†http://www.damngeeky.com/2013/10/16/14713/parcel-drone-will-...
Video: http://vimeo.com/76606906
Organising something like this in a controlled area like a campus must be a few orders of magnitude simpler than organising something like this across the US.
it is a fantastic use of technology, I genuinely hope amazon manages to deliver.
Not necessarily. When a new address comes up, a human operator might takes a look at a satellite image of the address and give the drone an appropriate location to land on the property. That data would then be stored. 15 seconds with a human, one time only, is all it would take to make this easy in most neighborhoods.
What about navigating TFRs? Class B airspace? What about failures of the rotors whilst flying over heavily populated areas? Will these things be equipped with TCAS to avoid oncoming traffic? What happens if the path-finding algorithm to get from Amazon's warehouse to your house goes batshit insane and flies it in the approach path to LAX? Who files the flight plan for each of these things?
To quote Steve Yegge, "people will die... if it's YOU... you're going to be really pissed off." [0]
[0] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/have-you-ever-lega...
The shop.
The post office.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rakeshsharma/2013/11/26/growing-...
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/3d-robotics-raises-30-milli...
Granted the ability to deliver directly to homes may face years of legal issues, like self-driving cars. However, there are plenty of problems that can be solved today by current technology, or products that are 12-24 months out, where you don't need FAA approval, like in agriculture.
Most of the technology to do this is in place now. I won't try to argue that the current generation technology is actually cost-effective for drone delivery, but flight control, navigation, collision avoidance, etc., all exist in some form now. A hexacopter has some robustness (it can be designed to still fly with a single motor failure).
Most of the hurdles now are regulatory and economic. I don't know if those can be effectively surmounted, but if anyone can do it, I'm sure Amazon can.
Five years is an _eternity_ in Internet Time.
It's taken us 20 years from Amazon coming online to Internet sales eclipsing retail holiday sales (which I believe is projected for this year.)
I am unclear on why not, exactly? 4-5 years before it appears, with the obvious possibility that it never does for regulatory reasons, technology reasons....
At this point I wouldn't call it vaporware, its not that far along.
It is still a fantasy. A nice fantasy. I loved the idea. but, for now, just a fantasy.
Check back in 4-5 years (or 5-10 years?) when something has actually been delivered to the market, and lets have a glass of whiskey and be amazed at the futuristic technology.