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Amazon's Delivery Drones Will Be Able To Track Your Location
stowie writes: According to the filing with the USPTO, the e-commerce giant's delivery drones will be able to communicate with each other, find the best flight path available, and update the delivery location as a customer changes location. Package delivery locations will be updated as customers move around, so a package can come to you at work or home, depending on where you are when your shipment is ready — including pulling location data from a smartphone. There will also be relay locations, allowing drones to drop off packages for further transport, or to recharge or swap batteries. Amazon even supplies a mockup of what its delivery drone could look like, including eight propellers, two removable power modules and much more.
I know 90% of the Slashdot audience is going to talk about shooting down Amazon's drones and shit like that, but seriously - isn't there anyone besides me that can't wait for this? I think it's going to be great, and the "sky is falling" predictions about all the downsides to this seem like nonsense to me, for the most part. Am I alone in this?
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
How will Amazon handle the theft problem? Why just steal a package of unknown value when you can stuff the drone into a steel box and get a pile of expensive parts along with whatever bonus you find in the package being delivered.
Will Amazon be forced to redline neighborhoods that have a high attrition rate?
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
to my favorite restaurant?
mcdonald's, if you were wondering.
If Amazon drones can communicate with each other and hopefully perform collision avoidance, how will they do the same with drones from the random Drones'R'Us startup companies that will be popping up all over the place in the next X years?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Having something delivered to where you are is often the least useful place for it to be. If you cycle to work, you don't want your car exhaust to be delivered there. Ideally, you'd probably want it to be delivered to the garage you're going to get it fitted at.
Some people also don't like some stuff being delivered at work.
I came to say the same thing. How awesome would it be to be at the beach, realize you forgot a towel, and have one drop in within a half hour...
It's totally like all those care package drops in FPS games are coming to reality.
After all, it would only be tracking your location with your permission, after you had ordered something... there's a clear benefit to giving up some temporary privacy for a little temporary convenience.
The only thing is, I don't see how this service works if it's very windy, or there's much weather... and what if you can't get outside during the delivery window. Would it just leave the box in a parking lot? Or cart if back to the warehouse? So many questions of implementation I have trouble seeing it come to pass.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the last diagram the drone (object 200) is shown directly over what appears to be a smartphone (objects 600 and 602).
Looks like in addition to tracking your location for the "Bring it to me" function, they plan to use your smartphone as the "landing beacon" for the final part of approach and landing. Didn't see that mentioned in either article. Looks very interesting.
Makes me want to buy someone a ton of bricks. Then the drone can drop it on them, no matter where they are.
What if you work at amazon? will it come up front and drop it in the break room?
far easier! "I didn't order a 'Grenade with pre-pulled pin' from Amazon!"
The drones will also be able to track the recipient even while walking or running down the street and launch the package with a trajectory aimed to the recipients head. Upon successful impact the drone will produce a *Boom! Headshot!!* sound effect. Amazon officials refused to comment on the necessity of this delivery mode.
itll take about five seconds for this to become the worlds largest game of tag to some bored high school kids with an open stretch of highway and lots of free time. The footage should be pretty entertaining. Who will run out of fuel first is anyone's guess.
When I want a fresh souvlaki I want it delivered warm.
All your database are belong to U.S.
"What if you're in a car"
If it can't deliver something through my sunroof while I'm on the highway, don't even bother.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I do not want Amazon delivering my order to me at work.
http://www.amazon.com/Silicage...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Seriously, some streets are filled with power lines and the likes, I'm sure their drones will be smart enough to avoid most of them, but it's only a matter of time before they hit one, or ram into a large window pane of a shop to reach a "customer" that happens to be inside.
In turn, the amount of lost packages will increase the prices... and Amazon will end up failing, because low prices were what made Amazon even worthwhile.
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I'm not at work right now, but since the poster didn't say what he was linking to and can't edit it now to warn people, I just thought I would put this here.
It's a little amazing to me than a lowly Slashdot poster outwitted the entire engineering division at Amazon...
Instead of answering the question, you are just talking around it.
It wouldn't be the first time that the geek has relied on sarcasm as a substitute for brain-work.
The courier drone will be perfectly safe so long as it serves only the middle class suburbs and grander estate homes --- quiet side streets, fenced in back yards, no strangers about.
If this thing bails you out of forgetting a towel, it deprives you of learning an important lesson about preparedness and generally not being a careless ass.
But if Amazon Drones means there are literally no consequences for being ill-prepared and a careless ass - then why does the lesson need to be taught? Just as most of us now are not taught how to milk a cow or till a field, the art of being prepared is a skill of yesteryear in a world with ubiquitous drone coverage.
The movie 127 hours would be a lot different when the guy can just call in a rescue drone to lift the boulder - or at least have Amazon send him a high-quality bone saw and a good quick-clot bandage!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would I want lots of guys in India(or some other offshore place) flying 50 pound packages as high as 400 feet over my neighborhood? I already have enough noise from private and commercial planes. What mechanism is going to function as air traffic control so that the multiple delivery companies don't have their drones crashing into each other as they take shortcuts over my home or backyard.
if they would just forget it once the delivery was made.
I don't see anything in this that requires a patent, please enlighten me
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Are you telling me you don't have a cell phone? Because if you do, you are already being tracked all day long.
I don't particularly care for this gimmick, yet. But I do see plenty of interesting aspects, and I also see that amazon, like a good little company, is thinking of itself and not so much of the customer. That is, it cares for a service that is supposed to make the customer happy and it'll do anything, especially things that don't care for the customer's privacy, to make that happen. For they're delivering a service, dammit, and everything else just isn't important. And that is not particularly good. I wish they'd do better.
But then, apparently we need companies and people to do obviously boneheaded things and have it explode before we'll finally see what the worry and the fuss is about. To me it's already obvious, and so I'm rather impatient for the rest of us to catch up.
The problem in this particular case (without reading anything but the summary, mind) is that of assuming a number of things that they could and very probably should give the customer control over instead. For example: I don't always want packages delivered to me. Even if I do want that, I don't care to give them permanent access to my location "just in case".
So I'd say, sure, you can have my location, iff and when and only as long as I'm awaiting a package. Turn the inevitable app into a beacon, on my say-so, after you've notified me that the package is within, say, two hours from delivery. It's all just as doable as the fully automatic version, technically, but morally and legally a much better proposition than just slurping up all the data with impunity. You can always add an option to enable the permission fully automatically, but it should not be enabled by default. This because delivery crosses a boundary, a demarc, since the customer isn't part of amazon proper. And so communication crosses that boundary too. And so fetching location data, moreso fully automatically, requires consent from the customer, since he's supposed to be master of his domain.
That last bit, that master of his domain, is where much if not all automation projects go awry. I don't see amazon do better here. The gimmick of using hip and cool drones does not change anything there. I happen to think respect for the customer is more important than any gimmick.
If not, this is of no use.
Sounds like a hell fire missile delivery system. Dear Mr Libertarian, here is your FEMA depopulation conspiracy theory delivery right at your location, baboom!
https://xkcd.com/1473/
Does this mean that my new inflatable doll is going to show up at the office, or church, if I happen to be there at the time of delivery?
And yes, I know the answer, but it would be fun to see someone having to explain their way out of that.
Just another day in Paradise
if you are fast enough ... get a free drone ... sorry no controller but you get free parts
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a bonus, these drones will cost more per unit than the threshold for a felony in practically every state. Getting caught will pretty much get you a felony rap sheet and time in the big house - either for theft of destruction of property or both. And there's a very high likelihood you will, given the monitoring which will be required to fly under FAA guidelines.
It will be a non-issue I suspect.
Plus, Amazon will know immediately if there's a loss of a drone and can dispatch a replacement to keep the end users happy.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
By contracting with Amazon for package drops from "special warehouse" supply points directly to Aziz al-Jihadi in the war zone.
"ou think that the people proposing drone delivery haven't given any more thought to it than you have"
And you're assuming that because they've thought about it, and decided to move forward, then it must surely be a good idea.
That assumption makes you the moron, not him.
Free clue: Amazon is not a profitable business, and never had been.
Here is Claim 1 from the patent application:
1. A system for aerial delivery of items to a destination location, comprising: a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, each of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles configured to aerially transport items; an unmanned aerial vehicle management system, including: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor and storing program instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processors to at least: receive a request to deliver an item to a destination location; and send to an unmanned aerial vehicle of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, delivery parameters identifying a source location that includes the item and a destination location; wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle, in response to receiving the delivery parameters, is further configured to at least: navigate to the source location; engage the item located at the source location; navigate a navigation route to the destination location; and disengage the item.
There is absolutely nothing there that hasn't been discussed thousands of times before and been a staple of science fiction for decades. But if this gets approved, no one but Amazon will be allowed to do this, just as it's becoming technologically feasible.
Remember, every claim in a patent is like a little patent in itself. Whatever else is contained in the patent, anything that matches all the features of any single claim is infringing. And there's nothing in that claim that's original or innovative in any way. Actually building a drone delivery network will require solving a lot of hard technological problems, and some of those solutions might legitimately be patentable. But this has nothing to do with that.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Here's the last paragraph of the application:
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that, although specific implementations have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the appended claims and the elements recited therein. In addition, while certain aspects are presented below in certain claim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects in any available claim form. For example, while only some aspects may currently be recited as being embodied in a computer readable storage medium, other aspects may likewise be so embodied. Various modifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to a person skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. It is intended to embrace all such modifications and changes and, accordingly, the above description to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
So the incredibly general claims should be interpreted even more generally. They're basically claiming complete ownership of the concept of delivering things with drones, including "all such modifications and changes" that anyone might reasonably think of.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Wow, that solution is completely non-obvious, and isn't simply a restatement of the problem! What an incredibly valid patent!
If I'm relaxing on the beach and a bunch of drones keep flying over me to deliver crap I'm not going to think its very awesome at all.
Even if they are bringing you drinks?
But really there's not a problem, you simply augment your trip to the beach with a Hololens and headphones. The Hololens literally can erase the drones from your by painting over it with sky, while the headphones cancel out all noise from the drones leaving only pleasing ocean waves and the sound of the 4000 other people around you on the beach you get to hear today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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Is it just me or does everyone picture these drones with giant Acme labels on the side? This is the realization of the order process Wile E Coyote used for years in the cartoons. Someone has to start selling rocket powered skates and iron shot bird seed on Amazon to fully recreate my childhood tv watching.