Amazon to Deliver by Drone? Don't Believe the Hype

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/02-0



Jeff Bezos's 'plan' for drone deliveries is little more than a publicity stunt – timed for the biggest online shopping day of the year

Amazon to Deliver by Drone? Don't Believe the Hype
by James Ball
Published on Monday, December 2, 2013 by The Guardian

The future is here! Flying robots will, any second now, be delivering your Christmas books, DVDs and gadgets to your door within 30 minutes of you ordering them, thanks to a new initiative announced by Amazon on CBS News' 60 Minutes on Sunday.

It's a brave new world, a whole new paradigm. Or so you'd think if you read most of the breathless coverage about the announcement, which will only get worse: expect a torrent of turgid think-pieces in the next 48 hours about who's going to get "disrupted" as a result of this latest shake-up – and what it means for the US's already beleaguered postal service.

Here's the problem: it's all hot air and baloney. As Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, acknowledged in the 60 Minutes segment, his plan to begin delivery by drone won't be enacted until around 2018 – and that's a hugely optimistic timeline.

The practical issues are manifold: the technology to make the drones operational in any sense is not yet in place. It's all well and good for the unmanned vehicles to fly to a particular GPS site, but how does it then find the package's intended recipient? How is the transfer of the package enacted? What stops someone else stealing the package along the way? And what happens when next door's kid decides to shoot the drone with his BB rifle?