Cake drone delivery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1020621...

Pizza drone delivery: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-r...

Parcel delivery drones: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-chin...

Beer delivery drones: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1561256/...

Taco delivery drones: http://tacocopter.com/

Sushi delivery drones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9RKX...

General delivery drones: http://matternet.us/our-vision/ http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-...

I guess what I'm saying is this has the feeling of a PR stunt.

The lesson to learn here, folks, is that this is one of those themes that just keeps on giving. Any time you need some quick publicity, reach for a drone...

In fact, given that they were working on it, one would expect them to announce it when it would give the most positive buzz possible.

The main considerations will be:

- Set routes/paths the drones must follow, taking I to account altitudes that minimise traffic with other things high up (buildings, aircraft, UFOs) - emergency procedures and a risk assessment for each foreseeable eventuality (not that hard considering the lack of other traffic 'up there') - limits on the amount of drones in the air within constrained geographic localities.

It is likely that this could all be agreed for a single trial city well before 2015 rolls around. This isn't rocket science...

So, that's the regulatory challenge. Need to sense and avoid obstacles and other aircraft, and do a good enough job of it that aviation authorities will sign off on it.

(In addition to the regulatory challenge, there may also be business, operational and engineering challenges.)

[1] http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1416&pageid=8153 [2] http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1995&pageid=11213 [3] http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1995&pageid=11186

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1144377 (page 5+ is most interesting)

These are injuries caused by helicopters, drones, quadcopters etc. I don't want that shit floating around me. They are seriously dangerous bits of kit. Yes I know the "versus cars" argument but cars don't intentionally fall out of the sky on you and have roads to go on.

When regs do come out they will most likely have to stay over roads and can't just cut through someones yard.

When it fails an air bladder will inflate minimizing the speed and force that it lands. Like, http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works/

Motors will have a lockout that stops it from spinning when it comes into contact with flesh. http://www.sawstop.com

This technology is way more than 2 years off. The FAA isn't just going to print out a pamphlet and say everything is OK. Machines are dangerous and nothing I see in any of the latest tech even comes close to the reliability or safety that will be necessary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eQpUgHkBcg

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1431911/airbus-cras...

The list goes on...

And there isn't a drone on my doorstep yet.

Warehouses->Jets->Drones

with barely any people in the entire process to slow things down and make it expensive.

You must be new to Hacker News…

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".

I'm certain drone delivery has been discussed by many countless people, most of whom the acronym HN means nothing to.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/australian-startups-zookal-...

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.

HN is usually filled with poor attempts at being clever; rarely is it ever so completely contradictory and illogical.

The way I look at it, I've got limited time. I can spend it fucking around duplicating infrastructure, or I can spend it on something that matters more to me.

I'm among those who don't see any need for Dropbox, but readily admit that obviously millions of others do.

They do not do what dropbox does.

That post is always trotted out (particularly on HN) as an example of how normal "nerds" are so disconnected from the general public, but what it ignores is that not everyone cares about what the general public will buy. Not everyone is a startup founder looking to sell gadgets to Average Joe. Some of us are just looking from the perspective of our own lives, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Guess what: for CmdrTaco, and probably for many on Slashdot, the iPod was a crappy player. Deal with it.

> some people were relying on him to have an informed opinion

hahahaha.... Seriously though, his job was to stoke pageviews, not be correct. Slashdot didn't get big because Rob was a prophetic genius or a talented reporter.

First top level comment is positive, 2nd says we don't need it, following are again more positive comments.

99% of the thread are positive, most negative comments are regarding presentation.

What most people don't notice is that many votes don't necesarily mean "everybody agrees with him/her". Many times I have upvoted comments with which I didn't agree but I thought were well reasoned and had validity because I think those comments improve the conversation.

On the other hand, I could agree with comments stating "Great work guys!" but I wouldn't vote them as they offer little to no substance.

I really enjoy reading Hacker News from time to time. It really reminds me how far removed we are from the actual customers.

seriously. Sure, the mob uses it, but they also use facebook, skype and whatsapp ... and soon they get their christmal gifts delivered by santa's little drones

I am worried about the 16-year old holding a mobile phone or an old lady throwing out the garbage.

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?

Driving vehicles on roads is incredibly dangerous. I don't think it's possible for drones to do a worse job.

And gasoline-powered vehicles of all sorts catch on fire all the time in collisions, yet one or two of Tesla's catch on fire and all hell breaks loose. Our mass media has an extremely regressive, anti-intellectual, pro-status quo bent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias

Gasoline cars do not "catch on fire all the time in collisions". Not remotely.

It's unlikely the Teslas do, either. But Tesla's vehicles are both relatively novel, and real-world-untested and hence are both a news story and deserved of scrutiny.

Just like these drones.

It would seem like many on HN has a very extremely regressive, anti-intellectual, pro-status quo bent as well. See old threads about Dropbox and the comments on this story about Prime Air. It seems like a large number of commentaries here are just looking for every excuse to complain or find fault, yet those same folks would think Bitcoin was the cat's meow, despite a myriad of potential issues with that.

I think the dynamic is a bit different for Amazon. The so-called risk wouldn't even potentially be borne by the user, which is much different from the Tesla case.

Cars are OK despite being the most insanely dangerous things on the planet because we grew up with them. American Football is OK despite the ludicrous amount of fatalities and injuries.

Hell, if one of these drones just damages a house plant I'm sure the lawyers will be climbing over each other to take the case.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Keep in mind that not every reader leaves a comment.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's easier to judge others than to put yourself out on a limb...

http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/1-killed-after-bus-deli...

That's just a story I found after 10 seconds of Googling. The broader point is that having your packages delivered fast-moving multiton machines controlled by fallible people and sharing space with pedestrians and other people-controlled machines is a very dangerous state of affairs. That there are risks in alternative means is true enough, but it's important to measure those risks relative to the status quo and not just assume they're purely additive.

But because we're human, we're bad at that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias

Until someone does some real quantitative risk studies; the risk is uncertain in comparison. It will only take one child seriously injured from one of these copters though for Amazon to be slapped with a major lawsuit; worse than the lawsuit though will be the public backlash from angry and indignant customers should something like this happen.

To be more nuanced about it, there's a big difference between this being a good or bad idea for humanity and this being an optimal or suboptimal move for Amazon. That there might be lawsuits and backlash even if it actually reduces the number of accidents might make it a poor play by Amazon, but it doesn't make it a bad idea in some ethical sense. For example, perhaps you're saying that even though it might save lives and improve efficiency, the current regulatory framework and public disposition make this kind of advance impossible (compare to cars hitting the streets in a different era). So there's a sort of normative versus positive question here. Perhaps you're talking about the latter, which is fine (and of course debatable), but I'm interested in the former. Especially so because the normative stuff is an input to tech policy debates and the positive stuff is its output, so you inform the debate by figuring out what the end result you want is.

But maybe you're not saying that; maybe you're saying "well, we don't know how risky drones are and maybe, safety-wise, it's a big step backwards" and the part about lawsuits and stuff was sort of a separate point. That's true enough. The reason I gave the Fed-Ex crash example was just to point out that it does not follow from an RC helicopter accident in Queens that drone deliveries are a bad idea. But it's true that the relative safety of cars and drones is unknown (and, as you can tell, I have a guess about it). Now the issue is that you need some way to find out. Or resign to never advancing at all. Human studies of new medicines encounter this problem too, yet few people are saying, "I don't want any medicinal advancements."

The reality is that if you want to improve society, you're going to have to take some risks with some unknowns. Perhaps you try it in some select cities in some limited fashion and build from there. (Think it's unethical to experiment on humans? What about the hundred-year, totally uncontrolled experiment we've been conducting using automobiles? I certainly didn't sign up for it. The status quo is not a special case.) Look at it like this: what does the world look like in three hundred years? I'd like to think it looks like something from Star Trek. So what, schematically, are the steps to get from here to there? How do you draw a line from 2013 to 2313? Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve "we don't have flying robots, so we don't know if they're dangerous, so no flying robots."

The prototype in the Amazon video is an 8-rotor helicopter with little 4 to 6 inch wingspans. Anything that goes to production will have to pass FAA approval, so they will probably end up with some sort of hoop guard at the least.

Negativity for the sake of negativity?

I have built and fly hobby planes and copters in my spare time. They are dangerous. Once, after one of my planes crashed near me, I picked it up without giving it a second thought and sliced my hand wide open on the still spinning front propeller.

I don't necessarily believe this is a technology that will result in fatalities, but certainly injuries, especially to children and animals.

On a less dangerous note; I fully expect some shenanigans from people shooting these things down to get free goods.

We could build UPS trucks that are two lanes wide and paint over their windshields, but we don't. Because that would be stupid. So stupid that comparing the risk involved isn't even worthy of discussion.

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.

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.