Your future Amazon packages could be delivered by a flying robot.
In a hyped-up 60 Minutes interview tonight, Amazon chief
executive Jeff Bezos revealed the company’s latest shipping innovation: Prime Air, a service powered by “octocopter” drones that
will deliver small packages in less than 30 minutes.
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| Amazon's Prime Air "Octocopter" drone |
Yes, it looks like something straight out of science fiction, but as Bezos
explains it, the service could be up and running within four to five years. “It
will work, it will happen, and it’s going to be alot of fun,” he said.
Amazon is still waiting on FAA approval for unmanned aerial vehicles. The
drones will be able to pick up packages under five pounds and deliver them up
to 10 miles from its distribution centers.
“Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with
multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards,” the
company notes on its Prime Air site.
While the news came as a surprise (Twitter
lit up with incredulous responses tonight), it actually makes plenty of
sense for Amazon.
The company has historically led the way in terms of delivery mechanisms: it
survived the 90′s dot-com bust by building a lean business, not by losing tons
of money on shipping costs; it helped to power a new wave of online services
with its AWS cloud infrastructure; and with its cellular-powered “Whispernet”
feature on the original Kindle it envisioned a world where content can reach you
anywhere, before that idea was made real by the rise of smartphone and tablets.
Of course, there are considerable problems for Amazon to overcome with Prime
Air. How exactly will Prime Air drones find addresses in cities? And even in
less crowded areas, Prime Air’s security seems suspect (in the video below, the
drone simply drops a package off at a house’s door).
On the other hand, having its own drone service could eventually help Amazon
to better cover areas where traditional shipping services are weak, and it
could potentially be cheaper to run than paying shipping fees to the likes of
UPS and FedEx.
By the time Prime Air actually launches, we can expect plenty of other
drone-powered services to hit our skies. But, just like Google did by
announcing its self-driving cars long before any other company, the public will
now think of Amazon as synonymous with drones.
By:
Credit: VentureBeat
Video: You Tube
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