Online retail juggernaut Amazon has revealed Prime Air, a new delivery system designed to get packages to customers within “30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.”
While the retailer concedes the project looks like science fiction it insists that, “[f]rom a technology point of view, we’ll be ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently determining the rules that will need to be in place in order for aerial drones to share United States skies with traditional aircraft. Amazon hopes the FAA rules will be set as early as some point in 2015 and promises that it will be ready at this time.
The retailer says that its vehicles “will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards” and that, at some point, seeing Prime Air vehicles in the sky “will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today.”
You can check the Prime Air system below.
This seems awesome, but I can't see it being pulled off. Sounds like an April fools joke type of thing.
jsence2 wrote:It's real. They had a segment on 60 minutes about it.
I don't see it happening, though. Just too many things could go wrong, and imagine if one of these things gets sucked into a jet engine.
Yooooooo! Wowza! Yeah crashing down on cars, houses kids, pedestrians, whatever. And i work around commercial jets, shit would be nuts if thousands of these things were flying around homes near airports.
2015 was the earliest it could happen due to FAA laws.
Bezos said 2015 unlikely or an optimistic goal or something along those lines
some form of it will probably happen at some point, but to me it was as much about marketing the day before cyber monday as it was truly unveiling this.
As this is my career field I have been following this since 2006. The initial date for unmanned aircraft's in national airspace was 2014. It was pushed to 2015, but that will not happen anytime soon. I have worked for a guy that is now leading the way for unmanned planes in national airspace and the initial thought is to allow unmanned planes in national airspace in 2015 but it will most likely to be used by the forestry department to get early warnings on fires, INS/DEA for border patrol. I honestly do not see unmanned planes in any other capacity for at least another 10 years, if you want my opinion on it.
GeorgesGoons wrote:I honestly do not see unmanned planes in any other capacity for at least another 10 years, if you want my opinion on it.
Especially if you keep crashing them like the military does with George at the helm
Too soon?!?
I have my interview for the investigation in 40 minutes so hopefully I will know if I am getting fired/demoted by the end of the week. If I get demoted I can retire in August, kind of a win win situation at this point.
I think it said there would be a 5lb limit. My guess it would also be limited to choice locations.
I said the same thing when a kid asked if I had seen it. I told him I'd be looking for them to shoot them down. Make sure you where a mask though, have to have a camera on the thing.
it would be a federal offense, like stealing someones mail. ups leaves packages on peoples doorsteps and most of those dont get stolen, you wouldnt order anything with this unless you live in a better area or are going to be home when it arives. you think they wouldnt think about that shit lol?
so you say that stealing is a federal offense, then you say how UPS does this, then you say how itd be done in nice areas, implying that in bad areas peoples shit would get stolen. .. i dont get what youre trying to say?
nick wrote:so you say that stealing is a federal offense, then you say how UPS does this, then you say how itd be done in nice areas, implying that in bad areas peoples shit would get stolen. .. i dont get what youre trying to say?
I would imagine early on that the shipping costs would be too high for those in poorer neighborhoods to afford. Obviously in bad/poor neighborhoods these things would be more likely to be stolen. Regardless, if your stuff gets stolen along with the drone, you are not liable to pay for it (per MasterCard anyways). That's how it is with any shipping method that doesn't require a signature.
That's something I hadn't thought of initially, the shipping costs will probably be outrageous. But we know we're all going to order 1 thing, then go sit on our front porches the day this thing comes out. I know I will.
shel311 wrote:That's something I hadn't thought of initially, the shipping costs will probably be outrageous. But we know we're all going to order 1 thing, then go sit on our front porches the day this thing comes out. I know I will.
I will laugh at the required attention to detail in navigating the evergreens and power lines in my neighborhood...
shel311 wrote:That's something I hadn't thought of initially, the shipping costs will probably be outrageous. But we know we're all going to order 1 thing, then go sit on our front porches the day this thing comes out. I know I will.
I will laugh at the required attention to detail in navigating the evergreens and power lines in my neighborhood...
