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Comment by legohead | Hacker News Reader

can't wait to see hundreds of drones flying around the city. the future is...loud

Like it isn't already. Cars are loud too, our brains just learned to filter them out.

But in terms of things falling out of the sky, it will definitelly be interesting (the Chinese curse kind of 'interesting').

Since there will be so many flying at once you're going to have the occasional failure. That's going to make walking around in the city interesting for sure.

No worries, we will just build other drones that hover at 100 feet above ground level, and are programmed to detect falling drones or drone parts, and then cast a net to catch the falling parts. Then, we will have other drones, that hover at 40 feet above ground level and are programmed to detect falling drones responsible for catching the parts at 100 feet, and...

and drone catching gorillas who will freeze to death in the winter.

The NY Post is going to have a real selection of headlines when some drone crashes into some poor person walking down the street. Depending on the cargo, I expect they will rise to their tradition[1].

1) http://nypost.com/2015/06/09/new-york-post-editor-and-film-c...

Amazon Drops The Ball

It should be straightforward to design corridors for drones where, if they were to fail, they land on structures instead of people. Amazon could design this as an additional OpenStreetMap layer, using existing satellite mapping data to create areas to avoid where people are likely to be.

Avoid roads and sidewalks.

Roads surround most city buildings.

Drones won't fall down straight, they have momentum.

You know even if they don't land on people, I sure don't want an Amazon drone falling on my house, or out in my pasture, or on top of my shop. Will Amazon pay up in full if it punches a hole in my barn, harms livestock, or destroys a car I have sitting outside? If they're going to have a non-zero number of these drop from the sky, they better know they're not getting that drone back, for starters.

First, its no different then an aircraft. You know what happens if a piece of an aircraft lands on your house? The airline's insurance company pays for it. You know how much say you have over airspace above your home? Zero.

> If they're going to have a non-zero number of these drop from the sky, they better know they're not getting that drone back, for starters.

While you may think property rights don't exist solely because of the word "drone", you'd be mistaken.

I have serious doubts you're going to see significant drone traffic in the area where you live (based on your profile info).

> Will Amazon pay up in full if it punches a hole in my barn, harms livestock, or destroys a car I have sitting outside?

Of course they will. Why wouldn't they? You have their drone and a photo of a gaping hole in your roof.

> If they're going to have a non-zero number of these drop from the sky, they better know they're not getting that drone back, for starters.

Well, they'll probably make damage reimbursement contingent upon your return the drone.

I assume the law will compel them to pay for the damage. And the law might or might not compel you to return the drone.

(If the law doesn't compel you, Amazon might pay extra for return.)

Agreed, there needs to be rigorous regulation on noise pollution, especially at the expected high densities these devices. In contrast, autonomous electric vehicles are quiet and can handle much higher loads and many more loads.

Yes, this has a very real likelihood to impact the roll out of the technology.

Obviously supersonic booms are a different animal, but they had a roll in keeping the tech from going mainstream here in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests

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