Photo Credit: Aurelijus Valeiša. License:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/. No edits made.[/caption]Founder of Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos revealed to 60 Minutes on Sunday, December 4, that in the next four to five years they would like to bring a different aspect to the delivery portion of the Amazon experience. They would like to deliver directly to the customers’ doorstep in 30 minutes, via miniature drones which the company refers to as “octocopters.”
Bezos says more safety testing and FAA approvals are necessary. He estimates that Amazon “Prime Air,” which is what the drone delivery system is officially called, will be available to customers quite soon.
A CBS News article states, “When Charlie Rose walked in and saw the Prime Air drones sitting on a tabletop for the show-and-tell, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, my God!’ It was a genuine reaction-- Rose and the 60 Minutes team weren’t in on the secret beforehand. ‘I had no idea what it was,’ says 60 Minutes producer Draggan Mihailovich. ‘I had no idea what its purpose was at first glance,’ Rose told 60 Minutes Overtime. Mihailovich thought they resembled giant, flying tarantulas: ‘They actually look like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. I only knew that there was a surprise coming.’”
Along with the the 60 Minutes team, viewers do not know how to feel about the drones. According to a new Huffington Post/YouGov poll, Americans are largely undecided about whether an Amazon drone delivery program is a good idea or a bad one, with 36 percent saying it's a good idea, 23 percent saying it's a bad idea, and another 41 percent saying they're not sure. The uncertainty from Americans is not surprising, given that only 24 percent of respondents said they had heard a lot about Bezos' announcement. Another 44 percent said that they had heard a little about it, and 32 percent had heard nothing at all.
Another prospect to the endeavor that is being worried about is allowing the octocopters to take over the sky.The poll found that 44 percent said they oppose allowing companies to deliver packages via unmanned drones, while only 31 percent said they were in favor. 26 percent said they weren't sure.
Amazon's not the only one in this game. The Verge reported that United Parcel Service (UPS) is researching delivery drones, too.
Whether these types of products are in our near future, development processes are becoming faster and more intelligent, making the impossible possible faster than the country realizes.
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