Amazon.com on Sunday introduced Prime Air, a futuristic delivery system that the company says will get packages into customers' hands in half an hour or less, delivered via unmanned aerial vehicles.
The online retail behemoth posted a video on its website that shows images of a recent Prime Air test flight.
In the 80-second clip, which you can watch below, a shopper buys an item on Amazon. The item is then placed into a plastic yellow Amazon container and picked up at the end of a conveyor belt by an Amazon drone, which takes off and soars over a grassy field before depositing the package with a thud outside the shopper's doorstep.
"One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today," the company said in a brief Q&A on its website.
Amazon said the company has been working on Prime Air in its next-generation research and development lab, but cautioned that it would be a while before customers could choose it as a delivery option.
"Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations," the company said.
Amazon added that it hoped the agency would put in place rules for unmanned aerial vehicles by 2015. "We will be ready at that time," it said.
Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos introduced the delivery-by-drone concept during a segment on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday. He said Prime Air would be available for packages weighing 5 pounds or less.
Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-amazon-prime-air-20131202,0,6889414.story#ixzz2mLUf9zuS
This is straight out of a science fiction movie! I can't imagine seeing all these flying drones all the time. It seems like there may be a lot of problems with this idea like packages getting broken, and drones delivering to the wrong place or even breaking. But, these incidents will probably be worked out over time.
With Amazon's new shipping ability, I believe that they will be able to attract many additional customers, especially those who wish to have their items shipped right away. This delivery option is extremely clever.
This is really cool but also kinda freaky. I feel like our society is going to end up turning into a new episode of Twilight Zone with this type of technology.
It is truly amazing with all these new developments of technology to make things like delivering packages to us earier. But it's freaky too.... it make me thinks iit's like the movie iRobot.
I don't think that this would work very well. There are countless issues and problems and I don't think it would make shipping that much easier. They should just stick to the normal FedEx way
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