Mindblowing: Forget Humans, Amazon Will Use Drones to Deliver Packages
Amazon head honcho Jeff Bezos went on your parents’ favorite news program 60 Minutes last night and blew Charlie Rose’s mind with the sheer scope of and future plans for Amazon’s business. The segment covered Amazon’s ultra-efficient fulfillment centers, its experiments with same-day delivery and one of its biggest moneymakers, Amazon Web Services (utilized by hundreds of thousands of companies including the CIA and Netflix).
But the biggest reveal was saved for the end of the segment, where a gleeful Bezos led Rose into a room where two tiny, black-and-yellow drones sat upon a table. Named octo-copters, the teensy devices are being piloted as possible delivery methods. In Bezos’ imagined future, these little machines would air drop your deliveries to your door.
According to the New York Times, this reality may not be that far off. The use of drones for commercial purposes was legalized last year, and Amazon is already heralding its upcoming drone program, named Prime Air. A landing page for Prime Air reads, “the goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. 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.”
