First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and 60 Minutes

Re:First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and... by ansible on Monday December 02, 2013 @04:05PM (#6836517)

At this point I wouldn't call it vaporware, its not that far along.

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.

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Re:First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and... by steveklabnik on Monday December 02, 2013 @04:31PM (#6836669)

All of the technology for Duke Nukem Forever was available. People are just as much of a problem with vaporware products. With the drones, Amazon will have to deal with the tech in various forms, the people problem (shooting them down, capturing them, stealing packages, etc), and the regulatory problem.

Five years is an _eternity_ in Internet Time.

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Re:First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and... by tomkarlo on Monday December 02, 2013 @05:12PM (#6836950)

Yeah, but it's not very long at all in Retail 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.)

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Re:First Victim of Amazon Drones: The Credibility of CBS and... by intelliot on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @04:45AM (#6839437)

Excellent point. 5 years ago, bitcoin didn't exist. It has come a long way and it has been a long time in Internet Time. Amazon launched in 1994 but it hasn't been very long in Retail Time.

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