Amazon developing drones to deliver your packages

[Postman Dave]

Amazon, the online retailer, has announced plans to deliver packages to customers’ doorsteps using aerial drones.
The company said it hopes to deploy an armada of flying “octocopters” which will carry products weighing under five pounds to users within 30 minutes of an order being placed.
The system, which will be called “Prime Air,” could be in place within four or five years, it said.
Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos told CBS television’s “60 Minutes” programme: “These are effectively drones, but there’s no reason that they can’t be used as delivery vehicles.
“I know this looks like science fiction. It’s not. It’s very green, it’s better than driving trucks around.

“We can do half-hour delivery and we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds, which covers 86 per cent of the items that we deliver.”
A video posted on the company’s website showed a prototype drone with eight small helicopter rotors and four tall legs.
The drones, powered by an electric motor, will operate autonomously and use a GPS system to locate the homes of customers.
They can cover areas within a 10-mile radius of Amazon distribution centers, which means they would be able to reach a significant portion of urban areas.
America’s Federal Aviation Administration is currently drawing up rules for the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Those rules could be in place as early as 2015, clearing the way for the Amazon project.
Michael Huerta, head of the FAA, has said he expects around 7,500 small unmanned aircraft to be flying in US skies within the next five years.
Mr Bezos maintained the Amazon drones would be safe, adding: “Look, this thing can’t land on somebody’s head while they’re walking around their neighbourhood.”

Telegraph

[video=youtube;98BIu9dpwHU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU[/video]

Okay, that's pretty cool. I'd gladly pay the extra postage for this :

 

[Fuji Vice]

Damn right, I'd seriously pay $500 to have that thing fly me my packages. :

 

[Wang Chung]

I like this although it could cost some jobs and create some too. Thus it would lead to less use of oil and hopefully drive down the price of Oil and give us other possibilities. Think of getting your groceries this way and we start to get refrigerators like in the movie The Sixth Day where we can order them and have them delivered to us as well. What a great concept.

Using the Force on tapatalk

 

[Lover Boy]

That would be absolutely awesome if that happened, i'd love to see it.

 

[Postman Dave]

I like this although it could cost some jobs and create some too. Thus it would lead to less use of oil and hopefully drive down the price of Oil and give us other possibilities. Think of getting your groceries this way and we start to get refrigerators like in the movie The Sixth Day where we can order them and have them delivered to us as well. What a great concept.

Using the Force on tapatalk

Stuff like this and the growth of cloud storage leaves me convinced we'll be in a sci-fi movie-esque world by the time we're old.

Cannot wait to see how they tackle the problem of pikeys blasting them out the sky though :

 

[Hoss]

Duke energy is already being sued because birds fly into their turbines, there's no telling the kind of suits that will be brought against Amazon once dumbass birds start killing themselves with these drones in the skies. Besides that, the idea seems cool. I first heard about it on 60 Minutes and it's looking a lot like this will become a reality before long. I don't personally order from Amazon, but they could win a lot of people's business with the convenience and coolness of this service, no doubt.

 

[Joey]

Holy fuck amazon is genius