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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 is

by 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
  The Scylla and Charybdis of innovation. Open your mind too far and you accept too many wacky ideas. Close it to much and you'll never see what's possible.
  - crusso 13y ago
    Sure, but if I could turn the societal dial a few clicks toward critical thinking vs day dreaming, I'd do it. The unquestionable success of the Scientific Method has shown that careful analysis and requirement of experimental proof far outstrip bumbling about with our own natural human level of random thoughts that we label "creativity".
    - harryh 13y ago
      I dunno. Maybe. But then I look around and see more need for creativity now than ever. Technology is changing faster than ever and that's impacting society in ways previously only speculated about. To me that means there's a lot of opportunity out there waiting to be captured by people crazy enough to do a little dreaming. Ideas are delicate things.
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      Creativity and critical thinking aren't opposite ends of the same scale, in many ways they are orthogonal. Similarly, critical thinking and blind pessimism aren't the same thing, though many people mistake them to be.
    - jamesrcole 13y ago
      The scientific method is about testing ideas. Generating ideas another matter. Innovation often requires ideas that sound 'crazy' (because they don't fit with established ideas).
  - chongli 13y ago
    The really hard part of critical thinking is training your intuitive, heuristic filters. Applying rigorous critical thinking to everything takes way too long. Conversely, applying critical thinking to nothing at all makes you a gullible idiot. Developing that filter to strike the right balance is a lifelong learning process.
ruswick 13y ago
Agreed. So far, I've seen nothing but specious fear-mongering and nonsensical "what-if" arguments against this thing. I can understand why people doubt the feasibility of drone delivery, especially given the legal impediments to adoption. Frankly, I doubt that this type of service will be practical within four years. What I can't understand is why people openly reject the idea of drones. I don't see how Prime Air is any less safe or efficient than sending thousands of five-ton metal boxes barreling down residential streets. I don't see why a five-pound piece of plastic falling from the sky poses an appreciably greater risk than a branch falling on you. I don't see how people can draw parallels between small, low-altitude consumer drones and military UAVs. The level of fear surrounding this announcement makes no sense. The response to Prime Air goes far beyond skepticism. It's incoherent, fanatical pessimism, and it's really dissapointing.
- woofyman 13y ago
  Since the payload is 5 pounds, it would have to weigh significantly more.
- MWil 13y ago
  Law students (most) take a class called Criminal Procedure that heavily covers 4th, 5th, and (to a smaller extent) 6th amendment jurisprudence. I took it in 2011 when drones were really heavy in the news cycle. Our final exam was solely on drones and how their adoption would effect/be effected by 4th amendment considerations. So with all that said, I really really hate the idea of drones. They get places humans cannot. They're expected in places *humans cannot be. These places are protected right now. Just putting drones in operation (especially in the hands of the public) means every single bit of the public up to the point of actually suctioning cup on your window is possibly fair game. Of course, I hope that reasonable regulations are at play but I am pessimistic about it. I think people will want their taco drones and their 30 min Amazon delivery MORE than they want to hear how it might impact their privacy. So it's not safety, it's not "oh no, they're like the military now". It's purely the loss of private airspace that still remains and the potential to abuse it audio/visual wise.
  - icambron 13y ago
vladimirralev 13y ago
What if I give you chance to bet on the success of this technology, what terms would be acceptable for you?
DufusM 13y ago
I hope it works too - it seems so cool. But I am not sure this is the big problem in this space. Current delivery time = 1 day for last mile + >1 day for warehouse -> local area This method reduces the last mile delivery time down to 30 mins but it is not clear how the second part would be optimized down. At least, without losing the value proposition of Amazon - giant centralized warehouses instead of local retail outlets.
- Turing_Machine 13y ago
  It's like the levels of caching in a computer. (just using orders of magnitude for an example, the actual numbers for best efficiency probably aren't quite so nice) The 1000 most frequently ordered items in a warehouse near your neighborhood. The 10000 most frequently ordered items in a city-wide warehouse. The 100,000 most frequently ordered items in a regional warehouse. Amazon already has the regional warehouse part. I'd guess that this might be worth doing even if only the 1,000 most frequently ordered items can get there in 30 minutes, and should definitely be worth doing if you can get the 10,000 most frequently ordered items there in 30 minutes.
  - DufusM 13y ago
    Agree, it could totally work for Amazon Fresh items, say, that are bound to be ordered regularly.
  - pilsetnieks 13y ago
    Plus they don't have to roll out worldwide simultaneously, they can just do a few select cities at first.
- roel_v 13y ago
  By having more local warehouses that stock the top x most sold things. 100% of the things I can readily remember that I ordered the last 2 or 3 months are so common that they were all in stock in the local shop that I bought most of them at (a large online retailer here in the Netherlands has 6 or 8 or so shops across the country, for local pick up or to try stuff in-store). And they were not the most common things either - a steam wall paper remover, a router (of the woodworking type, not the networking type), a specific type of headphone. If they can have those levels of stock in high street bricks and mortar shops, they could have even larger inventories when they could store them in fully automated warehouses in cheap industrial areas. The accuracy in stock prediction ('shop stock', not 'financial markets stock', obviously) is jaw-dropping. Man this is going to destroy high street shopping (even further, I might add) - imagine being able to order 10 outfits for trying on from your own home, try them on and send the 9 you don't want back right away, in less time than it would have taken you to just drive to wherever you can buy it off line. If clothing (and other main street) shops are having a hard time now, wait until they have to compete with this...

by kyro 13y ago

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
The Scylla and Charybdis of innovation. Open your mind too far and you accept too many wacky ideas. Close it to much and you'll never see what's possible.
- crusso 13y ago
  Sure, but if I could turn the societal dial a few clicks toward critical thinking vs day dreaming, I'd do it. The unquestionable success of the Scientific Method has shown that careful analysis and requirement of experimental proof far outstrip bumbling about with our own natural human level of random thoughts that we label "creativity".
  - harryh 13y ago
    I dunno. Maybe. But then I look around and see more need for creativity now than ever. Technology is changing faster than ever and that's impacting society in ways previously only speculated about. To me that means there's a lot of opportunity out there waiting to be captured by people crazy enough to do a little dreaming. Ideas are delicate things.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Creativity and critical thinking aren't opposite ends of the same scale, in many ways they are orthogonal. Similarly, critical thinking and blind pessimism aren't the same thing, though many people mistake them to be.
  - jamesrcole 13y ago
    The scientific method is about testing ideas. Generating ideas another matter. Innovation often requires ideas that sound 'crazy' (because they don't fit with established ideas).
- chongli 13y ago
  The really hard part of critical thinking is training your intuitive, heuristic filters. Applying rigorous critical thinking to everything takes way too long. Conversely, applying critical thinking to nothing at all makes you a gullible idiot. Developing that filter to strike the right balance is a lifelong learning process.

ruswick 13y ago

Agreed. So far, I've seen nothing but specious fear-mongering and nonsensical "what-if" arguments against this thing. I can understand why people doubt the feasibility of drone delivery, especially given the legal impediments to adoption. Frankly, I doubt that this type of service will be practical within four years. What I can't understand is why people openly reject the idea of drones. I don't see how Prime Air is any less safe or efficient than sending thousands of five-ton metal boxes barreling down residential streets. I don't see why a five-pound piece of plastic falling from the sky poses an appreciably greater risk than a branch falling on you. I don't see how people can draw parallels between small, low-altitude consumer drones and military UAVs. The level of fear surrounding this announcement makes no sense. The response to Prime Air goes far beyond skepticism. It's incoherent, fanatical pessimism, and it's really dissapointing.

woofyman 13y ago
Since the payload is 5 pounds, it would have to weigh significantly more.
MWil 13y ago
Law students (most) take a class called Criminal Procedure that heavily covers 4th, 5th, and (to a smaller extent) 6th amendment jurisprudence. I took it in 2011 when drones were really heavy in the news cycle. Our final exam was solely on drones and how their adoption would effect/be effected by 4th amendment considerations. So with all that said, I really really hate the idea of drones. They get places humans cannot. They're expected in places *humans cannot be. These places are protected right now. Just putting drones in operation (especially in the hands of the public) means every single bit of the public up to the point of actually suctioning cup on your window is possibly fair game. Of course, I hope that reasonable regulations are at play but I am pessimistic about it. I think people will want their taco drones and their 30 min Amazon delivery MORE than they want to hear how it might impact their privacy. So it's not safety, it's not "oh no, they're like the military now". It's purely the loss of private airspace that still remains and the potential to abuse it audio/visual wise.
- icambron 13y ago

vladimirralev 13y ago

What if I give you chance to bet on the success of this technology, what terms would be acceptable for you?

DufusM 13y ago

I hope it works too - it seems so cool. But I am not sure this is the big problem in this space. Current delivery time = 1 day for last mile + >1 day for warehouse -> local area This method reduces the last mile delivery time down to 30 mins but it is not clear how the second part would be optimized down. At least, without losing the value proposition of Amazon - giant centralized warehouses instead of local retail outlets.

Turing_Machine 13y ago
It's like the levels of caching in a computer. (just using orders of magnitude for an example, the actual numbers for best efficiency probably aren't quite so nice) The 1000 most frequently ordered items in a warehouse near your neighborhood. The 10000 most frequently ordered items in a city-wide warehouse. The 100,000 most frequently ordered items in a regional warehouse. Amazon already has the regional warehouse part. I'd guess that this might be worth doing even if only the 1,000 most frequently ordered items can get there in 30 minutes, and should definitely be worth doing if you can get the 10,000 most frequently ordered items there in 30 minutes.
- DufusM 13y ago
  Agree, it could totally work for Amazon Fresh items, say, that are bound to be ordered regularly.
- pilsetnieks 13y ago
  Plus they don't have to roll out worldwide simultaneously, they can just do a few select cities at first.
roel_v 13y ago
By having more local warehouses that stock the top x most sold things. 100% of the things I can readily remember that I ordered the last 2 or 3 months are so common that they were all in stock in the local shop that I bought most of them at (a large online retailer here in the Netherlands has 6 or 8 or so shops across the country, for local pick up or to try stuff in-store). And they were not the most common things either - a steam wall paper remover, a router (of the woodworking type, not the networking type), a specific type of headphone. If they can have those levels of stock in high street bricks and mortar shops, they could have even larger inventories when they could store them in fully automated warehouses in cheap industrial areas. The accuracy in stock prediction ('shop stock', not 'financial markets stock', obviously) is jaw-dropping. Man this is going to destroy high street shopping (even further, I might add) - imagine being able to order 10 outfits for trying on from your own home, try them on and send the 9 you don't want back right away, in less time than it would have taken you to just drive to wherever you can buy it off line. If clothing (and other main street) shops are having a hard time now, wait until they have to compete with this...