Amazon testing delivery by drone, CEO Bezos says
Amazon testing delivery by drone, CEO Bezos says
Amazon.com is testing delivering packages using drones,
CEO Jeff Bezos said on the CBS TV news show "60 Minutes" Sunday. VPC
Alistair Barr, USA TODAY 1:32 p.m. EST December 2, 2013
It would speed up delivery of online orders, but the
technology is at least three or four years away.
Amazon.com is testing delivering packages using drones,
CEO Jeff Bezos said on the CBS TV news show 60 Minutes Sunday.
The idea would be to deliver packages as quickly as
possible using the small, unmanned aircraft, through a service the company is
calling Prime Air, the CEO said.
Bezos played a demo video on 60 Minutes that showed how
the aircraft, also known as octocopters, will pick up packages in small yellow
buckets at Amazon's fulfillment centers and fly through the air to deliver
items to customers after they hit the buy button online at Amazon.com.
The goal of the new delivery system is to get packages
into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less, the world's largest Internet
retailer said. Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take "some
number of years" as Amazon develops the technology further and waits for
the Federal Aviation Administration to come up with rules and regulations, the
company added.
Bezos told 60 Minutes that the service could be up and
running in as few as four years — although he noted that he is an optimist when
it comes to such things.
"One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing
mail trucks on the road today," the company said.
This is the latest futuristic effort by Bezos, who was an
e-commerce pioneer in the 1990s and more recently popularized the e-reader —
while pursuing personal projects such as private spaceflight and a 10,000-year
clock built inside a mountain.
Drones have mostly been used by the U.S. military to
shoot missiles at enemy combatants in countries such as Afghanistan and
Pakistan. However, the cost of these unmanned aircraft has dropped
precipitously in recent years, making them more accessible to commercial users,
such as companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs.
However, the FAA currently limits the use of drones in
the U.S. to public entities such as police forces and hobbyists, meaning the
devices cannot be used in return for payment. The regulator said recently that
it plans to have regulations governing commercial use in place by 2015.
"The FAA would not let Amazon do this now,"
said Ryan Calo, an expert on robotics, privacy and the law at the University of
Washington. "But this is precisely the type of application that Congress
had in mind when it told the FAA in 2012 to come up with rules for commercial
unmanned aircraft."
Amazon will be able to petition the FAA to show them how
its drone delivery technology works and the company can also apply to test its
drones to make sure they are air worthy, he added.
"Amazon will not be able to darken the skies of
Seattle with drones. They will need a plan for safety," Calo said.
"But I see no reason why this application won't fly."
If drone delivery takes off, it could be a threat to
FedEx and UPS, which Amazon uses for a lot of its deliveries now. Indeed, FedEx
founder Fred Smith told Wired magazine in 2009 that the company wanted to
switch their fleet to drones as soon as possible but that it had to wait for
the FAA to regulate such activity.
"We'll be ready to enter commercial operations as
soon as the necessary regulations are in place," Amazon said Sunday.
"Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with
multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards."
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