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Amazon Will Now Deliver Packages To the Trunk of Your Car (theverge.com)
Last year, Amazon unveiled a service called Amazon Key that lets delivery people into your home to drop off packages. Now, the tech giant wants to do the same thing with your car. Amazon announced a new service that gives it couriers access to a person's vehicle for the purpose of leaving package deliveries inside. "Amazon wants to use the connected technologies embedded in many modern vehicles today" to gain entry, reports The Verge. "The company is launching this new service in partnership with two major automakers -- General Motors and Volvo -- and will be rolling out in 37 cities in the U.S. starting today." From the report: Amazon has been beta testing the new service in California and Washington state for the past six months. To start out, the service will only be available to Amazon Prime subscribers. It's also limited to owners of GM and Volvo vehicles, model year 2015 or newer, with active OnStar and Volvo on Call accounts. Amazon says it plans to add other automobile brands over time. Packages that weigh over 50 pounds, are larger than 26 x 21 x 16 inches in size, require a signature, are valued over $1,300, or come from a third-party seller also are not eligible for in-car delivery.
To access the new delivery service, you need to add your car to your Amazon Key app and include a description of the vehicle, so Amazon's couriers will be able to locate it. The car will need to be parked within a certain radius of an address used for Amazon deliveries, so either home or work. Driveways, parking lots, parking garages, and street parking are all eligible locations, just as long as it's not at some random address across town. To find your car, Amazon's couriers will have access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car.
To access the new delivery service, you need to add your car to your Amazon Key app and include a description of the vehicle, so Amazon's couriers will be able to locate it. The car will need to be parked within a certain radius of an address used for Amazon deliveries, so either home or work. Driveways, parking lots, parking garages, and street parking are all eligible locations, just as long as it's not at some random address across town. To find your car, Amazon's couriers will have access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car.
It's amazing how much amazon has access to your stuff, isn't it?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
No, Iâ(TM)m very certain that it wonâ(TM)t.
Instructions to delivery service: Just move dead body over to the side if package will not fit between legs.
Someone had to do it.
put one in any town that makes it worth building, have someone at a counter and all i have to do is walk in show my driver's license or photo ID and get my package,m it is worth it to me if i have to drive half way across town to get my package a day earlier
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No, they won't.
Not noteable, IMO a rubbish article.
I only know three people that own GM cars, and that's only because of MAGA. All three of them keep guns in their trunks. Hopefully some law prevents them from giving access to some random delivery person to their guns.
Will they also poop in your car?
All in the name of convenience.
Although it's actually all in the name of cost savings. It costs more to re-deliver packages.
Amazon assume you won't mind letting in minimum wage delivery drivers in to your home and car in exchange for increasing their profit margins.
Why does Amazon wants access to a car or my house?
Here's a $50 solution
1) Get large crate, fix it in place to prevent removal
2) Get padlock
3) Leave padlock inside crate
4) Delivery guy places package in crate
5) Delivery guy uses padlock, locks crate
6) Get home, use only key to open padlock
7) Get package
8) ???
9) PROFIT!
And before people start tearing down this idea, ask yourself, is the flaw you found worse than "letting a stranger in my home"....
" access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car"
And there is the next level of Amazon data mining. Car location, photo, license plate. All in their DB, forever.
What will they use it for? They probably don't even know yet. But use it they will.
Nobody accesses in my trunk. Especially not an Amazon.
... that Amazon will begin a new delivery service called "Amazon Suppository".
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Given the high rent in California many people with jobs are homeless or living out of cars. They need to save money so ordering on Amazon makes sense. They can use smartphones to order but need an address for delivery. Till now they have been using Amazon lockers. Now they can get it delivered to their car.
**Life is too short to be serious**
So Amazon now has a video echo in your bedroom. It also knows your purchase history. So every time you have sex it knows (AI used to detect the sounds of sex. The camera makes it even easier). It knows how many condoms you ordered and hence how many you have left. So next time you go to have sex an Amazon drone will come to your window and knock and your Amazon Echo will ask "Do you need a condom? Say yes to purchase!!"
Profit!!!!
**Life is too short to be serious**
I have a lot more to lose by letting a stranger into my house to deliver packages.
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I don't know why more standard solutions aren't used. like having the package delivered at a post office or a pick-up box, or designate a neighbour. Give the neighbour or the janitor a receipt an when the delivery gus leave the package, asks the receipt. I have lived for year in a small town in Italy and used a lot the mail order catalogues, even before Amazon,
Amazon customer finds Jimmy Hoffa in trunk of Volvo.
Now those that earn SO little that they have to live in their car can order with their employer, too!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
westealyourcar.com
I'm not paranoid about home assistants, but I'll be damned if I was going to let someone override my control of my car.
I'm not paranoid about the various home assistants either but I don't really see the point in them. My phone can already do more or less everything they can do and it's rarely not at my side. What problem is such a device solving for me? I like a good gadget as much as most people reading this but there has to be some utility function to make it worth bothering.
Onstar is basically an (overpriced) concierge service with some access to your car controls. I don't have a principled objection but similar to the home assistant devices very little of what Onstar provides is really of much value to me so I don't really see the point. If I get locked out there are solutions for that and what else does it provide that my phone doesn't do better? Plus I can upgrade my phone - good luck doing that with your in car concierge hardware.
No, most gun owners don't ever murder anyone.
This is quite true. The problem is that a non trivial percentage do use firearms in anger and we generally don't know in advance which ones they are.
Or do you seriously believe there are only twenty thousand or so gun owners in the USA?
I know there are were about 38,000 deaths by firearm in the USA last year and about 15,000 of these were not suicides. It's true most firearm owners are decent law abiding people but enough aren't that its a serious problem.
And imagine that someone cuts you off on the road. You're totally enraged at this awful behaviour. So, you immediately reach for the gun in the trunk of your car???
I have seen with my own eyes someone brandish a gun due to road rage. (no nobody got shot) Yes it was illegal and no they didn't seem to care. I've known quite a few people to carry loaded firearms in the glove compartment or other easily accessible locations. Do you seriously think someone who would consider brandishing a gun for such a trivial reason or who is so paranoid they think they need a loaded pistol within reach at all times would give a shit about the fact that transporting a weapon in such a fashion is likely illegal? It's not responsible people like (probably) you that I'm worried about. It's the people with anger management problems or high levels of paranoia that worry me and the fact that I can't reliably identify them until it is too late to avoid them.
You are an idiot
I don't do business with Amazon for any reason. But if you want to, why not simply build a doghouse, or some kind of Package receptical that Amazon can deliver to? You can put it in your front year, away from your house so it's safe.
Of course you will have to fight with some home owner association.
In the old days it would be OK to just leave the package at the doorstep because no-one would ever touch it. I think it is still OK, at least at some neighborhoods.
Is the car's locking system for the trunk sufficiently walled off from other parts of the locking system, and the car's control system in general, to provide the necessary security for this "feature" offered by Amazon? Or will this be yet another example of people wanting convenience at the expense of demoting security to a secondary priority?
When I was a kid, there was this sketchy guy outside my high-school selling all manner of candy out of the trunk of his car. This just reminded me of that.
Then only 15000 count. If you are committing suicide, there are just as many non gun related ways to do that. Cars beat that as well as beer.
Wow, that's cold... You really think ~20,000 deaths a year don't matter?
Your statement belies an ignorance of how many suicides happen. A huge percentage of them are impulse decisions made feasible by access to a readily available firearm. Sure, some people are determined to kill themselves and will find another way if they don't have access to a gun. But a substantial percentage of them would not literally because of the effort involved, surprising as that may seem. Keep them away from firearms and a lot (not all) of those people would live to see another day. You cannot deny that access to a firearm is a rather convenient and efficient way for a person with suicidal thoughts to act upon those thoughts successfully.
Furthermore you are ignoring the fact that more than a few of those self inflicted deaths by firearm are not suicides. They are accidents of one form or another. Responsible gun ownership (which I support) comes with an acknowledgment of the real world dangers presented by ready access to firearms.
The ones that don't honor the second amendment's protections also happen to have some of the worst murder rates.
I noticed you said, "some". That implies that there are states that have some of the worst murder rates while also honoring the second amendment's protections.
Kinda defeats your whole point, dunnit?
Is your concern that a shotgun or rifle transported in the locked trunk of your car will somehow jump out and start killing people?
How do you propose that would happen? Wouldn't it have to grow a brain and some limbs to achieve that?
I've noticed that the people who most often react with your sort of irrational nonsense are generally projecting - they know that they, personally, aren't stable people.
Seems you're setting the example.
... a package that was supposed to arrive at my work yesterday was "Delivery attempted" last night at 6:15pm (and failed, natch, because we're closed) because one of the world leaders in computing and AI has NO WAY to know that this location is a business. This is a 4-story building, in a 6-building, many-acre office park, on a street full of strip malls and office parks. Because evidently Amazon does NOT have an existing list of locations that are businesses, and evidently the AMZL delivery sap has no magic button on his handheld to mark a location as a business for future use (and I doubt that I'm the first person here to ever order something from Amazon.) Oh, and there's no way for me to edit my shipping address and specify that it's a business, although the customer service chat person told me that I could delete my address and re-enter it and then there will be a box to check that it's a business, which I will try AFTER my package successfully arrives. But hey, this has only been a known issue for a YEAR. https://www.reddit.com/r/amazo...
Fuck you, AMZL. This is fucking brain-dead.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Guess I'd have to take the body out first.
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It's true. It's on the Internet, so it has to be true.
https://babylonbee.com/news/am...
Car makers and parts suppliers already offer similar functions. And you bet it can be made very, very secure.
I know, because I work on such a project for a major German car OEM.
And yeah, there were instances of botched security (e.g. BMWs mobile phone unlock feature which was susceptible to SMS replay attacks), but as soon as real computer scientists with crypto experience will work on it, it will be easier to load the car on a truck instead of trying to hack. The problem is amateur programmers doing this kind of stuff.
Your "cloud trunk opening function" can be made as secure as your online bank account. Is that good enough ?
Just don't let amateurs do the programming. Hire crypto experts with a degree in CS instead of chemistry.
Finding the car in question and getting to it will be a pain for the delivery drivers, especially if the owner happens to be out running errands on the day they try to deliver.
Seems like an attempt to impress, to try to be seen as "disruptive", rather than an attempt to address a problem with a real-world solution.