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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.
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.
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.
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.
The drone will have a built-in loudspeaker that will play "Yakety Sax" when it detects such situations.
Circumcision is child abuse.
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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
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)
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.
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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