Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos reveals his company's latest creation: drones that can deliver packages up to 5 pounds to your house in less than half an hour. They're technically octocopters, as part of a program called "Amazon Prime Air."
A drone sits at the end of a conveyer belt, waiting to pick up a package — Bezos says 86 percent of Amazon's packages are under 5 pounds — and can carry them up to 10 miles from the fulfillment center. As soon as Amazon can work out the regulations and figure out how to prevent your packages from being dropped on your head from above, Bezos promised, there will be a fleet of shipping drones taking the sky.
The segment focused primarily on holiday shopping, particularly the annual shopping extravaganza that is Cyber Monday. It's a huge day for Amazon — more than 300 items will be ordered each second — and does much to reveal the company's true ambitions. Amazon doesn't just want to reinvent the way we shop for and buy things, it wants to upend every step of the process — including how our purchases come to us.
The system is named 'Prime Air', Bezos said, and would involve years of regulatory work, technical advancement and testing to actually implement. Amazon admitted Prime Air would not be ready until at least 2015, possibly much later.
“The hard part here is putting in all the redundancy,” Bezos said. “All the reliability to say this can’t land on somebody’s head.”
Amazon has answered some questions on its website :
Q: Is this science fiction or is this real?
A: It looks like science fiction, but it's real. From a technology point of view, we'll be ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is actively working on rules for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Q: One day we'll see a fleet of Prime Air vehicles in the sky?
A: Yes. One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today.
Q: When will I be able to choose Prime Air as a delivery option?
A: We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time.
Q: How are you going to ensure public safety?
A: The FAA is actively working on rules and an approach for unmanned aerial vehicles that will prioritize public safety. Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards.
Bezos talked about how, 18 years ago, he'd drive packages to the post office himself and dreamed of one day owning a forklift. (Things have changed a bit since then.) He says we're four or five years from drones being able to deliver small packages right to your house, largely because the company has to work with the FAA to make sure it's legally allowed to run the Prime Air program — Amazon doesn't have Zookal's luxury of operating in Australia without the FAA's regulatory oversight.
Bezos knows there's work to do, but his overwhelming message was simple: Get ready. "It will work, and it will happen, and it's going to be a lot of fun."