Amazon Prime Air: Online retailer to launch drone delivery service

2014-04-20 44

Jeff Bezos, founder of online retail giant Amazon, announced Prime Air, a program to deliver small packages using drones, on CBS's "60 Minutes" news program on Sunday night.

Speaking to interviewer Charlie Rose, Bezos unveiled a video of an
Amazon-branded unmanned aerial vehicle airlifting a package from one of the Seattle-based company's warehouses to a house before taking off again.

"It will work, and it will happen, and it's gonna be a lot of fun," said Bezos, during the interview.

The fleet of tiny helicopters, dubbed an octocopters, is expected to be rolled out within five years, pending approval by the Federal Aviation Administration. According to Bezos, each can carry as much as five pounds within a 10-mile radius of the company's distribution centers.

"I know this looks like science fiction," Bezos said. "It's not."

This all sounds well and good, but we here at TomoNews US are worried Amazon may not have fully thought through all the implications of their revolutionary delivery service.

"The hard part here is putting in all the redundancy," said Bezos. "All the reliability, all the systems you need to say, 'Look, this thing can't land on somebody's head while they're walking around their neighborhood.'"

All right Mr. Bezos, you've clearly put at least a bit of thought into it. And you did say the delivery system was years away. We'll give you that. But, we ask you sir, what happens when drones fly over the homes of trigger-happy "Get Off My Property" sign-posting gun lovers? Will the person ordering the package get compensated if the delivery is shot down for "trespassing"?

What will you do about those people who will no doubt be all too eager to take one of your octocopters and keep them for themselves?

When drones eventually become a mainstay of retail and food delivery and aerial traffic no doubt becomes a serious problem, how will you ensure mid-air collisions can be avoided?

We would like answers Mr. Bezos! Nay, we demand them!

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