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(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 skep

by 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
      As I remember, this was discussed sometime ago on HN. I dont remember exact link posted on HN but here is techcruch article of a start-up that was discussed on HN http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/australian-startups-zookal-and-flirtey-to-begin-delivering-textbook-orders-by-drone/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/australian-startups-zookal-...
  - MaysonL 13y ago
    Heck, Bruce Sterling had delivery by drones (albeit drone pogo sticks[think regenerative bouncing]) back in the '90s.
  - pavs 13y ago
    You give HN and its small eco-chamber way too much credit.
    - why-el 13y ago
      This. I don't think it's realized how insignificant to the real world our discussions are sometimes (note: sometimes). They are lovely, intellectual, and interesting, but not as important as you go about your day thinking they are.
      - mattlutze 13y ago
        Further, discovery of old discussion of topics is discouraged by the HN user experience. The only way for the OP to know it had been discussed is to have HN always tapped in. Since for most of us this is untenable (I hope most people here have better things during the day than to do than camp the HN trending board) the implication is incredibly exclusionary to most of the potential contributing population.
    - simplemath 13y ago
      >echo
  - mattlutze 13y ago
    Most people don't camp HN and probably won't know how often a topic has been discussed here. And, while "one flight delivery"/lame marketing patents would indeed be dumb, I kinda want to see a grid of drones tossing boxes to each other mid-air like acrobats. I think that would be sweet.
- psbp 13y ago
  Okay, but comments on this post seem to be particularly insufferable. HN is usually filled with poor attempts at being clever; rarely is it ever so completely contradictory and illogical.
Aloha 13y ago
Agreed. If it works or if it doesn't, its something new and very different.
jader201 13y ago
No kidding. I was -- and still am -- blown away when I saw this. I'm definitely rooting for its success. And it's not as if the current carrier methods have zero risk. Who's to say this won't eliminate most/all of those risks, potentially at the expense of adding less new risks?
- sb057 13y ago
  What are you talking about? This delivery method is completely absurd. I mean, who's "bright idea" was it put an entire neighborhood's packages together in a brown truck, then have it travel down roads at 60 miles per hour, often times striking other cars and killing people? And I don't know about you, but I was taught to never put all your eggs in one basket. I mean, there is literally nothing good that can come about from this.
  - mutagen 13y ago
    And then they leave it at my doorstep, sometimes even skipping the doorbell, where my neighbors and members of the public can steal the package at will. It's insane!
esusatyo 13y ago
Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.
- hnriot 13y ago
  Dropbox is for people that can't use rsync+git. For the unix-competent, it's not particularly difficult and we managed for many years with the previous tools, rsync+svn or even rsync+cvs
  - visakanv 13y ago
    so basically everyone except a small niche group
  - 8bitpony 13y ago
    Guess what? There are millions of people that can't use rsync + git.
    - ams6110 13y ago
      And they don't read HN either, for the most part. You're not getting anything like a cross-section of opinion of the population here, on any topic. I'm among those who don't see any need for Dropbox, but readily admit that obviously millions of others do.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      And they're all willing to pay ~$10/month for it to Just Fucking Work. Build things that solve people's problems.
      - bruceboughton 13y ago
        Dropbox is free for the vast majority of people.
      - 13y ago
throwaway092834 13y ago
Human-driven delivery trucks hit and kill dogs, cats, men, women and children every day. On average, 16 people will die in any given day in a truck related crash. One in eight traffic fatalities involves a large cargo truck. Driving vehicles on roads is incredibly dangerous. I don't think it's possible for drones to do a worse job.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  That's not the point being made by the people who say a single killed dog could nix the program, in fact, it's the opposite. The point is that the public responds irrationally to new minute dangers like this. Commenters pointing this out aren't rooting for failure, and they're not making an argument about the danger. They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    > They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb. Yeah, and people were damn scared of electricity when it was first introduced to the masses and many did not want it. Go forward 10, 20 years down the road and it was massively adopted. Of course there are always failure modes, but what's more critical to look at is, what's the benefit of this new technology, and will the benefits outweigh the failure modes? I'd suspect the answer will be a clear yes.
    - viraptor 13y ago
      The first electric installations and equipment were relatively dangerous actually. No good isolation of metal parts, no separate earth wire, metal body, etc. Things like hair driers were often electrocuting people. Even the improvements took a long time to become popular. I remember some electric tools from 80s that were known to zap people from time to time, but "that's just the way they are". So yeah... I suppose that the first people to adopt electricity at their homes actually did have something to worry about.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
hakunin 13y ago
It's interesting to consider that everything carries a death count. I wonder if there are stats on how many deaths pillows caused, and plastic bags, toothbrushes, laptops, light bulbs, etc. Would be helpful to keep new inventions in perspective.
crusso 13y ago
How does skepticism equal rooting for failure?
- mpyne 13y ago
  cynicism is not skepticism. A lot of people seem to get these mixed up nowadays.
  - jthol 13y ago
    How does cynicism equal rooting for failure?
  - Volscio 13y ago
    Cynicism is not very constructive, interesting, or challenging, so rarely does it make for high signal-to-noise ratio in comments, which hackernews was so appealing in the past for.
- visakanv 13y ago
  "the moment it kills a dog" applies to everything, not just a new technology. Horse carriages killed more people than cars, and cars still kill people every day... so I'd say that doesn't count as intelligent skepticism, it's sort of... cherry-picked?
bigtunacan 13y ago
This is not a good idea. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/ http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...
- markdown 13y ago
  This is not a toy helicopter. This is a delivery vehicle equipped with the best collision detection technology Amazon can find, approved by some of the best profit-motivated, liability-averse lawyers in the world.
  - baddox 13y ago
    That wasn't a toy helicopter either.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Correct. In the same way, this isn't a toy rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket1034040.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket1034040.jpg
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    > ...approved by some of the best profit-motivated, liability-averse lawyers in the world. You can be sure that on the other side of the equation, if and when a delivery drone causes damage to property or causes bodily harm or death, some of the best profit-motivated, liability-sniffing lawyers in the world will be eying the bank accounts of Amazon and its insurance carriers. By the way: attorneys don't "approve" anything. They advise clients on risk and can try to help clients mitigate risk to the greatest extent possible based on the courses of action clients pursue. Companies do stupid things that create liabilities, some huge, all the time. The attorneys make just as much (if not more) cleaning up messes as they do trying to prevent them.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Amazon however, is not particularly profit motivated...
RodericDay 13y ago
Fast consumer good delivery is pretty far from what I consider the best science fiction can offer.
- cliffbean 13y ago
  The best new technology in science fiction might be warp drive. However, that's currently thought to be physically impossible. Fast consumer delivery is merely impractical. It's so impractical, that we often think of it as impossible. But this is where science fiction is at its best: if we think about how cool it would be if this actually worked, we may find it easier to justify the kinds of investment needed to make it practical.
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    What about Energy? Loads and loads of it without harming the environment? I thought THAT would be pretty cool sci-fi tech
irtefa 13y ago
A lot of companies were talking about using drones for this kind of work. It's Amazon who is taking the risk to actually execute it publicly. Even if they fail, others will learn from it. Kudos to them for giving it a shot!
baddox 13y ago
It's a good decision to try to stay on the right side of history. I wonder how many people were certain that it would be ludicrous and impossible to roll people around at 70 mph on smooth paths or thrust people through the air at hundreds of miles per hour.
prezjordan 13y ago
"90% of the time they're right"
chongli 13y ago
What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? I don't think everyone that expresses skepticism is rooting for failure. I think there's a very strong feeling of cynicism about the bureaucratic, anti-intellectual, regressive culture of the established corporatocracy.
- bjt 13y ago
  Corporatocray is a weird word to use in this context. Amazon is a corporation wanting progressive regulation here, not resisting it. The fact that the FAA is in charge of the regulations gives me reason for optimism. Having a consistent policy across the US will be a lot simpler than if each state, or worse, each municipality, were creating its own regulations.
  - chongli 13y ago
    Amazon is practically a startup compared to the existing, entrenched corporatocracy. They aren't old enough to have established the revolving door between their board room and the white house/congress/3-letter regulatory agencies.
yew 13y ago
Skepticism and rooting for failure are not the same thing. There are plenty of people here and elsewhere who are mindlessly critical of everything, but not all the critics fall into that category. The greatest challenge for radically transformative technologies (and this would extend far beyond the scope of Amazon if ever implemented) is almost always being regulated out of existence. That response requires the least effort and the least shared motivation, and it's the one usually taken when a new technology inspires many diverse fears. Comparing this situation with that of almost any purely Internet-oriented technology isn't likely to lead to an accurate prediction. The downsides of existing delivery methods are likewise unlikely to play a part in the final decision. Pending revelations regarding Amazon's interest in political involvement, skepticism seems warranted. The impact of (well-justified) skepticism on the mindset of innovators also seems desirable. Speaking for myself, I'll grant that the FAA has a slightly better than average track record (when making executive decisions, anyway).
shitlord 13y ago
If anyone can pull it off, it's probably Amazon.
- danhoc01 13y ago
  I almost wish a smaller entity would have become the first major player in drone delivery. This is going to draw a lot of attention from regulators, and I can't help but think they will want nothing more than to stop or slow Amazon from further disruption in the retail space.
  - shitlord 13y ago
    > I almost wish a smaller entity would have become the first major player in drone delivery I think there was one. I remember reading about somebody doing this last summer on HN. > This is going to draw a lot of attention from regulators You betcha > and I can't help but think they will want nothing more than to stop or slow Amazon from further disruption in the retail space. And that's where I have to disagree. Average people go to large retailers because they are cheap. My mom works in retail and she manages to buy unbelievably cheap clothes after stacking several discounts - something the average person just can't (or won't) do on Amazon. And that makes a huge difference. The prices and the experience offered by some retailers is unmatched. Don't get me wrong, Amazon works great if you're buying electronics or books. But I'd never buy clothes, furniture, or toiletries online because the experience is awful and it's usually cheaper to go out and buy what I need IRL. It's not regulators that are stopping Amazon from disrupting retail; it's Amazon.
underwater 13y ago
My skepticism is based around the fact that the video and information seem like a cheap trick to gain PR. The technology is interesting and has a bunch of really tough problems that need solving. Amazon haven't even begun to acknowledged any of the issues, let alone begin to solve them. Instead they built a shiny video of a fake product to cash in on the enthusiasm for drones.
- ZachPruckowski 13y ago
  No, they built a shiny video and got it aired on a news program so they could get free media in December when people are buying Christmas presents. They also put the idea out there early so that (a) competitors will be seen as imitators and (b) it's easier to pressure the FAA if the regulations aren't what they want. Given the target audience I wouldn't expect an in-depth coverage of how they're solving specific implementation problems. If you even get that info in the pre-launch coverage, it'll be in a totally different venue and much closer to release. Even if they've solved all the issues, they don't want to give out potentially trade secret info to competitors 18 months before launch and it'd go over the 60 Minutes' audiences' heads - while they're a smart crowd, they're not necessarily up on AI programming or robotics or whatever.
bootily 13y ago
It's not exciting. Ship or shut up.
meritt 13y ago
Kills a dog!? I don't know what sort of half-ass dogs these people have but I'd be vastly more worried about my dog fucking up one of these drones and being held responsible for replacement costs.
- qwertz123 13y ago
  My dog would definitely try to take it out but it's the same as with cats: I would be more worried about the old guy losing an eye than hurting the cat. Those rotor blades look pretty dangerous to me.
  - skriticos2 13y ago
    I think the original author wanted to imply, that a more productive discussion would occur if we'd think of how to fix these issues. Like put a protective cover at the rim and a grid at the intake so air can flow, but hands, eyes and paws are safe?
  - VMG 13y ago
    Stop worrying.
  - mpclark 13y ago
    The rotors can be made safe enough. It is more a question of the damage it can do by falling out of the air or causing some other accident.
    - trothoun 13y ago
      Maybe they could do something like the Spirit and Opportunity rover's balloon mechanism to make it safer in case of accident. It would still be heavy, but it wouldn't be hard and it would have much greater air resistance so it would fall slower. Or maybe they could have helium canisters that inflate a balloon big enough to offset a portion of their weight. It'll probably be difficult but it seems like there are a lot of possibilities to explore.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
chm 13y ago
I'm not too enjoyed by the thought of privately owned drone fleets, for different reasons, some related to privacy and liberty. Keep in mind that not every reader leaves a comment.
michaelt 13y ago
Textbook drone delivery: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-delivery-by-drone-service-in-sydney/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-d... Cake drone delivery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10206212/Pie-in-the-sky-Chinese-authorities-shoot-down-worlds-first-cake-drones.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1020621... Pizza drone delivery: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-remote-controlled-drone-150259 http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-r... Parcel delivery drones: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-china-deliver-packages-even-a-birthday-cake/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-chin... Beer delivery drones: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/are-beer-drones-the-future-of-music-festivals-a-qa-with-darkwing http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/... Taco delivery drones: http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/ Sushi delivery drones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKXO1rr7g http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKX... General delivery drones: http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-networking-enthusiasts-dream-building-drone-powered-internet-carry-objects http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-... I guess what I'm saying is this has the feeling of a PR stunt.
- greyshi 13y ago
  Those companies are very different from Amazon.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    Sure, but I'm into politics, so I've learned to judge by results rather than claims and reputation. And there isn't a drone on my doorstep yet.
    - rev087 13y ago
      If there ever will be one, someone needs to announce it first. And if the timing is commercially interesting for Amazon, that just reflect the fact that Amazon is a company with financial intereste, just like any other company.
lowglow 13y ago
Amazon Prime Air was predicted months ago by Zac Morris: http://www.techendo.co/posts/amazon-air-predicted-by-zac-morris-of-techendo http://www.techendo.co/posts/amazon-air-predicted-by-zac-mor...
fab13n 13y ago
> "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for" As soon as it kills a dog, you'll have to put certified accelerometer-triggered parachutes on them, and that's it. When accepting a risk improves logistics dramatically, we get used to that risk: just look at the death toll (and city-planning horrors) we gladly accept in exchange for pervasive car usage. I think this will end up as important as the invention of the lorry for deliveries, and Amazon makes sure it'll master this technology before it even comes on its competitors' radars.
- awj 13y ago
  > As soon as it kills a dog, you'll have to put certified accelerometer-triggered parachutes on them, and that's it. I can't imagine them not having some kind of safety system to respond to in-air failures. The potential liability is an obvious concern, but protecting the drone itself is probably enough to make it worthwhile.
3838 13y ago
there was a show on tv in the UK about working conditions at their distribution centres which was really damning - a psychologist saying they'd combined all the worst practices with that in mind, i'd say automating more of the order picking process would be better PR - seems like this might damage books but pc component suppliers for instance sometimes have totally automated picking, so may be possible to automate for more robust items
goldvine 13y ago
Agreed - people will always find holes to poke for no reason. They aren't the ones innovating. It's easier to judge others than to put yourself out on a limb...
orblivion 13y ago
I hope they're at least as skeptical of Virgin Galactic or the Hyperloop if they're honest. Yes it's far fetched but cool things do sometimes happen.
404error 13y ago
Ugh, don't read to much into the comments here. HN is full of whiners... or maybe I'm just getting old and the young crowd seems to whine a lot.

by jmduke 13y ago

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
    As I remember, this was discussed sometime ago on HN. I dont remember exact link posted on HN but here is techcruch article of a start-up that was discussed on HN http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/australian-startups-zookal-and-flirtey-to-begin-delivering-textbook-orders-by-drone/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/australian-startups-zookal-...
- MaysonL 13y ago
  Heck, Bruce Sterling had delivery by drones (albeit drone pogo sticks[think regenerative bouncing]) back in the '90s.
- pavs 13y ago
  You give HN and its small eco-chamber way too much credit.
  - why-el 13y ago
    This. I don't think it's realized how insignificant to the real world our discussions are sometimes (note: sometimes). They are lovely, intellectual, and interesting, but not as important as you go about your day thinking they are.
    - mattlutze 13y ago
      Further, discovery of old discussion of topics is discouraged by the HN user experience. The only way for the OP to know it had been discussed is to have HN always tapped in. Since for most of us this is untenable (I hope most people here have better things during the day than to do than camp the HN trending board) the implication is incredibly exclusionary to most of the potential contributing population.
  - simplemath 13y ago
    >echo
- mattlutze 13y ago
  Most people don't camp HN and probably won't know how often a topic has been discussed here. And, while "one flight delivery"/lame marketing patents would indeed be dumb, I kinda want to see a grid of drones tossing boxes to each other mid-air like acrobats. I think that would be sweet.
psbp 13y ago
Okay, but comments on this post seem to be particularly insufferable. HN is usually filled with poor attempts at being clever; rarely is it ever so completely contradictory and illogical.

Aloha 13y ago

Agreed. If it works or if it doesn't, its something new and very different.

jader201 13y ago

No kidding. I was -- and still am -- blown away when I saw this. I'm definitely rooting for its success. And it's not as if the current carrier methods have zero risk. Who's to say this won't eliminate most/all of those risks, potentially at the expense of adding less new risks?

sb057 13y ago
What are you talking about? This delivery method is completely absurd. I mean, who's "bright idea" was it put an entire neighborhood's packages together in a brown truck, then have it travel down roads at 60 miles per hour, often times striking other cars and killing people? And I don't know about you, but I was taught to never put all your eggs in one basket. I mean, there is literally nothing good that can come about from this.
- mutagen 13y ago
  And then they leave it at my doorstep, sometimes even skipping the doorbell, where my neighbors and members of the public can steal the package at will. It's insane!

esusatyo 13y ago

Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.

hnriot 13y ago
Dropbox is for people that can't use rsync+git. For the unix-competent, it's not particularly difficult and we managed for many years with the previous tools, rsync+svn or even rsync+cvs
- visakanv 13y ago
  so basically everyone except a small niche group
- 8bitpony 13y ago
  Guess what? There are millions of people that can't use rsync + git.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    And they don't read HN either, for the most part. You're not getting anything like a cross-section of opinion of the population here, on any topic. I'm among those who don't see any need for Dropbox, but readily admit that obviously millions of others do.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    And they're all willing to pay ~$10/month for it to Just Fucking Work. Build things that solve people's problems.
    - bruceboughton 13y ago
      Dropbox is free for the vast majority of people.
    - 13y ago

throwaway092834 13y ago

Human-driven delivery trucks hit and kill dogs, cats, men, women and children every day. On average, 16 people will die in any given day in a truck related crash. One in eight traffic fatalities involves a large cargo truck. Driving vehicles on roads is incredibly dangerous. I don't think it's possible for drones to do a worse job.

jessriedel 13y ago
That's not the point being made by the people who say a single killed dog could nix the program, in fact, it's the opposite. The point is that the public responds irrationally to new minute dangers like this. Commenters pointing this out aren't rooting for failure, and they're not making an argument about the danger. They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb. Yeah, and people were damn scared of electricity when it was first introduced to the masses and many did not want it. Go forward 10, 20 years down the road and it was massively adopted. Of course there are always failure modes, but what's more critical to look at is, what's the benefit of this new technology, and will the benefits outweigh the failure modes? I'd suspect the answer will be a clear yes.
  - viraptor 13y ago
    The first electric installations and equipment were relatively dangerous actually. No good isolation of metal parts, no separate earth wire, metal body, etc. Things like hair driers were often electrocuting people. Even the improvements took a long time to become popular. I remember some electric tools from 80s that were known to zap people from time to time, but "that's just the way they are". So yeah... I suppose that the first people to adopt electricity at their homes actually did have something to worry about.
  - jessriedel 13y ago

hakunin 13y ago

It's interesting to consider that everything carries a death count. I wonder if there are stats on how many deaths pillows caused, and plastic bags, toothbrushes, laptops, light bulbs, etc. Would be helpful to keep new inventions in perspective.

crusso 13y ago

How does skepticism equal rooting for failure?

mpyne 13y ago
cynicism is not skepticism. A lot of people seem to get these mixed up nowadays.
- jthol 13y ago
  How does cynicism equal rooting for failure?
- Volscio 13y ago
  Cynicism is not very constructive, interesting, or challenging, so rarely does it make for high signal-to-noise ratio in comments, which hackernews was so appealing in the past for.
visakanv 13y ago
"the moment it kills a dog" applies to everything, not just a new technology. Horse carriages killed more people than cars, and cars still kill people every day... so I'd say that doesn't count as intelligent skepticism, it's sort of... cherry-picked?

bigtunacan 13y ago

This is not a good idea. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/ http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...

markdown 13y ago
This is not a toy helicopter. This is a delivery vehicle equipped with the best collision detection technology Amazon can find, approved by some of the best profit-motivated, liability-averse lawyers in the world.
- baddox 13y ago
  That wasn't a toy helicopter either.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Correct. In the same way, this isn't a toy rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket1034040.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rocket1034040.jpg
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  > ...approved by some of the best profit-motivated, liability-averse lawyers in the world. You can be sure that on the other side of the equation, if and when a delivery drone causes damage to property or causes bodily harm or death, some of the best profit-motivated, liability-sniffing lawyers in the world will be eying the bank accounts of Amazon and its insurance carriers. By the way: attorneys don't "approve" anything. They advise clients on risk and can try to help clients mitigate risk to the greatest extent possible based on the courses of action clients pursue. Companies do stupid things that create liabilities, some huge, all the time. The attorneys make just as much (if not more) cleaning up messes as they do trying to prevent them.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Amazon however, is not particularly profit motivated...

RodericDay 13y ago

Fast consumer good delivery is pretty far from what I consider the best science fiction can offer.

cliffbean 13y ago
The best new technology in science fiction might be warp drive. However, that's currently thought to be physically impossible. Fast consumer delivery is merely impractical. It's so impractical, that we often think of it as impossible. But this is where science fiction is at its best: if we think about how cool it would be if this actually worked, we may find it easier to justify the kinds of investment needed to make it practical.
- xerophtye 13y ago
  What about Energy? Loads and loads of it without harming the environment? I thought THAT would be pretty cool sci-fi tech

irtefa 13y ago

A lot of companies were talking about using drones for this kind of work. It's Amazon who is taking the risk to actually execute it publicly. Even if they fail, others will learn from it. Kudos to them for giving it a shot!

baddox 13y ago

It's a good decision to try to stay on the right side of history. I wonder how many people were certain that it would be ludicrous and impossible to roll people around at 70 mph on smooth paths or thrust people through the air at hundreds of miles per hour.

prezjordan 13y ago

"90% of the time they're right"

chongli 13y ago

What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake? I don't think everyone that expresses skepticism is rooting for failure. I think there's a very strong feeling of cynicism about the bureaucratic, anti-intellectual, regressive culture of the established corporatocracy.

bjt 13y ago
Corporatocray is a weird word to use in this context. Amazon is a corporation wanting progressive regulation here, not resisting it. The fact that the FAA is in charge of the regulations gives me reason for optimism. Having a consistent policy across the US will be a lot simpler than if each state, or worse, each municipality, were creating its own regulations.
- chongli 13y ago
  Amazon is practically a startup compared to the existing, entrenched corporatocracy. They aren't old enough to have established the revolving door between their board room and the white house/congress/3-letter regulatory agencies.

yew 13y ago

Skepticism and rooting for failure are not the same thing. There are plenty of people here and elsewhere who are mindlessly critical of everything, but not all the critics fall into that category. The greatest challenge for radically transformative technologies (and this would extend far beyond the scope of Amazon if ever implemented) is almost always being regulated out of existence. That response requires the least effort and the least shared motivation, and it's the one usually taken when a new technology inspires many diverse fears. Comparing this situation with that of almost any purely Internet-oriented technology isn't likely to lead to an accurate prediction. The downsides of existing delivery methods are likewise unlikely to play a part in the final decision. Pending revelations regarding Amazon's interest in political involvement, skepticism seems warranted. The impact of (well-justified) skepticism on the mindset of innovators also seems desirable. Speaking for myself, I'll grant that the FAA has a slightly better than average track record (when making executive decisions, anyway).

shitlord 13y ago

If anyone can pull it off, it's probably Amazon.

danhoc01 13y ago
I almost wish a smaller entity would have become the first major player in drone delivery. This is going to draw a lot of attention from regulators, and I can't help but think they will want nothing more than to stop or slow Amazon from further disruption in the retail space.
- shitlord 13y ago
  > I almost wish a smaller entity would have become the first major player in drone delivery I think there was one. I remember reading about somebody doing this last summer on HN. > This is going to draw a lot of attention from regulators You betcha > and I can't help but think they will want nothing more than to stop or slow Amazon from further disruption in the retail space. And that's where I have to disagree. Average people go to large retailers because they are cheap. My mom works in retail and she manages to buy unbelievably cheap clothes after stacking several discounts - something the average person just can't (or won't) do on Amazon. And that makes a huge difference. The prices and the experience offered by some retailers is unmatched. Don't get me wrong, Amazon works great if you're buying electronics or books. But I'd never buy clothes, furniture, or toiletries online because the experience is awful and it's usually cheaper to go out and buy what I need IRL. It's not regulators that are stopping Amazon from disrupting retail; it's Amazon.

underwater 13y ago

My skepticism is based around the fact that the video and information seem like a cheap trick to gain PR. The technology is interesting and has a bunch of really tough problems that need solving. Amazon haven't even begun to acknowledged any of the issues, let alone begin to solve them. Instead they built a shiny video of a fake product to cash in on the enthusiasm for drones.

ZachPruckowski 13y ago
No, they built a shiny video and got it aired on a news program so they could get free media in December when people are buying Christmas presents. They also put the idea out there early so that (a) competitors will be seen as imitators and (b) it's easier to pressure the FAA if the regulations aren't what they want. Given the target audience I wouldn't expect an in-depth coverage of how they're solving specific implementation problems. If you even get that info in the pre-launch coverage, it'll be in a totally different venue and much closer to release. Even if they've solved all the issues, they don't want to give out potentially trade secret info to competitors 18 months before launch and it'd go over the 60 Minutes' audiences' heads - while they're a smart crowd, they're not necessarily up on AI programming or robotics or whatever.

bootily 13y ago

It's not exciting. Ship or shut up.

meritt 13y ago

Kills a dog!? I don't know what sort of half-ass dogs these people have but I'd be vastly more worried about my dog fucking up one of these drones and being held responsible for replacement costs.

qwertz123 13y ago
My dog would definitely try to take it out but it's the same as with cats: I would be more worried about the old guy losing an eye than hurting the cat. Those rotor blades look pretty dangerous to me.
- skriticos2 13y ago
  I think the original author wanted to imply, that a more productive discussion would occur if we'd think of how to fix these issues. Like put a protective cover at the rim and a grid at the intake so air can flow, but hands, eyes and paws are safe?
- VMG 13y ago
  Stop worrying.
- mpclark 13y ago
  The rotors can be made safe enough. It is more a question of the damage it can do by falling out of the air or causing some other accident.
  - trothoun 13y ago
    Maybe they could do something like the Spirit and Opportunity rover's balloon mechanism to make it safer in case of accident. It would still be heavy, but it wouldn't be hard and it would have much greater air resistance so it would fall slower. Or maybe they could have helium canisters that inflate a balloon big enough to offset a portion of their weight. It'll probably be difficult but it seems like there are a lot of possibilities to explore.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

chm 13y ago

I'm not too enjoyed by the thought of privately owned drone fleets, for different reasons, some related to privacy and liberty. Keep in mind that not every reader leaves a comment.

michaelt 13y ago

Textbook drone delivery: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-delivery-by-drone-service-in-sydney/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-d... Cake drone delivery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10206212/Pie-in-the-sky-Chinese-authorities-shoot-down-worlds-first-cake-drones.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1020621... Pizza drone delivery: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-remote-controlled-drone-150259 http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-r... Parcel delivery drones: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-china-deliver-packages-even-a-birthday-cake/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-chin... Beer delivery drones: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/are-beer-drones-the-future-of-music-festivals-a-qa-with-darkwing http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/... Taco delivery drones: http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/ Sushi delivery drones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKXO1rr7g http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKX... General delivery drones: http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-networking-enthusiasts-dream-building-drone-powered-internet-carry-objects http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-... I guess what I'm saying is this has the feeling of a PR stunt.

greyshi 13y ago
Those companies are very different from Amazon.
- michaelt 13y ago
  Sure, but I'm into politics, so I've learned to judge by results rather than claims and reputation. And there isn't a drone on my doorstep yet.
  - rev087 13y ago
    If there ever will be one, someone needs to announce it first. And if the timing is commercially interesting for Amazon, that just reflect the fact that Amazon is a company with financial intereste, just like any other company.

lowglow 13y ago

Amazon Prime Air was predicted months ago by Zac Morris: http://www.techendo.co/posts/amazon-air-predicted-by-zac-morris-of-techendo http://www.techendo.co/posts/amazon-air-predicted-by-zac-mor...

fab13n 13y ago

> "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for" As soon as it kills a dog, you'll have to put certified accelerometer-triggered parachutes on them, and that's it. When accepting a risk improves logistics dramatically, we get used to that risk: just look at the death toll (and city-planning horrors) we gladly accept in exchange for pervasive car usage. I think this will end up as important as the invention of the lorry for deliveries, and Amazon makes sure it'll master this technology before it even comes on its competitors' radars.

awj 13y ago
> As soon as it kills a dog, you'll have to put certified accelerometer-triggered parachutes on them, and that's it. I can't imagine them not having some kind of safety system to respond to in-air failures. The potential liability is an obvious concern, but protecting the drone itself is probably enough to make it worthwhile.

3838 13y ago

there was a show on tv in the UK about working conditions at their distribution centres which was really damning - a psychologist saying they'd combined all the worst practices with that in mind, i'd say automating more of the order picking process would be better PR - seems like this might damage books but pc component suppliers for instance sometimes have totally automated picking, so may be possible to automate for more robust items

goldvine 13y ago

Agreed - people will always find holes to poke for no reason. They aren't the ones innovating. It's easier to judge others than to put yourself out on a limb...

orblivion 13y ago

I hope they're at least as skeptical of Virgin Galactic or the Hyperloop if they're honest. Yes it's far fetched but cool things do sometimes happen.

404error 13y ago

Ugh, don't read to much into the comments here. HN is full of whiners... or maybe I'm just getting old and the young crowd seems to whine a lot.