25 ms·

Amazon Prime Air

• indus 13y ago
  I'm shorting UPS, FDX!
• spydum 13y ago
  I can't tell, would the delivery drones be Autonomous or human piloted? This definitely sounds too sci-fi to be true. Hard to imagine the cost associated here too..
  • bryanl 13y ago
    The drones would be autonomous. According to the 60 Minutes piece, it sounds like it is five years out. With a 10 mile radius, this could be an interesting proposition.
    • evan_ 13y ago
      According to the FAQ below the video, Amazon thinks it could be up and operational "sometime in 2015": http://amzn.to/1jZz62w http://amzn.to/1jZz62w
    • trustfundbaby 13y ago
      Actually I think he said the "earliest" we could expect them was 2015 because that was as soon as the FAA could approve them, thats jut a year or two away.
    • spydum 13y ago
      10 mile radius? Where are you getting that figure? Also, I thought the distribution centers were usually a bit farther out than most metro areas, making that less practical?
      • bryanl 13y ago
        Bezos mentioned this in his 60 Minutes interview.
  • maxmcd 13y ago
    If a human is spending the time to pilot the package back and forth would this really provide much of a benefit?
    • toyg 13y ago
      … but is he? If you could define a "drone altitude zone" where only drones are allowed to operate, you could easily automate it all out.
• seiji 13y ago
  UAV quadcopters are kinda amazing and getting amazing-er by the year. (I spent too long looking over http://www.helipal.com http://www.helipal.com this weekend.) You can buy one for under $400 with auto-hover, GPS return-to-home, and built in cameras (or a gopro gimble attachment). Sadly, they only get about 5 to 10 minutes of flight time.
  • uptown 13y ago
    I've been checking them out too. Really cool tech. I spent a couple hours watching people's Phantom2 drones get lost/damaged on YouTube today. Convinced me when I eventually decide to get one, it won't be that model unless they've fixed its tendency to attempt a get-away. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=phantom+2+flies+away&sm=3 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=phantom+2+flies...
  • makmanalp 13y ago
    The awesome part is, (and I'm pulling numbers out of my ass here) for a 10 dollar delivery fee, or maybe a 100 dollar subscription to prime air with an average of ~10 items shipped), this thing would pay itself off within days. I assume that the kind of quadcopter that could lift a few kg and had decent flight time would probably run you 3-4k with today's tech, at consumer prices. Even then, a fairly good investment. At bulk prices with 4 years in the future tech, this thing would pay for itself in no time. Hope they get the FAA on board!
• tokenadult 13y ago
  Good job on finding that URL. This is really cool to share with my Facebook friends, and I have to like the tone of the ad copy that Amazon is preparing on this page, which is still in testing, as it would appear.
  • pdknsk 13y ago
    > Good job on finding that URL. http://www.amazon.com/primeair http://www.amazon.com/primeair
• TillE 13y ago
  Cool tech, but I question the practicality of it. This seems fraught with problems that a human on a bike wouldn't have. They're also entirely unsuitable for urban areas.
  • chad_oliver 13y ago
    No, they're not entirely unsuitable for urban areas. Instead, their (relatively) short range means that they're unsuitable for anything except urban areas. If designed poorly, they would be very unsafe, but there are plenty of ways to increase the safety. For example, notice that the drones have more than 4 rotors. This gives a bit of redundancy so that a motor can fail without causing the drone to crash.
    • amalag 13y ago
      Urban areas but don't you have to exclude apartments too.
      • chad_oliver 13y ago
        Good point. I come from a low-rise city (Christchurch, New Zealand) so I'd forgotten about that. I suppose you could designate a safe spot, perhaps on the roof of the apartment?
      • PKop 13y ago
        I'm not sure why this keeps being mentioned. Seems easy enough to build a common landing zone for pickups. Roof, open grass area, etc. If you were an apartment owner, is there no way you could think of solving that issue?
    • ams6110 13y ago
      Can't wait until the first time one shreds a customer's dog, (or face, child, etc.) as it tries to deposit a package on her front porch.
      • pekk 13y ago
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  • smtddr 13y ago
    >>I had to seriously check to see it wasn't April 1st. It isn't. Honestly; I'm still not sure if this is a joke or not. This totally fits the kind of stuff Google likes to do on April 1st. If this became real, I'd go out of my way to order things just to see that show up at my door. And I'm sure it won't be long until people plan on catching the device when it shows up. Even I probably couldn't resist the temptation of catching it and I'll probably have to pay a penalty, but it'd be worth it.
    • TrevorJ 13y ago
      I'm pretty certain they are serious. Internally, I don't know if they really think this is going to become something right away, but I think AMZ knows that there's possibility in this field and I think they hope that this move spurs some research and progress in this area by other companies and kickstarts the needed legal structure from the government agencies in question. If this develops more promise they will be well positioned to take advantage of it.
    • cookiecaper 13y ago
      They'll probably include a smoke beacon/flare of some type, ostensibly to make crash sites more visible, but probably most utilized as a deterrent to would-be trappers who don't want their house to be filled with obnoxious sensory effects like smoke, odor, or alarm. Not to mention, assuming their navigation systems remain functional, it shouldn't be too hard for the drone's owner to locate and reclaim their property.
  • nicksergeant 13y ago
    It was on NBC or whatever, and they stated a "less than 5lbs" limit, which covers ~84% of their product base.
  • mikeash 13y ago
    This is one of those things where I check the calendar and the URL three times each, then still don't really believe it. I think I'll check the calendar again.
• jgalt212 13y ago
  NFW does this not run into all sorts of regulatory hurdles.
  • Anechoic 13y ago
    This will be a huge issue, even if Amazon gets this through the FAA, there are going to be all kinds of local interests expressing their concerns. What happens when one of these gets tied up in an overhead power lines? Did folks living near the fulfillment centers (assuming the warehouse were there first) sign up to live near a heliport, with dozens+ of aerial noise sources buzzing off every day? What about trees, etc? This looks cool, and Amazon has some smart folks so this will likely work itself out over time, but there is going to be a lot to overcome.
• pmiller2 13y ago
  I didn't believe it was real until I saw this other submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830583
• spydum 13y ago
  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-delivery-by-drone/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-d... So guess this just aired, didn't realize.. Here is link to cbs 60 minutes.. Doesn't give much better info than amazons site though.
• konaseer 13y ago
  what if someone shoots downs these drones for invasion of privacy/trespassing/target shooting etc ?
  • WestCoastJustin 13y ago
    It'll have to take evasive maneuvers and return fire ;) Does raise and interesting question though. Will books and other items be dropping out of the sky?
  • drawkbox 13y ago
    It will happen but it will also know its location and maybe video. So just like stealing on the street probably, still theft and a more risky option possibly.
  • stefan_kendall 13y ago
    You can't fire a weapon within city limits in most (all?) cities in the U.S. And you don't own the airspace above your land, or airplanes and helicopters could not fly. And you don't just shoot at anything in the sky when you're out shooting. And civil courts exist to fine you heavily for this sort of behavior if it does occur. Why don't you just shoot at UPS vehicles for driving down your neighborhood streets?
    • konaseer 13y ago
      UPS vehicle dont cross my property while delivering. they go on public roads. see this : http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/open-season-drones-town-split-over-licenses-hunt-unmanned-aircraft-6C10876014 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/open-season-drones-town-sp...
  • wpietri 13y ago
    What if they do that with Amazon's current delivery vehicles? Same answer.
    • konaseer 13y ago
      they cant/dont encroach into your property
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
• fragsworth 13y ago
  Brick-and-mortar stores are doomed. I can only see a few types of products remaining in brick-and-mortars: Clothes that you want to try for size, fruits and vegetables that you want to sample, and restaurants... any others?
  • rch 13y ago
    Why try on clothes? http://www.jhilburn.com/ http://www.jhilburn.com/
    • jaggederest 13y ago
      Why? Because that costs thousands of dollars more for a wardrobe than trying on off-the-rack clothes, and I'm certain it takes longer.
      • rch 13y ago
        Um, $165 isn't bad for a cashmere sweater (though to be honest I don't know anything about the quality of the stuff on this site). I took note because I don't know of a custom shirt place in Boulder, and I miss the 3 or 4 that were near my place in Houston. I hear professional women really appreciate having nice custom shirts as well.
        • jaggederest 13y ago
          I'm just saying, if you look at off the rack dress shirts they'll be $30-$60, similarly with most of the other items. Sure, it might be better quality, and it'll certainly fit better, but I can't afford $1600 for ten shirts. $400 sounds a lot better, and I'm not jumping up to run and get that deal either.
          • rch 13y ago
            That's fair I suppose. I won't argue in favor of spending more just for the privilege of doing so. But A quick look at Banana Republic puts the rack price in the $60 to $125 range, and I'd hope there is a noticeable quality difference between 'fancy gap' and tailored clothing.
• roozbeh18 13y ago
  haha will the package they put it in be mine or should i return it if so how?
  • stefan_kendall 13y ago
    How do you return an amazon package left at your doorstep that isn't yours? How often does this happen?
• rpedela 13y ago
  Here is a TED talk which discusses this technology, its cost, and how it is already being used in Africa. http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_s_a_drone_for_that.html http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_...
  • fogleman 13y ago
    Thanks for the link, that was awesome. I think autonomous, helpful drones will be in our future one way or another.
    • rpedela 13y ago
      Yep I agree.
• brownBananas 13y ago
  Hold on a second, what happens when some birds, winds, or malicious citizens damage the drones? Does Amazon keep sending new ones? How do the drones deliver to apartment buildings or any address that does not have a lawn? Would return service work the same way? I love the product, but a little disappointed by the limited FAQ section.
  • toyg 13y ago
    I expect that, if the service is moderately successful, buildings will quickly adapt somehow (roof landing pads, "drone flaps" etc). I guess some of the answers related to actual Amazon policy will be clarified whenever the service actually starts (i.e. 2015 at the least).
• wiremine 13y ago
  Just watched the 60 minutes segment: Bezos say they won't be ready until 2015 at the earliest, likely 2016. (Edit: as the commenter below pointed out, I misheard the timeframe: is is 4-5 years out) He said the range is 10 miles, which is good enough for most residential areas. They are aiming for delivery in 30 minutes. The drones are autonomous: you plug in the GPS coordinates and away they go. The biggest challenge (again, according to Bezos) is the redundancy, "making sure it doesn't land on people's heads." My question is: why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations?
  • opcon 13y ago
    I have a feeling they are doing it to garner support for drones in general, which will help them with the FDA when it comes to getting approval.
    • girvo 13y ago
      FDA? FAA?
    • johndoze 13y ago
      I hope you mean FAA.
  • nathan_long 13y ago
    >> why announce this now, 2 to 3 (or more) years out? Are they gearing up to get governmental regulations? My guess: if the public is clearly excited, it puts more pressure on regulators to approve it. Which is otherwise a hard sell, especially when you think of what it means for security if autonomous drones are a normal sight.
  • waterlesscloud 13y ago
    As far as range goes, you could Pony Express it with a series of waystations.
    • djKianoosh 13y ago
• ngoldbaum 13y ago
  Vernor Vinge described a similar rocket-based delivery system in his short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High", which eventually became the novel Rainbows End. Crazy to see this actually happening in the real world.
  • Flenser 13y ago
    That was the first thing that came to my mind. It would be interesting to know if that was what inspired amazon or if there was some earlier source that inspired both. Edit: Fast Times at Fairmont High was a reworking of an earlier short story Synthetic Serendipity, which is available online: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serendipity http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/synthetic-serend... > "But don't worry about us." Fred looked upward, somehow prayerful and smug at the same time. "'FedEx will provide, and just in time.'" > "Jerry was looking upward, at the FedEx shipment falling toward his outstretched hands." Vinge also has them doing things other than delivery: > maintenance UAVs flitted like bats around the canyons, popping out nodes here and there.
  • markvdb 13y ago
    You really want to see Jacques Tati's "Jour de fête". It's the 14th of July, French national holiday, late 1940s. There is the traditional village fair and party. The village mailman gets inspired by a combination of alcohol consumption and a stunt movie about speedy modern American mail delivery. An absolutely hilarious prequel to this drone delivery thing, and a must see for people even remotely working on this project or anything similar.
• lemcoe9 13y ago
  I feel like this is the definition of "having too much money."
  • dpcan 13y ago
    Or the PERFECT amount of money ;)
  • a3n 13y ago
    Thank you, that was the vague feeling I got when I saw it, you expressed my feelings perfectly. But I'm old and I'll be gone someday. Y'all have fun with it.
• adamnemecek 13y ago
  Dibs on Drone-Santa-Claus-as-a-service startup.
• juandopazo 13y ago
  If it's not a joke, the city of the future just got quite a bit noisier.
• lostsock 13y ago
  It's obviously not ever going on the same scale as Amazons service but there is already something similar underway in Australia: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/push-for-liftoff-on-drone-deliveries-in-australia-20131014-2vixx.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/push-for-liftoff-o... Apparently we have very forward thinking laws in regards to UAVs
  • girvo 13y ago
    Any laws we have are forward thinking compared to our new Bikie laws. One step forward for tech, two steps forward for the police state... Sorry, I'm bitter still. My state is frustrating me.
• javert 13y ago
  I don't understand how this would work without having distribution centers that fully cover the nation to within 30 minutes, and having every item they sell at every such center. Even if you just want to cut UPS out of the last 30 minute radius and not stock everything at every distribution center... that's still distribution centers everywhere.
  • taybin 13y ago
    You would only roll this out to certain areas at a time. Not the entire planet at once.
  • akgerber 13y ago
    Wal-Mart and other big chains already has much of that infrastructure in place.
    • javert 13y ago
      True. I suspect that most places with a fair number of people, even in semi-rural or rural areas, in the US have a walmart within 30 minutes. Since this service would defeat the purpose of Wal-Mart, I can't see Wal-Mart supporing it, unless there were a merger with Amazon. But the fact that there are so many Wal-Marts suggests that it might be possible to build sufficient infrastructure that mostly covers the continental US, for example.
  • wpietri 13y ago
    Nah. I'm sure they won't promise perfect availability to every customer for every product, at least not initially. There will be a gradual rollout. But it's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. They're already able to deliver all their things on a reliable schedule to every house in the US. That's the hard part. To do this, they just need to squeeze some more waste and latency out of the system. They've already proven to be very good at that. Remember, our current logistics systems already move basically all the goods Americans need to within a 15 minute drive already; they just make customers do the final pickup themselves at distribution centers (which we call stores). This is just switching the last-mile burden from buyers to the seller. If Amazon gets this working well, there will be plenty of empty big-box stores to serve as local caches.
• tcdent 13y ago
  Well, not a day goes by that I don't already hear multiple airplanes and even more gas powered leaf blowers from my back yard. I expect drones will increase that form of ambient noise in my neighborhood substantially. Those who live in high vehicle traffic areas may not notice a difference.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
• pdknsk 13y ago
  I have two remarks or questions. The person who receives the package doesn't have to (or cannot) sign for it apparently. How difficult is it to shoot down such a drone to get the loot, if you will. Might become a sport for some folks.
  • toyg 13y ago
    Considering how signatures are mostly a farce (I routinely sign for my wife or my neighbours, who do the same for me), that's not a big deal: you'll just choose "classic" delivery via courier if you're really worried about that. Interception is a real problem though, especially in high-crime areas. You could reduce it with some sort of hardened container which can be opened only with a certain code.
    • elithrar 13y ago
      > Interception is a real problem though, especially in high-crime areas. You could reduce it with some sort of hardened container which can be opened only with a certain code. Any container that is sufficiently "hardened" enough to stop any trivial access attempt would also be much heavier/larger (or have a smaller internal volume) - which would require a larger drone or a shorter distance. And short of carrying a safe, there's probably little you could do to prevent someone from getting at the goods. Interestingly enough, the country that is likely to allow the use of delivery drones into regulations is also the country with the highest number of guns-per-capita.
      • datacog 13y ago
        > Interestingly enough, the country that is likely to allow the use of delivery drones into regulations is also the country with the highest number of guns-per-capita. - FAA roadmap mentioning Cargo transport via drones: http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/media/UAS_Roadmap_2013.pdf http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/media/UAS_Roadmap_2.... The correlation is absurd and doesnt make any sense.
    • mattmanser 13y ago
      I think you've misunderstood the point of the signature. If they drop it next door, they note which house they dropped it at and also have a signature to show someone actually took it. The point is not to show that a particular person received the package, but that someone received the package. 99.9% of the time that's enough. If it wasn't and was impacting their bottom line, they'd have started taking photos of recipients by now.
• rottyguy 13y ago
  In the 60min piece, Bezos mentioned 85% of their sold products are 5lbs or less... (wonder if that includes the digital stuff?)
  • rottyguy 13y ago
    Wouldn't it be something if the drones could wait around for a few mins to allow you to inspect the items for return? :-)
• snogglethorpe 13y ago
  It doesn't seem like the battery density exists for anything except fairly short distances with very small packages. For the vast majority of deliveries, this could only be a "last mile" mechanism, with the bulk of each delivery happening via more traditional transport. 30-minute delivery from the warehouse? Not going to be possible for 99% of purchases, even those that are under the weight limits. Moreover, you can't just have hoardes of flying vehicles randomly over populated areas (and if this was at all practical, every company and its dog company would be trying to do the same thing), so you'd need fairly strict regulations on where they actually fly, and a system for managing them (e.g. limiting the number of flights by all companies). They'd probably need to do things like limit the paths that could be followed, maybe above public roads (which would reduce the delivery radius). Whatever happens, the (necessary, because it involves public safety and contention for a limited common resource) regulation and government control is going to slow the process down, probably a lot more than Amazon's timeline suggests... Even if they could grind through all the problems, get government support, and setup a system to do final delivery of very small purchases by air... is the investment required to do all this worth it to be able to deliver a vanishingly small proportion of packages more quickly? What this really looks like is an unintentional leak of Amazon's next April 1st gag...
  • a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
    > battery density Why wouldn't these drones be gasoline powered?
    • NoPiece 13y ago
      Noise would be an issue with gas powered drones.
      • gwern 13y ago
        Cars aren't that noisy, and drones are going to be high up in any case.
        • decktech 13y ago
• sillysaurus2 13y ago
  A lot of people live in apartments. I assume they'll be excluded from this. Also related: http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/
  • NoPiece 13y ago
    Delivery to a balcony could solve a lot of door drop off theft issues.
    • brokentone 13y ago
      Sounds nice, but I assume balcony drop off theft would rise as a result
      • toyg 13y ago
        Above the 2nd floor, it would be quite hard to pull off.
        • gwern 13y ago
          I agree. His theory sounds like a reach, and rises to the height of absurdity; who could buy such a story? ...I'll stop now.
        • pattern 13y ago
          Nothing an Amazon-Prime-Air-follower-and-grabber drone couldn't handle!
          • toyg 13y ago
            Illegal drone-hunting drones sold on the black market out of China, with R&D sponsored by Russian gangsters… Some of us grew up reading cyberpunk novels and ended up living in one. It feels… weird.
      • robszumski 13y ago
        ...from another drone picking it up.
• mcphilip 13y ago
  One of my pet dogs growing up always chased the UPS truck (rural area). I can't imagine what it would have done to delivery drones... In a hypothetical situation where a delivery drone gets sniped by some kid with a 22, what is Amazon's response?
  • IvyMike 13y ago
    We've had armed drones for a lot longer than delivery drones. "Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply. You are in direct violation of Amazon and Federal Penal Code 1.13, Section 9."
  • psbp 13y ago
    Contact the police and send another.
    • jfb 13y ago
      "Amazon Fulfillment Center Alpha Bravo Six Six Ten, you are cleared hot pickle -- repeat, cleared hot pickle. Good hunting."
      • psbp 13y ago
        It would be really cool if they sent a companion drone for high value items, or maybe even a fleet. You know, for pictures, not artillery or anything..
  • rokhayakebe 13y ago
    "This drone will auto-destruct and explode in 10 seconds. 10,9,8..."
  • n09n 13y ago
    Not much different from the kid shooting the FedEx guy.
• nivals 13y ago
  If it can handle picking up a return package that would mean never having to go the UPS store again.
• msoad 13y ago
  Not a new idea. TacoCopter[1] had this idea as a ironic VC joke. It's amazing to see this sort of things are becoming a reality. Just wondering how much it will cost to be a member after all. Flying a quadcopter is not cheap! [1] http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/
  • backprojection 13y ago
    > Not a new idea. Who cares? Why do people always feel compelled to make this kind of comment?
    • ajasmin 13y ago
      Why not? TacoCopter sparked a lot of discussion about drone delivery just a while ago. It's nice to be reminded of it, now. It just goes to shows these ideas are "in the air" right now. In case you weren't paying attention.
• mgraczyk 13y ago
  This is the sort of thing that makes me very glad to be a part of the tech industry. Reading this announcement literally made me giddy.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• latimer 13y ago
  There was a story a month or so ago about a company in Australia doing something similar with textbooks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6550765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6550765
• kiddz 13y ago
  Why would they announce it now. . . let's see a day before Cyber Monday and my guess is that 1) they are sincerely doing this, but 2) they are aware up the inevitable PR uptick the day before the busiest online shopping event of the year. Nice move to garner a lot a free attention that will result in greater overall (non-drone-delivered) sales.
• jerius 13y ago
  They better start selling tacos as well, or I'm going to be disappointed.
• saryant 13y ago
  My personal theory is that Amazon hates being reliant on UPS and FedEx. I can't see Bezos being thrilled that so much of his empire relies on the Teamsters. Note that UPS's labor agreement with the Teamsters expires in the next few years. That poses a big risk to Amazon's infrastructure if there's labor unrest during the negotiation. I've long suspected they were working towards a point where they could handle the last mile in house—this development doesn't surprise me at all.
  • seiji 13y ago
    The Amazon USPS Sunday shipping has started too. I ordered something Friday and it showed up at 10am today (Today is Sunday, for those of you reading in the future).
  • morgo 13y ago
    Totally agree. Even if this concept doesn't work perfectly, it puts pressure on couriers to give Amazon the discounts they want. Its kind of like how large enterprises use an Open Office support quote to bring down the cost of their Microsoft office licensing.
  • andrewaskins 13y ago
    I'm really curious about how FedEx and UPS will handle this. If the legislation changes then I think there could be room for one of these two, or possibly a new competitor, to create their own fleet of drones to offer local deliveries for businesses everywhere.
• trekky1700 13y ago
  I wonder how they'll stop this from being abused. From shooting them down with pellet guns to capturing them as they land.
  • petergreen 13y ago
    yep, especially being automatically shot by competitors' hunter war-drones. But hey, this is evolution. Birds have the same problems. It'll be alright :)
    • trekky1700 13y ago
      I think that would be the most amazing thing ever. Skies filled with drone battles between various online retailers and pirates trying to steal the cargoes. Imagine Black Friday. This is a future I look forward to.
  • jonknee 13y ago
    Like everything else in a civilized country--laws and insurance. Does UPS have a problem with drivers being ambushed or held hostage?
    • trekky1700 13y ago
      A driver and a truck is a lot larger and completely different from a smaller autonomous device. And apparently they do occasionally: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/11/25/search-underway-after-ups-driver-robbed-in-azusa/ http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/11/25/search-underway-af... http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/01/ups-driver-robbed-police-say-83641.html http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/01/ups-driver-robbed-polic... http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2013/10/20/3091049/ http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2013/10/20/3091049/ http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/delco/Cops-UPS-driver-kidnapped-robbed.html http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/delco/Cops-UPS-driver-kid... This just makes the robbings easier, as you don't have to deal with a human driver. Much less risk involved, and lower prison sentences when you're not threatening a human and just stealing property.
  • Element_ 13y ago
• backprojection 13y ago
  Will there be pirate drones that fly around looting the Amazon drones?
  • stefan_kendall 13y ago
    Yes, just like there are pirate cars that drive around looting UPS trucks.
    • MichaelGG 13y ago
      I recall reading about shipments of Pentium (II?) processors being hijacked from trucks. I believe some people were even killed. The value of a truckload of new Intel processors is rather high though. Enough that someone may decide the risk in an armed robbery is worth it.
    • cnlwsu 13y ago
      UPS trucks would be a lot better target. More then 5 lbs worth of stuff in the back of one of those.
  • randyrand 13y ago
    Yes. An it will be awesome.
• scrabble 13y ago
  Driverless cars. 3D printers. Unmanned drone deliveries. This is gearing up to be the future I've always imagined. I couldn't be more excited and nervous.
• eranation 13y ago
  I know they said it about the milkman, about the Ice delivery guy, about the postman, the morse code telegram specialist, the travel agent and soon, the bank clerk, and anything else brick and mortar. And I know I'm old fashioned and sound like I'm against innovation and progress. (I'm not) But sadly all I can think of is the unemployed delivery people this is going to replace
• jcutrell 13y ago
  A possible solution for the location issues: why not have it deliver to a predetermined booth-like location? Think: Redbox. Of course, this would be much more valuable if it was set up as a open-source-ish thing (where, for instance, an HOA could set up a "Amazon AirPad" for free). But this would greatly reduce some of the problems otherwise inherent in a delivery system like this, such as (but not limited to): Apartments (or duplexes, for that matter), pet/child liabilities, cars, slightly-off coordinates that result in your neighbor or your pool being the drop-off spot, highly dense neighborhoods, highly wooded areas, no-doorstep apartments, etc.
• loceng 13y ago
  I can imagine these will become a nuisance.
  • lacion 13y ago
    i have my own hobby UAV's and the more i see about prime air the more i think its a joke.
• crusso 13y ago
  Apart from the Scifi-ness of having drones work well in the best of conditions, the back-up infrastructure required to support bad conditions would seem to make the whole venture unrealistic. Let's say that a little drone could reliably carry a package to doorsteps 10 miles away. Let's assume that it can navigate past trees and power lines and kite strings and so forth. So Amazon builds up these service centers with hundreds of drones delivering packages in a metro area to meet their delivery time commitments. Then you get a few weeks of bad weather: regular daily thunderstorms, snow storms, a great deal of gusty weather, etc. Do the delivery time commitments have caveats for consistently bad weather? Unless you live in California, you have to deal with days and days of rain or other foul weather that will eliminate a drone's ability to fly safely, much less be able to deliver a small package without damaging the contents. When that happens, Amazon will need to maintain a fleet of trucks with drivers to take over. Maintaining that capacity will deeply cut into the profit of their business model.
  • carbocation 13y ago
    I don't think that rain, snow, or modest winds should be problematic for any properly equipped drone.
    • crusso 13y ago
      I've flown gas and electric helicopters and airplanes as a hobby over the years. These small aircraft are very susceptible to bad weather. They're already going to be carrying a significant load with an attached package. They won't be able to handle a great deal of weather adversity.
      • carbocation 13y ago
        > They won't be able to handle a great deal of weather adversity. I have less experience than you in the field, but I suspect that Amazon would not be promulgating such a service if it had such obvious fatal flaws.
        • 13y ago
• toyg 13y ago
  I wonder if this will impact their relationship with couriers. I guess it's mostly been smooth sailing until now (as Amazon grew, so did they), but this is an actual threat to their business model. Amazon would still need a large amount of classic logistics, but couriers would lose the final mile. Courier drivers might want to consider a career change very soon.
• tlrobinson 13y ago
  The only way I could imagine this working in even moderately densely populated areas is with some sort of landing pad. Maybe it's as simple as laying out a ~3' square cardboard pad with a QR code or some other fiducials, or maybe as complex as an active beacon or GPS enabled pad. Avoiding powerlines seems like a fairly tough problem as well. Are drone-sized object sensors (ultrasonic? LIDAR?) accurate enough to see thin power lines?
• RuggeroAltair 13y ago
  I think that a lot of comments here are missing a crucial point: in the next few years unmanned vehicles are going to play a major role in most of the transportation landscape, whereas this is for people or objects. Amazon here is trying to play the same role that Google has been playing for a long time with their self driving cars. They are setting a standard and pushing for regulations and laws. It is not that difficult to think that the future of unmanned vehicles won't be as naive as people may think. There will probably be a combination of different sets of vehicles that would go around for large distances and/or sizes, and different vehicles covering smaller distances and/or sizes. They can be used in series to optimize the traveling salesman problem in terms of what's powering these vehicles. It's not that different from thinking of an ant-like distribution system. And not that different from the Google approach of crawling the web, then crawling the actual world with google street view cars, eventually moving into self driving cars. Except you'll also get lots of metadata with it, that can be used and sold. Amazon is now part of the game, moving the attention to drones and self flying objects.
  • aeturnum 13y ago
    I disagree that they're making the same play as Google. Google has never claimed they're going to make a self-driving car, or offer it as a service. As far as I can tell with a few minutes of googling, they don't even have a home page for the project. It's a research project and a tool to "push" the law in the direction Google wants. Amazon, on the other hand, is 100% offering a product. It has a name, and they indicate a plan to, "enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place." This is partially about getting into the game early, but it's also focused on a product in a way that Google's car isn't.
    • RuggeroAltair 13y ago
      I don't think we disagree on that. I'm not talking about the product side of things. I said and mean that Amazon is pushing for standards, regulations, laws etc. also by showing the possible demand side. The reason why Google doesn't have a product, can be for multiple reasons, for example because they may (who knows) only want to create an Android OS-like self driving system, not necessarily building the cars. It's the same they did with smart phones. If they want to dominate the car OS market, they might not need to present it as a product at this stage. They just need, as Amazon, to push it enough to gain momentum and be one of the early players.
• scoot 13y ago
  http://www.amazon.com/primeair http://www.amazon.com/primeair When will I be able to choose Prime Air as a delivery option? A: We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time. Sorry, but not a chance. I'm intimately familiar with the flight controller, motor and batter technology behind multi-rotors, and I can state unequivocally that this is just not ready for 'prime'-time (so-to-speak :) There are multiple issues still to be addressed, not least of which is battery energy density & power-to-weight ratio. Battery recharge time - out for 15 mins flight? Recharge for 2 hours. Flight time / payload - pick one. (20 mins with no payload is a stretch. Add bigger batteries? Too much weight. Add bigger motors and props for more lift? now you need bigger batteries... No good in 'weather' of pretty much any kind. Unstable with a failed motor / prop. Will fall out of the sky under numerous failure scenarios. The blades are lethal - can be shielded, but will add weight and reduce efficiency. GPS is unreliable at best, and is easily interfered with. Current regulations in countries that have them typically require line-of-sight operation; away from people and property (which rules out landing outside someone's front door); no over-flight of persons; restrictions around distances from the operator when taking off and landing. (And remember the battery / weight issue? Go over a certain weight [~8KG], and the regulations get even more onerous.) Battery technology will improve, safety issues will be addressed, regulations will change. But 2015? Jeff, I admire your optimism!
  • 27182818284 13y ago
    >We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015 Well, it is carefully crafted to say the rules will be in place, not the technology. The FAA could say Amazon needs to do X first where X is any one of the challenges you mentioned. I'm glad they put that in, though, because otherwise the threads are always full of "The FAA will never allow this" comments. The wording gives me a reassuring feeling that Amazon knows how much hard work it will take to accomplish.
    • scotth 13y ago
      > We will be ready at that time. Except for, you know, that bit (the bit you cut out)
• mentos 13y ago
  Say you could navigate the package from the warehouse to a persons property, how would you deliver the package while eliminating the risk of injury? My thought would be to have the drone phone home so that a real human could perform/oversee this last stage of delivery. In cities you could see if delivering to a rooftop is feasible to avoid having to negotiate sidewalks/people. A lot of obstacles in the way here but I would love to see this succeed. I envision a world where a table sized gas powered version of this could carry more packages futher.
• joering2 13y ago
  If you lookup the history you will learn that, for example, a I-highways in the USA were build for military first, in order to quickly move people and military around the states. Its only later on has been opened to the public. I say the FAA will keep the air to police, fire departments, cia, fbi, etc, before they open it up to private solutions. Most likely 10 years from now.
• dakrisht 13y ago
  This is an awesome idea of course. It's a glimpse into the future. I remember tweeting with Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics about a year ago about autonomous package delivery from A > B. I'm sure Bezos and team started nerding out on this concept years ago. Eventually, "vehicles" the size of UPS trucks will be delivering packages autonomously all over the world. This is definitely a glimpse into that day. And it won't end at just packages, you're going to see food, produce, perishables, medicine (bye bye pharmacy pickups) and many more products delivered to the home via drone. This is without a doubt the future. However, like every awesome idea it comes with a boatload of challenges that need to be addressed and I fear some will be extremely difficult if not impossible to overcome. Off the top of my head, I see a few issues with Amazon Prime Air, some will be resolved, and some won't, but that's the beauty and uncertainty when taking on rather innovative approaches to existing problems. 1. The FAA situation. Drones are going to have _very_ restricted airspace especially in populated metro areas, if the FAA grants them these privileges at all. If you look at Los Angeles/SF/NYC/DC/Boston, you see airspace that is so overcrowded that I just don't see how drones are going to be zipping around here. BUT, most US cities are urban areas, so if we lose delivery to the dense metropolis, this product could work very well. Just like you see in the video. 2. Aside from airspace regulations in popular cities, you have building density, apartments/condos that will make it tough to service (unless these buildings have custom built "delivery stations" somewhere, and that's a cool idea). So it's a glimpse into the replacement of the traditional mailbox. Now that's cool. 3. Package weight will certainly be a concern but Prime Air will still cover an enormous amount of items from Amazon. And I believe Prime Air will allow Amazon to actually expand their product catalog with previously-undeliverable items via traditional freight (food, perishables, medicine, etc.) 4. Humans. Humans are always a problem. You'll have kids/idiots trying to steal and shoot these things down. This is a minor problem that won't necessarily end, but people will get in trouble and they'll pay fines/etc. 5. Safety. Safety is important, Amazon will do whatever it can to prevent kids/adults from getting sliced by these blades but I think that this is inevitable. 6. Hardware failure. Sure, 4 rotors and redundancy. But we all know a few of these things are going to drop out of the sky with a box of wrenches and slam into someones car/face/house/bike/restaurant... That won't be good. But is it even possible to ensure this doesn't happen? Boeing airplanes fall out of the sky... 7. Weather. Be in no doubt these drones will drop left and right, lose course, altitude, etc. with sudden gusts of winds, environmental factors, etc. They're getting better but it's physics at play here. All in all there are plenty of challenges to an awesome and risky endeavor. What I don't really understand is WHY. What's the net-gain for Amazon. Will this ever fully replace UPS/USPS shipping for them? Maybe... But it will take at least 20+ years. I somewhat see this as an experiment for Bezos and company. The R&D and hardware costs far exceed the pennies on the dollar they pay for UPS shipping. But it has that COOL FACTOR to it. It smells like the future. Would you pay extra for 30-minute delivery? Maybe a few times... I wonder about the utility here...
• ctdonath 13y ago
  Ok, so what's the cost of delivering a one pound payload one mile by drone?
• locusm 13y ago
  I thought this would come but in the form of how military drones are flown today - with a pilot sitting back at Amazon HQ.
• justplay 13y ago
  totally stunning.
• cxviz 13y ago
  Markerting stunt
  • dredmorbius 13y ago
    Timed on the eve of Cyber Monday. Yathink? Pretty damned obvious.
• csmajorfive 13y ago
  Are there any startups working on anti-piracy technology for drones? Imagine criminals targeting high value deliveries and knocking these guys out of the air with their own drones.
• rafeed 13y ago
  Welcome to the future. This is incredible, although it looks like a page Google would put up for April Fools.
• cxviz 13y ago
  Expect deliveries by driverless cars before deliveries by drones
  • wavefunction 13y ago
    I think a drone is probably more realistic in the short term. A self-driving car still has to get the package from the street to your porch, and while I'm sure someone's working on a little robotic deliveryman, the drone combines both transit and delivery in one package.
• kyro 13y ago
  This concept and forward thinking is of the type I make a conscious effort to protect from skepticism and naysayers. Aside from any obvious or glaring safety issues, ideas like this one, that teeter on the reality-joke line, are the exact ones that bring about true disruption. And that's why I encourage everyone around me to keep an open and forgiving mind, like you would with a child. Will Amazon Prime Air work? I don't know, but I hope so.
  • pyre 13y ago
    Here's to hoping that Amazon learns from Google' mistake and doesn't decide to add 'additional features' once this is already deployed. (I'm referring to Google's Wifi AP scanning debacle w/ Google StreetView trucks)
    • Already__Taken 13y ago
      That's a cool idea. I could do that by amazon prime airing myself a bunch of raspberry pi's scanning continuously through the system.
  • dakrisht 13y ago
    Well said. It's original thinking like this that moves us forward as a human race. And in order to move forward, you have to take huge risks, face uncertainty and do whatever you can to prove everyone wrong.
  • crusso 13y ago
    like you would with a child Why would we turn off our critical thinking skills when contemplating claims of a leap in technology that transcends what many of us understand to be possible currently? There are times to encourage creative thought, like with children or within the context of a brainstorming meeting. But most of the time we should evaluate claims critically with the best practices of the Scientific Method. IMO, there's way too much gullibility in our society for religions, junk science, Internet scams, and political dogma.
    • harryh 13y ago
• justplay 13y ago
  i guess they will charge heavy for this delivery.
• sarreph 13y ago
  Three letters: E.M.P.
  • andyhmltn 13y ago
    Unless you are proposing a nuclear bomb, most EMP devices wouldn't make any difference when they are flying high in the sky at 20mph
• Aloha 13y ago
  If it were not December, I would assume this was an april fools joke.
• cwilson 13y ago
  Drone piracy. Think about it. On one hand, totally awesome. On the other, how does Amazon defend against it? Let the drone wars begin!
• jerryhuang100 13y ago
  Next on eBay: PrimeAir the Ripper, automatically targeting, scanning, RF jamming, hijacking PrimeAir delivery drone for your next Macbook. I mean, even Iranians or someone in the mid-east could hijack US drone(s), how difficult would it be for a 15 yo in the US to figure out how to crack a Prime Air in his/her backyard?
• evo_9 13y ago
  Isn't it more likely they'll use these drones inside their warehouses to fill orders? Longterm maybe home delivery but they/Bezos have to be planning on using this to process orders inside their warehouses. so is this all misdirection, or really their longterm plan?
• kevin818 13y ago
  Amazing, but scary, at the same time. Either way, kudos to the Amazon Team for the idea, very interested to see how this will play out.
• jmduke 13y ago
  (Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not for anything related to this. This is the first time I'm learning of Prime Air.) I'm somewhat disheartened by the skepticism of a lot of comments from HN, Reddit, and Twitter. Not stuff like "I wonder how they'll handle adverse weather" (which I think is intellectually interesting) but stuff like "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for". What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? This feels like science fiction in the best way possible. I have no idea whether or not this will work, but I sure hope it does. It's incredibly exciting.
  • goronbjorn 13y ago
    > What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? You must be new to Hacker News…
    • 3pt14159 13y ago
      Or old.
    • diminish 13y ago
      The truth is, drone delivery was discussed already here on HN. A lot of the details were already envisioned and suggested. A lot of the commenters on this thread think it's a new idea or its's new here on HN. This is a good PR move for Amazon(edit: equal to Google's self driving car in PR power). It's likely they got inspired by some of the HN discussions. I hope they don't invent silly patents around it, such as "one flight delivery".
      • gambogi 13y ago
        there is no evidence hacker news had anything at all to do with this idea. Also, just because people are excited about an idea doesn't make them naïve about it's freshness. I'm certain drone delivery has been discussed by many countless people, most of whom the acronym HN means nothing to.
        • rajeevk 13y ago
• vkatluri 13y ago
  I guess we are getting closer and closer to the Pizza delivery technologies described in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Entire industries dedicated to getting things into consumer's hands faster and faster. The "now" in "I want it now" keeps getting shorter and shorter.
• nh 13y ago
  The real surprising thing is that Amazon is accelerating the post industrial age. The economy is growing but wages are stagnant. A demand for human labor is declining while corporations are making massive profits. These drones are an example where machines are replacing jobs that were once done by humans. As we pull out of the recession in the US, the fastest growing job market is the low wage/retail jobs. Walmart will have to match the technologies of Amazon as they fight for market share. Leading to more and more automation of human tasks. During this past thanksgiving there were worker strikes in some Walmart stores for a living wage (~$15/hr). What happens to society when these jobs are not even available? The most interesting part of the 60 minutes interview was not the drones but this: Charlie Rose: Is Amazon ruthless in their pursuit of market share? Jeff Bezos: The Internet is disrupting every media industry, Charlie, you know, people can complain about that, but complaining is not a strategy. And Amazon is not happening to book selling, the future is happening to book selling.
  • brc 13y ago
    It's a common but incorrect assumption to think that replacing repetitive human tasks with machines leads to wide-scale unemployment. Of course the delivery person who is replaced by drones is out of a job initially, but this doesn't doom everyone to unemployment. Higher productivity through mechanisation leads to lower prices, which means more cash available for other purchases, which leads to jobs growth in other areas and a rise in living standards. There are always winners and losers in any technological change, but the general quality of life for society as a whole improves when menial repetitive tasks are replaced by automation. There are more jobs around now than there was at the dawn of industrialisation, and has been, every step of the way. This will continue to be true, despite difficult adjustment periods for individuals and businesses in effected industries. Stagnation is much worse than progress, and trying to regulate away technological progress is even worse than that. I think the major applications for this are in areas where people can't quite imagine yet. Like the increase in internet speed and portable processors which ran ahead of services to leverage it, this type of infrastructure may start by delivering books, and end who-knows-where. Distributed aged-care with medication and meals delivered in-home? Some bizarre physical-world words with friends? The possibilities are quite exciting if it can be intelligently standardized.
• Xdes 13y ago
  Well if this becomes a thing then the NSA will be golden once everyone is conditioned to drones flying all over the place.
• mimighost 13y ago
  I think not only Amazon is investing in this. Some delivery companies in China are already playing with drones for while: http://www.businessinsider.com/package-delivering-drones-start-trial-runs-in-china-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/package-delivering-drones-sta... So why is this so surprising?
• prawn 13y ago
  Will we see private ownership of drones that are used to do pick-ups from supermarkets, warehouses, etc?
• 31reasons 13y ago
  Lets assume this technology took off! With thousands of drones flying in the sky , the urban sky will look so ugly. Do we really need to use drone for parcel delivery ?
• matthiasb 13y ago
  Imagine the Amazon mothership flying above your city with hundreds of drones doing the deliveries.
• exit 13y ago
  there was a conspicuous display of human labor at the beginning
• siglesias 13y ago
  I wonder whether this might necessitate the creation of a kind of "landing pad" with bluetooth LE beacons to signal to the approaching drone where to deliver the goods, that and/or a Santa's Chimney-like chute (I'm thinking apartment complexes) that can obviate the need for the drone to "land" at human level. One also marvels at the possibility for home-to-home delivery, say, for used items, or the ability to have returned items "picked-up" by these drones. A fascinating avenue.
• udkl 13y ago
  Why release this now ? Seems to be more of a marketing ploy to bump up prime membership to compensate for the shrinking margins/revenue. Highly interesting and forward thinking nonetheless !
  • rmoriz 13y ago
    People are probably sick of Black Friday by now and still need to buy holiday presents. Excellent marketing timing. Kudos to Bezos.
• lancewiggs 13y ago
  Responses that I have not yet seen in the comments. 1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof. 2: We could not just set our delivery point up using a app on our smartphones (GPS wtc), but those phones could also broadcast over the various radios to the device and even use the camera to help the UAV navigate. Enter a few hints about route and off we go. 3: The UAVs can be launched from delivery vans to save on the flight time from the larger depot. Drive to a delivery area, deliver the big parcels by hand while the little parcels are automatically delivered by UAVs operating from the roof of the van. 4: The cost of UAVs will come down - significantly - so they may become semi-disposable for the delivery company. In 2015 that may not be true, but by 2025 I can certainly see it. 5: The UAV's could, if they are set up with the right taxi-like business model, be used by a variety of delivery actors, including individuals as well as businesses. So after the Amazon delivery I use the drone to take a parcel to the post office for delivery to an eBay buyer.
  • rossjudson 13y ago
    I could deliver to the nth floor with a giant slingshot, angry birds style.
    • stcredzero 13y ago
      Heh. "Angry Retailers."
  • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    The drones could hitch a lift on people's autonomous vehicles. Amazon would give you a roof rack and pay you when it rides on; they can hook in to your GPS and schedule to anticipate routing.
    • lancewiggs 13y ago
      Nice. We all have windows - and many of those windows open. A basket that hangs outside the window with a battery powered beacon is another option for delivery. The baskets could even be secure and waterproof.
• jroseattle 13y ago
  Not only do I hope this succeeds, but -- assuming this would be available for third parties -- it would actually advance my wife's business plan immensely. To use an overstated phrase, it would be a real game-changer.
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Do you get to keep the box? :-) That is a pretty bold vision for product delivery. On the one hand we have "software eating the world" (everything is a download) and on the other "hardware is cool again" (drone delivery). I sometimes think though that this may become this generation's "jet pack."
  • enraged_camel 13y ago
    >>On the one hand we have "software eating the world" (everything is a download) and on the other "hardware is cool again" (drone delivery). The hardware in this case must be driven by incredibly complex software, both on the drone and in the central HQ that controls the fleet. Without that software, these things would be no different than regular RC quadcopters.
• datacog 13y ago
  Pretty neat concept. But if the goal is to deliver within 30 minutes, I wonder why does amazon need a drone? Domino's certainly dint need a drone to deliver pizza's. Given the cost of research and manufacturing of the drone, I bet this would be just a fancy R&D project. Plus dont forget the lack of accuracy the drone would have, there has to be a manual interception thus questioning the original concept itself. Musk is upto hyperloop, Bezos is upto drones; I think the former one is far more realistic and needed.
  • randyrand 13y ago
    Who says amazon won't also deliver pizza?
    • datacog 13y ago
      thats not the point. The point being, there could be other alternatives which could deliver in the same time and be actually developed faster without waiting on FAA regulations to get approved
      • randyrand 13y ago
        My point was that maybe pizza (and by your extension most things) is better delivered this way.
  • pcurve 13y ago
    Once they have tens of thousands of these operating, i'd imagine per unit cost will fall below $2000 within few years, even accounting for R&D. If it can deliver 10 packages per day (accounting for charge time), that's 3600 deliveries per year. Even if you have to replace it after 1 year, it's 50-60 cents per delivery. This will be perfect for suburbs nearby metropolitan regions.
• dylandrop 13y ago
  My main concern is environmental impact. I'd be interested in an analysis of the effects of producing these drones + environmental cost of powering them + environmental cost of producing those yellow boxes vs. cost of delivery truck
• chuckp 13y ago
  The ire towards "drones" is quite puzzling to me, most technology came from an initial military backing and soon this will be our daily lives. Right now you can not legally fly a "drone" commercially, all flight by multirotor UAS over US soil is classified as hobby, educational, or government right now. That is where 2015 comes in, the FAA is suppose to make a ruling dictating commercial flight regulations and processes. (http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-02/under-newly-authorized-airspace-rules-drones-will-fly-alongside-piloted-planes-2015 http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-02/under-newly...) Currently two vehicles have been certified for flight but they are in a ~20k price range. The estimates on this vehicle are very reasonable for technological advances in the next two years. The opensource community has already created the software technology and a multirotor device of this size could conceivably run for 30min especially with advances is battery and motor/prop technologies. Perhaps Amazon wants to attempt to shift America's focus on drones, and how they can have positive effects on our lives. Sounds like a good plan especially if they are able to provide emergency supplies to remote locations, or just get us use to them assisting in daily activities. Wonder what it costs to charge ~15000mah battery vs the driving cost.
• caiob 13y ago
  I think this is great news. It's innovation and will cause a even bigger revolution in the retail business. Obviously, there's a lot to be considered before actually putting it out there, but I believe this will be very successful.
• richardlblair 13y ago
  To every person who thinks this won't work out... ...neither will your amazing photo sharing website.
• sheabo 13y ago
  Im working with UAV's in Afghanistan right now and just saw the video for this. Im just wondering where i need to apply to get into this job as soon as i can. Anyone know where i should try to contact or look for the job listings?
  • nabla9 13y ago
    Either they are going to be autonomous or this will be very expensive delivery system. One man attending one package delivery for 20-30 minutes will not do. If they have human involvement, it's just checking the drop point. In any case, it will be extremely low paid job.
• nashequilibrium 13y ago
  The only concern i have is the propellers, can they be encased to avoid accidental injury? I remember having this conversations when "taco copter" made HN front page, i am assuming by now there is a way to make the propellers collision safe.
• scovetta 13y ago
  I can't wait for the parody videos to show up on this.
• avenger123 13y ago
  This is amazing. I was reminded of the Back to the Future movies watching the video for this. This looks to be the first steps towards that dream.
• glord 13y ago
  haha awesome, sweet video and a great project. Its kind of like the refugee camp pill delivery quad we prototyped at MHacks. 2 big questions: 1) how do they handle motor failure, drones falling out of the sky? 2)How do they auto land? Its too soon for some sort of real time obstacle avoidance / image processing / auto landing without heavy lidar, and a lot of compute. What about range? These drones only fly for max 20 minutes at 20mph so you'd have to live within 3 ish miles.
• RexM 13y ago
  I can't help but think of the Domino's video[1] from about 6 months ago. This would be pretty cool, but I don't understand why everyone is so amazed by this... [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDXuGQRpvs4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDXuGQRpvs4
• infinitebattery 13y ago
  I see many potential problems to this- such as, what if the weather is very bad (wind, rain, ect). Also, what if a thief catches the drone? It's definitely an interesting concept. I love it. I doubt Amazon has it all figured out but I also doubt they are foolish. Kudos to Amazon for being bold.
• pocketstar 13y ago
  Shoot it out of the sky or spoof GPS, get free stuff!
• jasonlotito 13y ago
  My first thought when reading this was Amazon selling this as a service to local businesses as well. Allow them to use this to sell & deliver products.
• tqi 13y ago
  Any speculation on what the cost of delivery with this service will be (I'm guessing very few people currently take advantage of the 1-day delivery option, let alone same day, so I would guess this will need to be cheaper than those to be commonplace)? Also why is this better/faster/cheaper than just hiring someone to deliver things on demand ala TaskRabbit?
• jordanthoms 13y ago
  This is awesome - It'll probably take someone like Amazon pushing things to make this happen, and now the pressure is on the FAA to allow this (and figure out how to regulate it). Can't help but notice they announced this just before Cyber Monday, no doubt it'll drive a lot of traffic - Bezos is a crafty one indeed.
• turar 13y ago
  FWIW, according to this article, Chinese e-retailer SFEXpress already tested delivery by drones: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/in-china-online-retail-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-bigger/article15688956/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/internatio...
• seshakiran 13y ago
  Guys, this is science fiction getting real and this is kick ass. This is awesomeness. Kudos to JB. And I think this would work without having any big issues. Reasons are: 1. Amazon will wait for the FAA approval before deploying this . This means, the max. weight a copter can carry at any given time would be limited. As some one said, if AMZ starts shipping heavier packages beyond a certain limit there is a risk that it might be dropped and causes injury or death. 2. AMZ would not deliver it across cities. Pls. see the video. It's mentioned that it would be within 30 mins of pressing buy button. This means the radius of the delivery is controlled and monitored from either the fulfillment centers or a central control center. 3. Consider attaching a video camera for delivering the goods. It would also record the whole delivery process for many aspects. It would have a visual footage of who picked it up, whether it was delivered to the correct location etc. This covers legal aspects as well. 4. People would love to have this way of things delivered to them since they would save a lot of time going to the store, spending on gas, waiting in lines etc. oh..btw, this is good environment too. Less gas usage. Now, the question is how would UPS, FedEx and USPS react to this? They would still be delivering the goods via road to drone inaccessible locations. What if the weather doesn't permit? Would not AMZ have a back up plan of delivering only to the places where weather is not bad? Why would they send the drone into a tornado effected area? Think my fellow HN readers. Think. Now, the next aspect is security. Can someone spoof the GPS location and re-route the packages? May be. If that's the case, the video recording would help as mentioned earlier. Walmart, you listening?
• benbojangles 13y ago
  I want my items delivered by RC pulsejet. Go big, or go home.
• bendmorris 13y ago
  Adagio Tea has a similar idea with their Teacopter: http://www.adagio.com/teacopter/ http://www.adagio.com/teacopter/ I have a little more confidence in Amazon being able to pull this off, though.
• pirateking 13y ago
  I hope eventually drones will just deliver raw materials and resources for product materialization (next generation manufacturing) at home or on-site, using both commercial and open source product materialization specifications distributed electronically.
• gjmulhol 13y ago
  5-7 years out? I bet Bezos also has teleportation on the radar for sometime in the 2200 timeframe. Why didn't he announce that? All of this is nice, but until someone actually operationalizes this and announces that I can actually have something delivered to my house in 30 minutes, then this means little. As it stands right now, I find Amazon's promise of 2-day delivery to frequently fail (in the SF Bay Area, so a high customer density) and find their non-existent customer support to be frustrating. I would frankly be more excited if I could actually get my packages in 2 days right now than over the future prospect of 30 minute delivery.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
• bwilliams18 13y ago
  When I want to return something will a drone come by and pick up the return? because that has A LOT of value. Imagine being able to order something on amazon just to 'try it out', you get an hour to make sure x part works, drone hangs around, and if it doesn't you drop it back in the tupperware and the drone flies it back to the fulfillment center and your card is never even charged
  • _s 13y ago
    I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this mentioned - especially for market place sellers; just sold an item? there's a drone on it's way to collect it! This will probably end up changing the inter-city courier / logistics greatly.
• alexmarcy 13y ago
  This seems like a cool technological problem to solve that is completely unnecessary. Is waiting a 1-2 days to receive something in the mail that big of a deal?
• danielharan 13y ago
  I'm curious why all these delivery vehicles use helicopter designs instead of blimps. Wouldn't the better safety and added flight time compensate for increased drag?
• dlgeek 13y ago
  I knew Amazon was serious about Cloud Computing, but I didn't realize they took it so literally...
• espitia 13y ago
  the days when the comments added value to the topic are long gone... * i know I'm being part of that but I usually never comment, I learn from you people! (or use to)
• brianbreslin 13y ago
  Let's take a strategic look at this. Its a shot across the bow at Google Shopping Express, Ebay Now, InstaCart (to an extent), TaskRabbit (meh maybe), and all the others focusing on the same day delivery business. Its also a direct shot at Walmart, whose customers in non-dense cities all have a store within 30 min drive of their location. Walmart isn't in the big cities (in their normal fashion), walmart is suburbs. Target is suburbs. Walgreens/CVS might worry about this too, as it could kill a bunch of impulse or time sensitive shopping if amazon ran this 24/7. Things to consider: - what is the cost per drone? - what is the cost to operate? Fuel? are these fully autonomous? This paired with self-driving cars is potentially shifting the dynamics of delivery companies (imagine if the ups driver was just a guy in the truck, not driving it). Or the truck had 2 delivery guys, neither one driving... Anyway, I see this as a fascinating experiment. Worth looking into as well: http://matternet.us/ http://matternet.us/ this has been around a while. I heard of it through singularity university people.
• soheil 13y ago
  I live in a high rise with a balcony can I just leave the door open and have it come inside.
• shimon_e 13y ago
  We already have this in China. The SF Express has been testing these for years. Just last year we got the drop off boxes that amazon has been installing in 7-11s installed into our building. It's used for all package deliveries not just amazon.
• thesimpsons1022 13y ago
  I for one am awaiting the time that we can finally look up and see nothing but thousands of drones hovering ahead, eclipsing the sky. one question. 1. whats to stop some hooligan from throwing a rock at one or standing on his roof and catching one and stealing the package.
• orenjacob 13y ago
  Has anyone calculated the energy usage of sending a 1kg package 10km alongside 100s of other packages on a diesel powered UPS truck vs sending it by itself, hanging below a battery powered octacopter? How much more/less energy does the octacopter consume per package?
  • markvdb 13y ago
    Rather calculate the diesel powered truck doing 80% of the distance to delivery place, and the drones flying the last 20% of the distance from the truck.
• jigneshg 13y ago
  incredible product and looking forward to start such facility in India
• nobrains 13y ago
  http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_s_a_drone_for_that.html http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_...
• LeicaLatte 13y ago
  This vision for last mile of deliveries looks right. Looking forward to buildings having "chute systems" that organize and automate deliveries to individual recipients.
• pjan 13y ago
  While technologically fascinating, is it just me or are we creating a really sad sad world, where we eliminate all human interaction and pollute or skies with these ugly annoying things. I wholeheartedly hopes this fails as hard as possible.
  • Nicholas_C 13y ago
    >where we eliminate all human interaction As you post this to a message board on the Internet where hundreds (thousands?) of people will read it. Only face-to-face human interaction is decreasing, while total human interaction is increasing.
• ck2 13y ago
  April fools was months ago.
  • rmoriz 13y ago
    but Cyber Monday is today. Awesome marketing stunt to get free TV ads and media coverage the day before.
    • ck2 13y ago
      "cyber monday" is the april fools of marketing, there aren't actually any good sales today, it is meant for people who feel left out from the consumerism But does Amazon even need marketing like this? I mean everyone price checks Amazon, even especially while looking in a physical store.
      • rmoriz 13y ago
        I don't think there is a point where you don't try to get as much as marketing as possible and Jeff Bezos is a very ambitious person who likes to be seen as "crazy but very successful innovator". As far as I can see, Amazon has only two major man-in-the-middle parties left: the parcel services and banks. My guess is that Amazon tries to buy or build their own parcel service company in areas where parcel services don't compete enough (= not cheap and fast enough for Amazon). This PrimeAir marketing stunt could therefor be a message to their current parcel services to get faster and cheaper OR amazon will enter the market and do it themselves.
• antocv 13y ago
  If it works as it does, this would be a great way to hoard those small boxes that come along with the package, and later resell them :D
  • easy_rider 13y ago
    or just resell the drone
• jackcwang 13y ago
  Late to the discussion, but I'm surprised no one is discussing the non-technical implications of drones. Even if safety/security/etc can be guaranteed 100%, personally I wouldn't want my view of the sky to be littered by drones.
• blackdogie 13y ago
  I really don't see this coming before self drivinng cars/van will just drive to your location and open up a hatch for you to collect your goods. Drones are only good for short ranges, light products and not to dense populated locations. Auto driving cars ars would be a hell of a lot more flexible.
• verytrivial 13y ago
  This looks like a rather cheap way to "buy" drone components.
• InclinedPlane 13y ago
  One point I'd like to make on this: There's the obvious question, why bring up the subject now when they don't even have the technology ready? The answer is easily revealed by the response: to get over the giggle factor as early as possible. Right now much of the commentary is about how ridiculous or silly this is, but that will fade with exposure and with publicity of successes in testing. There are lots of things that have the same problem. Legalized marijuana, space tourism, reusable launch vehicles, manned mars missions, 3D printed organs, etc. Often times it's as important to get over the giggle factor as it is to build something that works. Personal computers and tablet computers ran into the same problem, but once people stopped thinking of them as toys people got down to the business of making practical use of them.
• DonGateley 13y ago
  Sportsmen will have a blast with this.
• roel_v 13y ago
  So, this is the wave of the future. Now, how do I make money on this, apart from buying Amazon stock or starting a drone company (which are going under in droves, I should add)? Is this going to be a first-past-the-post thing? I can't see how any other retailer will be able to compete with this, once they start rolling it out, and assuming they won't be offering DDaaS (drone delivery as a service - you heard it here first folks). I'm not sure how much the marginal delivery costs for Amazon are going to be, but this might give them a 10% (!) increased profit in an already very low-margin market? That would obliterate most competition.
• grey-area 13y ago
  Great idea, for small items. A few other companies are exploring this, but with the funding from Amazon, and the scale Amazon delivers at, it could make a lot of sense for them - they could actually make this a reality. I'd try this out just to see the Octocopter coming in to land. Weight will be a problem I guess, as many of the things Amazon delivers are larger and would be difficult to carry on a drone unless it was a significant size. So small items only, at least initially. I did also wonder about landing spots - these things are going to need a guaranteed flat spot to land, so that they are not damaged and can take off again, but I guess with a smartphone the user could indicate their preferred landing spot via GPS. And of course there is an issue with airspace and regulation, which I guess will be their biggest hurdle - flight paths over cities could get pretty busy quite quickly, and you'd need some sort of one way system or sophisticated traffic control to avoid collisions, so a bit of a headache for authorities to coordinate, but these are all soluble problems.
  • sentenza 13y ago
    Oh man, I started reading about this 20 minutes ago, and now already have a mental image of the landing platform that I'll install on the roof of my house. They probably didn't say anything about when this will come to rural Germany, did they?
• iaminsane 13y ago
  Some guys from Russia (CopterExpress) already tested that idea in Moscow during this summer. They had negative experience as i know
• jpmatz 13y ago
  Sounds good to me, as far as they put some emergency delivery shortcuts in the header: - ironed shirt - phone charger - toilet paper
• akulbe 13y ago
  It seems to me that if this is to seriously take off, it would require a distribution center in every major city, at the very least. If anyone can pull it off, I think Amazon can. I wrote a term paper on them for my last class in school, based on the then - predicted entry into grocery delivery. I feel like Amazon is one of the few large companies that has been innovative and has the possibility to be seriously disruptive to the economy. Some of what was talked about... same-day delivery of groceries. They'd likely have their own fleet. What does this mean for the existing big name grocers? Same-day delivery of regular merchandise. What would this mean for UPS and/or FedEx? If I were a Mom & Pop shop, and I knew Amazon was coming to town, that would make me lose sleep at night at least as much as Walmart, if not more.
• AndrewDucker 13y ago
  I wonder how much they will charge for this - what's the efficiency like compared to delivery vans?
• qq66 13y ago
  One thing to note is that this isn't technologically far-fetched: military UAVs can deliver multi-hundred-kilogram payloads today. Making this a reality won't require unthinkable technology -- it will require steep reductions in cost, which Amazon is very good at, and acceptance by regulators and the public (anyone's guess).
• dharma1 13y ago
  we've been flying with drones (mainly octos) with heavy payloads for a while now - http://londonhelicam.co.uk http://londonhelicam.co.uk . RED Epics, Phantom high speed cameras, a lot of expensive and heavy cameras. The main thing is energy density - the current gen LiPo batteries only allow for about 10-15 mins flight with a reasonable payload. Considering Amazon will have to do a roundtrip, this will not give them a very long range. The second thing is safety - we never fly above people. I don't think the authorities will allow Amazon to fly over populated areas until the tech is 100% safe, which it isn't yet. I think we're looking around the same time frame as with self driving electric cars becoming commonplace. Many of the problems with battery life and safety are shared. Maybe around 7 years?
  • benjamincburns 13y ago
    Energy density combined with mechanical efficiency. I could see something like this being viable if they could find a way to make it a hyper-efficient VTOL fixed-wing craft, but quad/hex/octo-copters from an efficiency standpoint are really quite poor electricity-to-thrust converters.
• oldmanjoe 13y ago
  To deal with the issues of landing Amazon Prime Air would best be served by sending you a plastic "landing square" when you subscribe so that you designate the place in your garden so that the Drone knows where to land and you can keep an eye on it. With an iBeacon built into it it can guide the drone landing and even use IR to warn the drone of nearby movement/people. This would also serve as a signal to members of the public that it is a potential landing zone (perhaps with a red flashing light when a drone is making a land). Amazon could even give you a discount if you allow the drone to recharge at your landing point.
• init0 13y ago
  If this comes true, I shall order a book and get a bot for free [If you know what I'm saying :D]
• codex 13y ago
  Loud jumbo mosquitoes constantly buzzing around my neighborhood, ruining my view and endangering my kids? I want 30 minute delivery, but not that badly. I can plan ahead and exercise patience, or use a bike messenger.
• ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
  As much as I love UAV technology, we live in a nanny state where even the slightest risk of injury is outlawed to prevent citizen stupidity. The second someone gets within three feet of a UAV rotor as it tries to land, this gets banned.
• msantos 13y ago
  Waterstones, one of UK's biggest bookseller has just announced its response to Amazon's Prime Air: O.W.L.S = Ornithological Waterstones Landing Service http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/ http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/
• joshaidan 13y ago
  Regarding the whole dog thing. I guess if you're ordering something by drone, it will arrive within 30 minutes. So why not just keep the dog inside or in the kennel for 30 minutes?
• gallerytungsten 13y ago
  A couple comments have addressed the issue of people potentially shooting down the drones. I think this is very likely, as it appears even a decent slingshot or arrow could take one down if the shooter was close enough. But another scenario I didn't see mentioned is the potential for the drones to be captured. Let's say a carder orders a delivery to an unoccupied house. When the drone lands, the carder tosses a big net over the drone. Once it's disabled, the control unit can disconnected and either replaced or re-programmed.
• wehadfun 13y ago
  Make these things fly 5 feet off the ground only over roads and they wont pose any more danger then what already exist on roads.
• cooc 13y ago
  Not so much people have heard of Matternet, a general delivery drones system. The TED talk worth a watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_s_a_drone_for_that.html http://www.ted.com/talks/andreas_raptopoulos_no_roads_there_...
• kclay 13y ago
  So this explains why Amazon built a center not even 10mins away from my house(Schertz,TX). If they are offering it here I'm going to order something random just cause.
• mark12 13y ago
  This video explains how drone delivery will change the world, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5tts4B4FE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5tts4B4FE
• imahboob 13y ago
  Funny how an article on dinners killing kids across the world does not make headlines, but drones delivering cheap Chinese made toys makes it too the headlines of every major publication..
• imahboob 13y ago
  Funny how an article on dinners killing kids across the world does not make headlines, but drones delivering cheap Chinese made toys makes it too the headlines of every major publication..
• imahboob 13y ago
  Funny how an article on dinners killing kids across the world does not make headlines, but drones delivering cheap Chinese made toys makes it too the headlines of every major publication..
• stanmancan 13y ago
  I really hope they can pull this off, I think it would be amazing. Not only would it be great from a customer's stand point, but think about how much better it would be for the environment. Millions of miles driven by delivery trucks polluting the air being replaced by drones. Outstanding!
• abdullahisham 13y ago
  Domino’s trials new drone delivery system for pizzas... I think they didnt get the kind of PR Amazon got... http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/05/dominos-trials-new-drone-delivery-system-for-pizzas-3829035/ http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/05/dominos-trials-new-drone-deliv...
• lanbird 13y ago
  I will shoot this one , if i see the drones. You can get a camera, a gps and a hover for free!
• samograd 13y ago
  This is so awesome to see the robots coming and not having them being programmed kill people. Thanks Jeff.
• leoc 13y ago
  UK bookseller Waterstones response: http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/ http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2013/12/introducing-o-w-l-s/
• MushCraze 13y ago
  All I can say is HAHAHAHAHA! Too much work for a single package. If ever this will push through, I wonder how much a delivery would cost.
• BigBalli 13y ago
  Ehm… you know it's just a marketing stunt for CyberMonday, right?? http://amzn.to/1k6StXg http://amzn.to/1k6StXg "Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations."