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Comment by bandushrew | Hacker News Reader

"Whatever else this is, it cannot be mere vaporware. "

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.

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A startup in Australia, Flirtey,† has partnered with a university textbook seller to deliver books via hexacopter on/near campus. They are hoping to begin operation next March. When the drone arrives, the customer presses a button on their smartphone app, and the package is lowered down to them.

†http://www.damngeeky.com/2013/10/16/14713/parcel-drone-will-...

Video: http://vimeo.com/76606906

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

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.

> 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.

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.

It wouldn't even need a human operator from Amazon, I would gladly put a marker on a map to show the drone exactly where to drop it if it prompted me upon adding a new address/checkout.

Very good point.

This would also solve the "That nice flat spot in my backyard is where I installed a swimming pool a few months ago" problem.

That's not at all the problem.

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...

Thanks for the link, I re-read it with much pleasure.

Not to mention UFOs. And as someone said, the drones would make archery a very popular sport again. ;)

Think skeet shooting ... with a reward http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2013/12/03/last-minute-shoppi...

If everyone has to go to a certain place to get these items, we could invent a revolutionary new idea.

The shop.

You might even get to talk to a human while you're there!

You joke, but why not? Rent a small shop and put a landing pad on the roof, which then feeds a vending machine as the storefront. That also solves the authentication problem since it's easy to require a credit card swipe or a smartphone ping to dispense the package.

Because this is a different invention.

The post office.

The post office also ought to use this technology to make mail delivery faster. Today, sending a letter across town takes days, but with drones perhaps it could take minutes.

I don't think the technology can be that futuristic if companies are already raising money and have products.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Why do you consider a 5 year development period to be so long that we should consider it only a fantasy today? I might say that of a product that was promised in something like 25 years, but come on, video games take 5 years to develop. Five years is nothing.

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