Items tagged with prime air
Amazon announced this morning that its Prime Air drone delivery service is off to an excellent start. While many thought that Prime Air was little more than fantasy when Amazon first announced the initiative three years ago, the first beta flight involving a paying customer actually took place without issue on December 7th. The customer, only identified at Richard B., is located just two miles from Amazon’s Prime Air fulfillment center. The first Prime Air delivery consisted of an Amazon Fire TV (4K model, of course) and a bag of popcorn to most likely kick back and enjoy the inaugural season of The Grand Tour. The total time from when Richard B. clicked the order button until when the order...
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If you live in the United Kingdom, a drone instead of a human, may soon be delivering your Amazon packages. Amazon Prime Air is currently working with the United Kingdom government in order to test drones in rural and suburban areas. Amazon has been granted permission to fly drones beyond the line of sight of operations, test sensors on the drones to see if they can avoid obstacles on their own, and test to see if one person could potentially control several drones at once. Paul Misener, Amazon's Vice President of Global Innovation Policy and Communications remarked, “The U.K. is a leader in enabling drone innovation – we've been investing in Prime Air research and development here for quite...
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Future generations won't think twice about having packages delivered by drone, it will be commonplace. In the meantime, it's still a gee-whiz concept that has yet to materialize, though it's getting close. So close, in fact, that Amazon is showing off one of its prototype drones that it plans to deploy as part of its Prime Air delivery service. Calling it a "miracle of modern technology," this particular drone is a hybrid design that assumes a horizontal orientation. It weighs less than 55 pounds and can transport packages weighing up to 5 pounds. Using "sense and avoid" technology, the prototype drone scans the landscape to look for and avoid obstacles like hot air balloons and trees. Amazon's...
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Amazon won approval from the Federal Aviation Administration this week to test its new delivery drones. The planned service, known as Amazon Prime Air, will reduce purchase-to-delivery times to hours or even minutes, thanks to an army of flying drones. If the FAA’s approval sounds like old news, you’re thinking of the FAA’s first approval notice, which related to an outdated Amazon drone model. After Amazon complained that the FAA’s approval process wasn’t keeping up with rapidly-changing drone technology, the agency revised its policy. “The new approach will speed up Section 333 exemption approvals for many commercial UAS operators,” the FAA stated in its explanation of the FAA Summary Grants...
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Considering all of the talk and worry in the air these days on the subject of drones it seems all but impossible that nearly 16 months have passed since Jeff Bezos first revealed Amazon's plan to deploy such devices in the service of delivering our books, tech hardware, etc., in the can-see-it-from-here future. In the days immediately following Bezos's reveal on "60 Minutes" in December 2013, the Amazon drone service — Prime Air — became for a short time one of the most shared stories (and videos) across the social media sphere. Then as fast as the topic rose into the collective connected consciousness it faded from thought. That is, until yesterday,...
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In response to the growing popularity of drones, the Federal Aviation Authority has started to modify its rules and regulations to include remote controlled aircraft. However, Amazon, which plans to use drones to deliver packages, warned the FAA that it needs to be more lenient with its regulation on the use of drones outdoors; otherwise the retailer will move its research teams out of the country.Amazon has been planning to test drones for its Prime Air program and, back in July, approached the FAA for permission to test drones outdoors near Seattle where one of the company’s R&D labs is working on the tech. However, the FAA has been taking its time in giving its approval for the tests."Without...
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Tonight on CBS' "60 Minutes," Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, sat down for an extended interview. Amazon is an online superstore that has morphed into a technological powerhouse on so many other levels -- tablets and eReaders included, that they're effecting a dramatic change in the way people shop. The company has historically operated on thin profits and a volume model and there is no doubt, Amazon is a disruptive force in etail. Amazon also typically invests excess cash into new fulfillment centers and other R&D projects. Why? So that Amazon itself doesn't get disrupted by whatever big innovation is bound to come next. One way to stay ahead of the curve is to innovate in shipping, which Amazon...
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