Amazon Air: The end of humanity is upon us.

[Tayasaurus]

Why not a big network of tubes that jets your packages right to you instead? It'd be a closed system and not as easy to hijack.

[Ad Bot]

[Zeblote]

This looks really cool, but I wonder what would happen if it DID hit the engine of a plane...

You realize these things will obviously not fly low over a runway?

They will follow carefully calculated routes that don't intercept anything that is bigger than them.

Why not a big network of tubes that jets your packages right to you instead? It'd be a closed system and not as easy to hijack.

Because that would take many billions of dollars to build?

[sir dooble]

I'm also curious as to how it knows it has delivered to the right person.

I know it's just conceptual and an advert in the video, but the drone flies from the depot carrying the package and lands in the customers garden, drops the package and flies off.


How come it doesn't need anyone to sign to certify that it has reached it's correct destination?
If you're simply relying on the robot to know and trust it, then it's a bit dodgy.
The drone might believe it delivered the item correctly, but unless there's some human confirmation, who's to say it hasn't dropped off the package in a field, or at someone elses house?

[Tayasaurus]

You realize these things will obviously not fly low over a runway?

They will follow carefully calculated routes that don't intercept anything that is bigger than them.
Because that would take many billions of dollars to build?

I would think the powering systems of these little drones could have some cost. Whether it be solar or maybe battery. Either project looks expensive to me, why not spend it on one thats far more practical.

[sir dooble]

I would think the powering systems of these little drones could have some cost. Whether it be solar or maybe battery. Either project looks expensive to me, why not spend it on one thats far more practical.

The cost of an Amazon Depot installing some solar panels and using them to charge drone batteries is a lot cheaper than digging up all the pavements in the country to install shuttle-tubes to send things.

Especially when that doesn't take into consideration the fact that you have to power a very very large engine to create the suction for the entire system, and that the system could only take items of a certain size.

Those sorts of tubes also get jammed from time to time which stops the entire, or atleast a large part of the system.


We have a system at the supermarket where I work which is used for sending tubes of money and coupons from the checkout tills to the Finance office.
And they jam from time to time, and it's possible for people to break into them and steal.

There's a reason you only ever get them in shops and offices. Too expensive and unreliable, and inefficient for large transport of items.

[Titanium Man]

I would think the powering systems of these little drones could have some cost. Whether it be solar or maybe battery. Either project looks expensive to me, why not spend it on one thats far more practical.

this drone will probably be x50 times cheaper than any human worker. do you actually think that building a series of tubes is actually practical? that is probably one of the most unpractical ideas ive heard

[Tayasaurus]

I dunno i thought it sounded practical :(

Small talk really isn't your thing is it?

[sir dooble]

Small talk really isn't your thing is it?

No. :(

[Tayasaurus]

No. :(

Ok so you guys raised some good points. Of course dooble you only made it more impractical by saying you'd need a very large engine. That's a little singular  imo. :y I'd picture multiple engines.

I just thought maybe it'd be easier since we're not laying the continental railroad and this isn't the 1800's or whatever time that was done. I wouldn't know how to solve the jamming problem though :(

[Titanium Man]

Ok so you guys raised some good points. Of course dooble you only made it more impractical by saying you'd need a very large engine. That's a little singular  imo. :y I'd picture multiple engines.

I just thought maybe it'd be easier since we're not laying the continental railroad and this isn't the 1800's or whatever time that was done. I wouldn't know how to solve the jamming problem though :(

any way you do it, half assed or not, drones will still be cheaper by hundreds of times. I'd put my finger at around 1000 bucks per drone which is a pretty steep price, but even 1000 of these drones would be hundreds of times cheaper than build a complex system to only 10 homes.

[Tayasaurus]

But are we looking at it through the lense of quantity or quality? Since this is the states its probably quantity. The concept is interesting and I'm sure people saw the risks and implications with the rise of the automobile. It will be interesting how they will fix some of the questions raised.

[BDX]

Would totally attach funny messages to the drones to take back.

I'm gonna pee on them.

Hey I wonder how the drones will deal with outdoor dogs or cats attacking the drone. Cats like to forget with birds and dogs are just.. weird.

[sir dooble]

I'm gonna pee on them.

Hey I wonder how the drones will deal with outdoor dogs or cats attacking the drone. Cats like to forget with birds and dogs are just.. weird.

Most birds don't have loud spinning whirring propellers.
Cats get scared by balloons and RC cars. I don't think they'll attack a drone.

Dogs will probably bark and whatnot, but I don't think they're likely to attack it. They too are quite fearful of mechanical things.

If there's any animal that might be a problem to it, then it's birds, which may collide with it in an effort to attack it.
Smaller birds, like swallows, are very defensive when they're nesting and will dive-bomb and swoop at animals and other things much larger than them.
But even then the machine might put them off.
And I suppose, depending on the height it flies at, insects may be a problem, as there are lots and lots of them up high in the air. I wouldn't think they'd cause much damage, but the risk is there that they get hit and jam smaller mechanical parts on the helicopter. But I think designers would take that into consideration.

[DrenDran]

and thus more jobs were outsourced to machines

At the very least it is probably remote controlled.

[sir dooble]

At the very least it is probably remote controlled.

I think it's mostly robotic actually.

There's probably the ability for it to manually controlled by a supervisor, but for the most part the machine finds it's own way there via GPS and identifies obstacles and the terrain through it's sensors.