People, this is a friggin pipe dream. It's pure Sci-Fi and not able to be done even in the next 10 years. Is Amazon going to build shipping depots 1/4 of a mile from EVERY SINGLE HOUSE in the country? How far can these things fly? They say 30 minute delivery, how fast are these things? What about bad weather? This is pure science fiction and it is going to go nowhere fast.
Not to mention the lunatics/urban pirates who will be trying to figure out how to knock them out of the sky, or over ride their controls so they can collect the booty.
It's what I think too. I'm not saying it's impossible to do such bots but I think I would not be able to do it.
It will be very difficult to determine the landing destination of something flying overhead, and being able to intercept it.
People can do that now by attacking the UPS/FedEx driver or going into the truck while the delivery man is dropping off a package. These drones are supposed to be dropping off a package w/in 30 minutues of your order. Needless to say, the customer will be at his or her home expecting the package rather promptly.
Yea and people who don't want to be confrontational or add assault to the charge if they get caught will be more inclined to take out a drone. If it starts, I bet it won't last long.
That's a pretty cool idea I could see this happening in the future. Robotics are going to replace humans in a number of areas over time. I still think that 3D printer thing is going to be the way of the future though. I can almost guarantee that in my lifetime people will be able to buy a coffee maker from Amazon and that thing will "print" it from your printer the same way we do normal sheets of paper now.
Yes actually it is, that is why more valuable things are sent through UPS or AE. There are videos posted regularly of package thieves especially around the holidays. Would you want a high dollar camera or I-Phone placed on your front porch until you got home? Heck my closest neighbor is a mile away and I would just as soon them either come back another time or leave me a note and I will pick it up. Just keeping the honest people honest. I'm more concerned about people figuring out how to intercept the package or assume the controls from another source and landing it and taking it.
---If every application of advancing technology had flawless results, I would be typing this message from Mars. Alas, things take time.
So people can just wait until they're at home to order it. The delivery process is only supposed to take about thirty minutes to an hour for people living around major population centers. And for the people who order it and it's left at their house, yea, it might get stolen. Is this news? That packages will get stolen sometimes?
A drone leaving from Chicago to the suburbs would take like forty minutes to deliver the package to my house. A drone thief would have to wait at the distribution center in order to track the package to its final destination. Keep in mind, he has no idea where this package is heading, he only has a generalized vector based upon its present flight path, so in order to actually steal the package, he would have to maintain a minimum distance from the drone in order to properly ascertain where it landed. The problem is that the drone flies in a straight-line path while the criminal must follow roads, which have stops and traffic and obstructions and detours. But let's assume this thief is able to navigate all these problems, and is able to follow my package from Chicago to the sleepy suburbs. If I'm at home, which is a good possibility, he will get to watch me step outside and bring the package in the house. Mission failed, time and gas wasted, miles added to vehicle, added risk of police interaction, and all just to watch some stranger pick up a mysterious package. But let's assume I'm not home and the thief watches the package land on my doorstep. He successfully steals the package and opens it. Inside he finds... a $1 HDMI cable. Success! Sorry, cynics, but you will be proven wrong in a major way. This is going to work, not perfectly, but well.
Criminals are always figuring out ways to steal stuff. This is not a new problem, or one that is unique to drone-based delivery systems. Do you honestly think a major company like Amazon would be pursuing this if they hadn't already hired a bunch of engineers and other experts to analyze its feasibility and potential risks?
You won't have to buy it from anyone. The product design will be opensource, so you can just download it for free. All you will have to purchase is the energy to run the printer and the matter it uses to create the product.
The last time they made $100.00 bills that were supposed to be counterfeit proof, they found people counterfeiting them weeks before they were put into circulation. Haven't heard about the newest ones yet.
So how will people make money to buy the energy, the matter, or the printer for that matter. Things that make ya go hmmm...
The USD is federal monopoly money. We're talking about private industry. They have money that is virtually impossible to counterfeit. It's called Bitcoin... By exchanging their labor for money or relying on private charity. They will become really cheap in the future, just like phones. Even the crappiest cell phone in existence today is probably ten times better than what the richest people had when they first came out. Same thing will apply to 3D printers and printing supplies. And hydrocarbon-based energy sources like oil and natural gas are plentiful, so cheap energy can be a reality if politicians and eco-extremists stop obstructing human progress and economic prosperity.
I thought about stuff like that. See this is a problem with technology it is both a gift and a curse. Sometimes we might not want some types of technology such as a 3D printer. Just look what happened to media itself when the internet became huge. People are pirating everything from video games to music to movies tv shows software etc. Now imagine something like a common use 3D printer that can print out physical things. That would crush the consumer industry. You think its bad that people pirate music and whatnot, wait until people can pirate an entire Playstation and print it out of their house. It would shut down many retail stores who sell anything smaller than furniture or appliances or something. It would cause a big mess and I don't know if we would have enough stuff in society for people to do to even retrain or reeducate them in other fields to work. As cool of technology this is I think society might keep a lid on this one for awhile. We can already print out working tools and guns from these things, with the speed at which technology moves if these things became common use then we would have electronics coming out of these printers in a decade.
Just dont see how this is feasible and what is the point? UPS doesnt get packages to people fast enough?
If everyone had a robot and forty acres, you could just sit back and collect the harvest... Society is speeding up. We want things more efficient, quicker, better. Private industry will give it to them in spades while the public sector Leviathan struggles to stay afloat. It's going to be an interesting ride, so strap in!
Good point. So we will eventually most of the population will become servants for the rich/elites and the rest will become servants for the servants, or most of the nation will become sex servants since that is the only thing exchangeable, no wait there will be robots for that, and 3D printers to make sex toys we haven't even thought of yet too. Basically people will become obsolete, and private companies, sorry corporate entities, will still own all the natural resources, so governments can still have something to be bribed over. Boy I'm glad I won't be here to see that world.
Just the opposite, actually. Technological advancements like 3D printing and digital money will make it easier for people to resist authority figures through the creation of parallel economies and societies. Already, we are witnessing the creation of such an economy in the "darkweb". People will become obsolete for mind-numbing physical labor, but this will free them up to do more productive things in new industries. You can choose to believe, somehow, that technological advancements will somehow lead to a dystopian future, but the reality is that they will slowly but surely liberate all of mankind from dependence on political and corporate institutions. The big shift will occur when the younger digital generations come of age. They are already fully immersed in the electronic world, so the transition will be seamless for them. It's the Luddites who are going to have a hard time adapting to the changes. But they are just being hysterical in my opinion. Everyone will benefit and our standard of living will increase.
You haven't refuted my points. I'm counter arguing all the people who are suggesting that they are going to be unhijckable.. Packages will continue to get stolen. The difference is that delivery vehicles will now get stolen as well. Or shot up, clubbed, what have you. If they get past all of the red tape and the FCC and manage to get a GPS system that can really pinpoint your doorstep, then we might have something. Hell, if they do that, I'm building a landing strip in my backyard and charging my neighbors a couple of dollars a package. I work from home, so their packages will be safe until they come home.
