was minimizing shipping times. He already has a cash cow with Prime's free 2-day shipping, and he's expanding the number of warehouses to increase efficiency.
I understand it's an expensive service, and you're right about the weight limitations. But customers who are willing to pay for the lost time will be monopolized on small packages. Of course the shipping price will be premium, but when you get your premium item in an hour that you would otherwise have to drive to the next town over, or wait a day to get, you can see the advantages of the drone system.
In your automated warehouse scenario, where does the drone drop off the package? The truck? I mean I guess that's a good way to fire all of your warehouse employees. Maybe that's the solution to his "too costly to make more warehouses in smaller areas" problem.
Edit: Of course this low ship time will only apply to people living in urban areas in the beginning, but as more warehouses are made in the areas in between, others may benefit from the lower time, even if it is only 10 hours. Then it would be a question of how long Amazon is willing to allow a drone to be on a single ship.
Amazon Prime Air - Youtube wrote: The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.
Well yeah, I was mostly contesting the use of the word "monopoly". They could get the monopoly of short-range shipping on good weather days around their warehouses, although I doubt that it'll ever happen. It might... But a vast majority of the destinations will still be hundreds of miles away from an Amazon warehouse.
Google grows more and more like Amazon with each passing month, transforming itself into an honest-to-goodness online shopping company, and this evolution is increasingly overt. But things got really cool today with the news that the web giant is posed to challenge Amazon with an army of robots.
In an excellent piece of reporting, The New York Times’ John Markoff reveals that, led by the former head of its Android mobile operating system, Google is quietly buying up robotics startups for a project that appears more than just experimental.
“If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones,” Markoff writes, “is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package?”
The difference between Amazon’s drone stunt and Google’s retail robot skunkworks, run by Andy Rubin, is that it seems far more serious. While Amazon released an unrealistic marketing video that had little to do with how its operations really work, Markoff’s sources say that Google is taking incremental steps to automate steps all along the consumer-product supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping.
Delivery would seem to be the process where Google has made the strongest advances, though its self-driving cars predate Rubin’s project. Speculation that autonomous vehicles would someday power Google’s new same-day delivery online shopping service arose almost simultaneously with the announcement of the service itself. But delivery — the so-called “last mile” — is only one piece of the process that gets products from manufacturer to consumer.
It'll never work. You're going to need a google+ account to enjoy robots. It works with youtube because there isn't an alternative, but Amazon's +less drones will make their ability to shoehorn google+ even more less feasible.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
Not going to happen but it would be cool.
My gf worked at a major brewery and they had drone trucks fetching everything. 1 guy on shift monitoring the trucks instead of 22 truck drivers as before.
She was really scared of going into the warehouse but of course it was completely harmless, the trucks stopped as soon as something was in their paths.
On December 03 2013 11:50 Wombat_NI wrote: I don't really get the 'why' in its current form, but it's pretty cool tech.
The whole point of this, from a long-term perspective, is to monopolize the shipping market. When you can order anything from Amazon and have it delivered by drone within one hour, give or take, there's a pretty small chance of you shopping somewhere else that takes 24 hours minimum to deliver.
No, that's not the point. They have no intention of monopolizing the shipping market, not even in the long term because so far, even they know that there's no way going for that could be viable in the foreseeable future. It's just an extra service at bet. They know that without years of R&D and huge investments, this isn't going to be cheap and it won't be possible to expand it to the entire population. It has other limitations too, like weather, weight and sized of the package, etc.
That said, it would be awesome if warehouses became fully automated. The automated forklift goes and picks up item off the shelf, puts it on a drone, which leaves, drops off package and comes back... I can picture warehouses with tens of drones flying in and out at any given moment. The only staff would be engineers dealing with the drones.
Not going to happen but it would be cool.
My gf worked at a major brewery and they had drone trucks fetching everything. 1 guy on shift monitoring the trucks instead of 22 truck drivers as before.
She was really scared of going into the warehouse but of course it was completely harmless, the trucks stopped as soon as something was in their paths.
Technology has improved so much that most transport vehicles are on autopilot and the drivers are simply there because people watch too many movies.
Bullet trains are completely autopiloted afaik, and pilots for large passenger aircraft barely touch any of the instruments except for takeoff and landing, and even then a lot of it is computerised.
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?
All the time in many places depending on the neighborhood you live it. It's not likely for packages to be stolen when they're on most doorsteps.
I must have seen some 999 youtube vids of people having a camera outside their door and ppl just pulling up, taking the packages and leaving. Crazy in my opinion to just leave it at the door..
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
What people will do for work in about 30 years ?? We will get even more people not working and robot doing all the work for a few rich people ??
That's really cool but think about how many people will lose job if something like that go mainstream ( and better )
Right now in most field, robot can do better that man and most job change at a terrible pace for remove real people worker everywhere.... I'm not finding that ''cool'' .
On December 23 2013 23:01 quebecman77 wrote: What people will do for work in about 30 years ?? We will get even more people not working and robot doing all the work for a few rich people ??
That's really cool but think about how many people will lose job if something like that go mainstream ( and better )
Right now in most field, robot can do better that man and most job change at a terrible pace for remove real people worker everywhere.... I'm not finding that ''cool'' .
Well... You need people to build and watch the drones + maintenance.
On December 23 2013 23:01 quebecman77 wrote: What people will do for work in about 30 years ?? We will get even more people not working and robot doing all the work for a few rich people ??
That's really cool but think about how many people will lose job if something like that go mainstream ( and better )
Right now in most field, robot can do better that man and most job change at a terrible pace for remove real people worker everywhere.... I'm not finding that ''cool'' .
Washing machines, printers , digital downloads , cds, tapes , radio,TV, movies have all replaced old jobs people do.
During the agricultural revolution farmers lost their jobs and people were going crazy protesting. During the Insdustrial Revolution people working in things ranging from clothes to wood lost their jobs...
It's hard for me to believe that this form of transportation is ever going to reach the mass market. As a premium feature for a couple of people it's ok, and I guess this is also Amazon's idea. In fact, once the range limit is gone, this would be ideal to transport stuff to places that are hard to reach, e.g.: huts on the mountain, islands without airport etc...
But if you want to scale this up to millions of people you gonna run into problems. Also, the system would have to be 100% save until the FFA is gonna allow a single one of those.
I believe that a better solution would be to connect houses with a centralized underground transportation system. Just like every house is nowadys connected to canalization, every house could be connected to an automated underground delivery system.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
Well if you have a camera, you need someone to pilot the drone no ? So not really automatic. How can the drone prevent a child or dog for running into it ?
Also there is nothing "easy" in programming such programs (i mean like it's huge things that needs so much testing etc...)
I do agree with you though (though i don't have to, because it's a fact) about regulation.
What about 3D printing? Those thing are already around (remember the guy who got in the spotlight by sending out schematics of 3D-printable firearms onto the internet?), though not yet in mass production. Pretty soon, you can have one in your home, replacing your inkjet printer.
Then Amazon can just give you a download link after you made payment, and you can download the schematics to your smartphone and then print it out with your 3D Printer.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
Well if you have a camera, you need someone to pilot the drone no ? So not really automatic. How can the drone prevent a child or dog for running into it ?
You don't need a human pilot, no. A computer with half-decent image recognition software can handle those challenges.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
Well if you have a camera, you need someone to pilot the drone no ? So not really automatic. How can the drone prevent a child or dog for running into it ?
You don't need a human pilot, no. A computer with half-decent image recognition software can handle those challenges.
And it can know a glass door from a window etc... all types of doors ?
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
As someone whos university work revolves alot around navigation and machine intelligence, I think this assessment is a little optimistic. If the mission is something like "fly to these coordinates and find the frontdoor of the right house, while avoiding any collision" that might work with a decently small chance of failure but it is not easily solved with cameras and bit of code. It is an engineering challenge not to be underestimated. And there will likely always be failures ranging from dropping the packet off in the wrong place to the drone being crashed into a car by a sudden gust of wind.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
As someone whos university work revolves alot around navigation and machine intelligence, I think this assessment is a little optimistic. If the mission is something like "fly to these coordinates and find the frontdoor of the right house, while avoiding any collision" that might work with a decently small chance of failure but it is not easily solved with cameras and bit of code. It is an engineering challenge not to be underestimated. And there will likely always be failures ranging from dropping the packet off in the wrong place to the drone being crashed into a car by a sudden gust of wind.
If they can get it on someones front lawn already without trouble its really not that big of a deal.
Google maps would have seemed like a stupidly impossible idea at one stage but look where we are at now. You could leverage that kind of technology for drones, amazon drone maps.
The gust of wind example ill take. But this is not that much more of a feat than a jumbo jet autopiloting through a storm and out of stalls. Yes things like this will most likely happen at first, but they will be treated like bugs that will eventually be fixed.
would only work on days with weak wind and without much rain but why not. And dunno if people will like having hordes of drones flying around all day. So even if it works it might be restricted by over factors such as legislation, and if it passes it will be shut down the day a drone kill someone by falling on his head xD (even if the occurence may be statistically less than people being killed by postmen cars :D). But the biggest issue that the package isn't really secure and it will feel easier for people to steal packages. Just like download on internet. Is easier to steal a drone than molest a postman.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
Both easily solved with cameras and a bit of code. The issue with this is NOT the technology. The technology exists and it could be implemented today and function just fine. The issue is with regulations and getting insurance companies to agree etc.
As someone whos university work revolves alot around navigation and machine intelligence, I think this assessment is a little optimistic. If the mission is something like "fly to these coordinates and find the frontdoor of the right house, while avoiding any collision" that might work with a decently small chance of failure but it is not easily solved with cameras and bit of code. It is an engineering challenge not to be underestimated. And there will likely always be failures ranging from dropping the packet off in the wrong place to the drone being crashed into a car by a sudden gust of wind.
I seem to have picked up my adviser's habit of using the word "easy" to mean "solvable with existing theoretical knowledge". I completely agree with you that there are significant engineering challenges to overcome, but the fact remains that we know how to do this stuff. Give a team of good engineers some time and they can overcome those problems. Sure we may not see this working tomorrow, or even within the next year, but I would absolutely not be surprised to see this working within 2 years. It's not as far away as some stuff I've read tries to imply.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
An RFID tag could be placed on the door. Then the drone would fly to the address via GPS, and then orient itself based on where the RFID tag is. Once the drop is made, the drone can then fly back to the warehouse, or perhaps to the next address. Ultrasonic could also be used to orient the bot in this step.
Unexpected collisions with living things is easy to solve: simply place a strong plastic barrier around the chopper/rotor, like a bowl shape. Then when the collision happens, the living thing is just bumped by a plastic bowl, instead of scratched by a rotor.
All that's really left is determining cost and time of delivery, and waiting for the FAA regulations to come through. Merry Christmas Amazon Prime Air!
Edit: Check out this autonomous navigation bot! It's built with an Arduino and it uses ultrasonic sensors to determine where obstacles are, and then move around them. Autonomous Autonavigation Robot
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
An RFID tag could be placed on the door. Then the drone would fly to the address via GPS, and then orient itself based on where the RFID tag is. Once the drop is made, the drone can then fly back to the warehouse, or perhaps to the next address. Ultrasonic could also be used to orient the bot in this step.
Unexpected collisions with living things is easy to solve: simply place a strong plastic barrier around the chopper/rotor, like a bowl shape. Then when the collision happens, the living thing is just bumped by a plastic bowl, instead of scratched by a rotor.
All that's really left is determining cost and time of delivery, and waiting for the FAA regulations to come through. Merry Christmas Amazon Prime Air!
Edit: Check out this autonomous navigation bot! It's built with an Arduino and it uses ultrasonic sensors to determine where obstacles are, and then move around them. Autonomous Autonavigation Robot
Like you buy a RFID tag and fix it ? Isn't this expensive ? Maybe it could work, i don't really know how it works. I doubt it could fly to another adresse because the drone can only transport one package and have a VERY LOW flying time. Well if a plastic bowl sends my child to fall on concrete i'll be pretty pist. Also a child/dog moves too fast for a drone to react (that i am aware of)
Multi-storey buildings could be delivered to the lobby. They would have to re-hire doormen to take the packages in from the main door.
As for a plastic bowl sending children falling on concrete, the drone could be programmed to only fly vertically after a certain distance from the ground (say 10 feet). Then your child would only be crushed by the package instead of knocked over. Kids are pretty smart by the way, they will probably move in the vertical-flying situation.
Also people could have special package mailboxes set up near their door on a pole 4 feet above the ground. It would look like a plastic box with no lid sitting atop a pole. This way you would have no problem with the drone hurting the less aware beings as it would never go lower than 4 feet above the ground.
On December 23 2013 22:54 FFW_Rude wrote: Things that are problematic for now.
- Ok GPS tracks your home. But how does it know where your door is ? - If a dog/children is in the way. How to provent the helix to chop them when they approach ?
An RFID tag could be placed on the door. Then the drone would fly to the address via GPS, and then orient itself based on where the RFID tag is. Once the drop is made, the drone can then fly back to the warehouse, or perhaps to the next address. Ultrasonic could also be used to orient the bot in this step.
Unexpected collisions with living things is easy to solve: simply place a strong plastic barrier around the chopper/rotor, like a bowl shape. Then when the collision happens, the living thing is just bumped by a plastic bowl, instead of scratched by a rotor.
All that's really left is determining cost and time of delivery, and waiting for the FAA regulations to come through. Merry Christmas Amazon Prime Air!
Edit: Check out this autonomous navigation bot! It's built with an Arduino and it uses ultrasonic sensors to determine where obstacles are, and then move around them. Autonomous Autonavigation Robot
Well if a plastic bowl sends my child to fall on concrete i'll be pretty pist. Also a child/dog moves too fast for a drone to react (that i am aware of)
Cowling around the rotors actually give them more lift and also make them run quieter on top of protecting the rotors. The smaller the space between the blade and the cowling the more lift, and since the cowling goes around the blades the sound doesn't travel sideways as much, its forced vertically up and down more.
Oh the pets/children front. I don't know, don't order via drone comes to mind. I'd assume you'd tell your child not to play with the flying delivery machine just as you tell them to not play in traffic. If they're too young then I'd hope to god you're supervising them outdoors. Most dogs are terrified of vacuum cleaners so I don't know that they're going to want to get near some odd flying machine that is making noises. If your dog is the aggressive type, then again, don't get drone delivery and problem solved! I'm sure if one gets damaged delivering to your property that would be the end of you being allowed to order via drone anyway.
On December 27 2013 01:53 hp.Shell wrote: Multi-storey buildings could be delivered to the lobby. They would have to re-hire doormen to take the packages in from the main door.
As for a plastic bowl sending children falling on concrete, the drone could be programmed to only fly vertically after a certain distance from the ground (say 10 feet). Then your child would only be crushed by the package instead of knocked over. Kids are pretty smart by the way, they will probably move in the vertical-flying situation.
Also people could have special package mailboxes set up near their door on a pole 4 feet above the ground. It would look like a plastic box with no lid sitting atop a pole. This way you would have no problem with the drone hurting the less aware beings as it would never go lower than 4 feet above the ground.
Many (non ghetto) apartment buildings have an office where packages are centrally delivered to. I don't see why the system couldn't be designed to only deliver to the apartment at 123 Fake Street between 8-5 when someone is in the office to retrieve the package, or send a notification to the person/office that the package will be dropped off in 3 minutes or whatever.
On December 27 2013 01:53 hp.Shell wrote: Multi-storey buildings could be delivered to the lobby. They would have to re-hire doormen to take the packages in from the main door.
As for a plastic bowl sending children falling on concrete, the drone could be programmed to only fly vertically after a certain distance from the ground (say 10 feet). Then your child would only be crushed by the package instead of knocked over. Kids are pretty smart by the way, they will probably move in the vertical-flying situation.
Also people could have special package mailboxes set up near their door on a pole 4 feet above the ground. It would look like a plastic box with no lid sitting atop a pole. This way you would have no problem with the drone hurting the less aware beings as it would never go lower than 4 feet above the ground.
Many (non ghetto) apartment buildings have an office where packages are centrally delivered to. I don't see why the system couldn't be designed to only deliver to the apartment at 123 Fake Street between 8-5 when someone is in the office to retrieve the package, or send a notification to the person/office that the package will be dropped off in 3 minutes or whatever.
Well even if it's 50seconds, in a city you can't just put a package in front of door on the sideway with people passing every seconds (i'm talking big city and like skyscraper). On top of it could be possible (with something built it for the drone as someone suggested). But it's not possible for every building too.
On December 27 2013 01:53 hp.Shell wrote: Multi-storey buildings could be delivered to the lobby. They would have to re-hire doormen to take the packages in from the main door.
As for a plastic bowl sending children falling on concrete, the drone could be programmed to only fly vertically after a certain distance from the ground (say 10 feet). Then your child would only be crushed by the package instead of knocked over. Kids are pretty smart by the way, they will probably move in the vertical-flying situation.
Also people could have special package mailboxes set up near their door on a pole 4 feet above the ground. It would look like a plastic box with no lid sitting atop a pole. This way you would have no problem with the drone hurting the less aware beings as it would never go lower than 4 feet above the ground.
Many (non ghetto) apartment buildings have an office where packages are centrally delivered to. I don't see why the system couldn't be designed to only deliver to the apartment at 123 Fake Street between 8-5 when someone is in the office to retrieve the package, or send a notification to the person/office that the package will be dropped off in 3 minutes or whatever.
Well even if it's 50seconds, in a city you can't just put a package in front of door on the sideway with people passing every seconds (i'm talking big city and like skyscraper). On top of it could be possible (with something built it for the drone as someone suggested).
I've already gone over it in this very thread, but UPS drops off packages at your front door ALLLLLLL the time. Its SOP because waiting for someone to sign isn't worth their time compared to the odds that it might be stolen. Skyscrapers are generally commercial buildings here as opposed to residential. UPS won't leave business packages unsigned for so I could see the same for drones. Not allowed to be drone delivered. I mean, its entirely possible for Amazon to just tell any apartment building to go fuck itself, they won't deliver, single family dwellings only!
But there are technological ways around everything if you want it bad enough. It just depends how far they want to push it and what the deem as acceptable or not. There are far greater minds than me working on this but I can see it being possible to implement a system that gets the job done safely for the majority of customers in the area, and I don't even know all the technology available. I know my engineering friends would LOVE to be working on something like this.
On December 27 2013 01:53 hp.Shell wrote: Multi-storey buildings could be delivered to the lobby. They would have to re-hire doormen to take the packages in from the main door.
As for a plastic bowl sending children falling on concrete, the drone could be programmed to only fly vertically after a certain distance from the ground (say 10 feet). Then your child would only be crushed by the package instead of knocked over. Kids are pretty smart by the way, they will probably move in the vertical-flying situation.
Also people could have special package mailboxes set up near their door on a pole 4 feet above the ground. It would look like a plastic box with no lid sitting atop a pole. This way you would have no problem with the drone hurting the less aware beings as it would never go lower than 4 feet above the ground.
Many (non ghetto) apartment buildings have an office where packages are centrally delivered to. I don't see why the system couldn't be designed to only deliver to the apartment at 123 Fake Street between 8-5 when someone is in the office to retrieve the package, or send a notification to the person/office that the package will be dropped off in 3 minutes or whatever.
Well even if it's 50seconds, in a city you can't just put a package in front of door on the sideway with people passing every seconds (i'm talking big city and like skyscraper). On top of it could be possible (with something built it for the drone as someone suggested).
I've already gone over it in this very thread, but UPS drops off packages at your front door ALLLLLLL the time. Its SOP because waiting for someone to sign isn't worth their time compared to the odds that it might be stolen. Skyscrapers are generally commercial buildings here as opposed to residential. UPS won't leave business packages unsigned for so I could see the same for drones. Not allowed to be drone delivered. I mean, its entirely possible for Amazon to just tell any apartment building to go fuck itself, they won't deliver, single family dwellings only!
But there are technological ways around everything if you want it bad enough. It just depends how far they want to push it and what the deem as acceptable or not. There are far greater minds than me working on this but I can see it being possible to implement a system that gets the job done safely for the majority of customers in the area, and I don't even know all the technology available. I know my engineering friends would LOVE to be working on something like this.
Well i think that i got it now Because in France it's illegal to drop a package without the signature. You can't even give it to a neighboor without a singed authorization.
You know i'm not trying to dismiss the thing. I'm just amazed at it and asks questions just to see what ideas people have. It's drone theory crafting
EPT
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pQXL81K.png)
<3 I can't wait.
