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Saw this last night on the special aired on 60 Minutes. Incredible but he did mention it's 5-ish years away from going live. Amazing if they can get this going though - all those hunger games fans will recognize this idea too.
Only issue I can see is theft... maybe they can get authorized to arm them?
Definitely not a short term thing but the fact that its in development and being funded (from an R&D perspective) is incredible.
Yea this just blew my mind. Probably the most innovative mass-market service I've seen in a while.
Are you kidding me with this post? This is the biggest game changer in the news, seriously? Have you been living under a rock for the last 48 hours?
Have you completely missed the fact that my man Sam Champion is leaving Good Morning America for the Weather Channel?
Believe it: http://nypost.com/2013/12/02/sam-champion-leaving-abc-for-weather-chann…
That, my friend, is a real game changer.
Shits about to get real.
I was so confused until the second paragraph. Hilarious.
I'm going to string a giant net above my house to capture these things as they fly by. It will be like fishing out of the sky.
Am I the only person on WSO who thinks this idea is completely impractical/way further away than 5 years? I don't think there is any chance the FAA goes for this. Not to mention, how would this work in cities, where Bezos said they would be the most useful? Drop the stuff on the roof of high rises? Theft is a legitimate concern. So is safety. Weather. Landing space.
I love Amazon, but I'm a hater on this one. Seems like this big 60 minutes reveal was just to drum up publicity before the holidays.
Doesnt the FAA only control Air Space starting at a certain altitude. I have limited exposure to drones but I think most of this size fly fairly low.
Props to @chicandtoughness for this find:
http://www.inc.com/business-insider/the-real-reason-Amazon-announced-delivery-drones-last-night.html
I mean, yea. Couple things though 1) Why would I trust some blogger over anyone else. 2) The biggest online shopping day of the year is basically Amazon.com day so the advertising angle doesnt make enormous sense to me. 3) The FAA isnt planning on looking at drones until 2020 unless, you know, they have to.
I get the argument but saying it was a pure publicity push for a day that basically exists to use Amazon sounds a bit hollow.
Definitely don't agree that it was pure PR play, but you have to admit the timing is nicely placed.
And Inc/BI are known for great op/eds - it's just a nice piece of rhetorical writing. No way that this should be taken as fact, but definitely something to think about.
The entire industry of tech revolves around these marketing teaser-type stunts, so there's always going to be that element in every announcement. Hell, the only reason why a C-suite individual would get on TV/radio/online media is for the PR exposure. If they were only looking to announce drone possibilities for the sake of sharing operational advances, they would be talking to trade publications and B2B channels.
I mean, it really plays to everyone, right? Amazon gets promo time, 60 Minutes gets a scoop that literally everyone is talking about and the shit blog sites get click fodder for 'speaking the truth'. Perfect circle of nonsense.
Welcome to the world of PR.
Welcome to the interweb.
On another note... despite some of the practicality hurdles like security/delivery etc... there is a middle ground between a robot flying a package to your doorstep and a fat slovenly UPS guy waiting a week to punt the package from his truck into your hedges.
I could envision a scenario where there are pick-up locations where packages are delivered to a pick-up facility within a relative short time frame and you can go pick it up from an automated kiosk by swiping your credit card or something.
Agree with the deliver issues. In the video they show, you'd ideally need a "last mile" operator where the robot navigates to within maybe 100-250 ft of the house and then it hovers and drops into a queue until a joystick operator with a camera view can pick-up control and navigate to the right spot on the property and maybe even go to the front door and emit some sound until someone answers the door, before dropping the package on the doorstep.
Well, at least you won't need a license to hunt drones. The plus side is you get a free gift when you shoot one down.
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