It’s a bird – it’s a plane – it’s Amazon Prime Air, the new Amazon drone delivery service that Amazon is touting as being a reality. Supposedly the PrimeAir Amazon drones will deliver an order with 30 minutes of it being placed. We checked the calendar – nope, it’s not April 1st. So we looked into the Amazon Prime Air drone delivery service.
We know, we know…”How could this be real?” you are thinking. After all, the logistics of drones flying through the air with packages would be a nightmare, the Jetsons notwithstanding.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos acknowledges that there are some regulatory hoops through which they will need to jump, but insists that this is a real project, with a planned launch in 2015.
Amazon has been looking at creative ways to boost delivery, such as recently partnering with the post office for Sunday delivery.
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Says Amazon, “One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today,” adding that “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.”
But, says Amazon, they know that some day those regulations will be in place, and when that day comes, they will be ready to roll.
We expect that if this becomes a full reality, that rather than drone delivery to peoples’ houses, the FAA will approve certain drone flight paths to central delivery points, from which people can then pick up their orders, such as the already in service Amazon Lockers.
You can see a demo video of Amazon drone delivery here.
No word on whether if it’s not there in 30 minutes, it’s free.
Frankly, however, we don’t think that this project will get off the ground.
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Can’t see this happening either. I believe that here in the UK there are already regulations about flying radio-controlled model planes too close to buildings or people but I dare say if there’s enough lobbying, rules may change. I’ve thought of all sorts of potential problems – probably too many to list here (like how to avoid landing it on a person, for instance) but for the easily amused, this relevant image may raise a chuckle: http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BaeD3juIMAAF4Ek3.jpg