Amazon is known for its rapid delivery. Amazon Prime (first month is free) means you will get your package in less than 3 days. Now they want to be able to deliver small packages to addresses within a radius of 10 miles from one of their numerous supply depots in a few hours from the time of the order placement. The service will be called Amazon Prime Air.
While they have been testing drones (small mechanical flying machines) since 2013, according to Wikipedia, they are getting closer to using them now. It seems the US has not given Amazon permission to test them, so now Amazon has moved to British Columbia. The location is secret for several reasons. They don't want their competitors to see what they are doing, they don't want people "capturing" the drones, and they don't want any collisions with people, cars, animals. Have you ever seen a drone? Take a few minutes to watch this video.
I wonder if this will ever be safe. However, Amazon points out that there is a segment of air space above buildings and below where commercial airliner traffic is. Seems to me these drones will have to be equipped with collision avoidance technology. What about those little boys that might want to take one home? Looks like a toy to me. Well, if any company can accomplish this it will be Amazon. Online shopping will never be the same again. I wonder how I will return packages that are the wrong color, size or are broken? Will we be calling the drones like we call a taxi now?
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Amazon Now Testing Delivery Drones for Online Shopping
Amazon is known for its rapid delivery. Amazon Prime (first month is free) means you will get your package in less than 3 days. Now they want to be able to deliver small packages to addresses within a radius of 10 miles from one of their numerous supply depots in a few hours from the time of the order placement. The service will be called Amazon Prime Air.
While they have been testing drones (small mechanical flying machines) since 2013, according to Wikipedia, they are getting closer to using them now. It seems the US has not given Amazon permission to test them, so now Amazon has moved to British Columbia. The location is secret for several reasons. They don't want their competitors to see what they are doing, they don't want people "capturing" the drones, and they don't want any collisions with people, cars, animals. Have you ever seen a drone? Take a few minutes to watch this video.
I wonder if this will ever be safe. However, Amazon points out that there is a segment of air space above buildings and below where commercial airliner traffic is. Seems to me these drones will have to be equipped with collision avoidance technology. What about those little boys that might want to take one home? Looks like a toy to me. Well, if any company can accomplish this it will be Amazon. Online shopping will never be the same again. I wonder how I will return packages that are the wrong color, size or are broken? Will we be calling the drones like we call a taxi now?
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