I seriously doubt delivery by drones is ever going to work. As the population continues to grow, more people, especially in dense urban areas, are going to be living in high rise apartments/condos. Drones can't fly to an apartment. The proliferation of commercial drones is going to be a nightmare anyway. If a drone ever rings my doorbell I'll probably knock it down with a baseball bat.
Sure but Amazon and also Google try a bunch of odd stuff, some of which works and some doesn't. Seems to be a part of their corporate DNA....
OTOH what is surely totally preposterous is Amazon is seeing the brick and mortar store with a counter and display shelves as the "future of retail".....
"Drones can't fly to an apartment.", well sure they can, just like FedEX does now: give it to the super or doorman. A lot of the places I've lived had a central delivery location, a lot more secure than leaning a flat panel TV up against my locked apartment door..... and truly modern high rises all have helicopter capable roof decks for safety...
A loss of an era%u2026 Radio Shack has also been long gone in Canada, first bought out by Circuit City and then when they went under too sold to Bell Canada as a mainly mobile phone dealer too, but "the Source" seems to be doing better than RS in the States did with their transition.
Maybe Bezos is hoping there is a huge stash of new old stock Flavoradios hiding in one of those stores. Woo hoo.
Radio Shack turned me off decades ago when they started asking for every bit of private information about you every time you'd buy anything. They'd stop barely shy of asking for an on the spot blood test or DNA sample just to buy a 50 cent battery. I won't miss them at all since I quit going in their stores when they became intrusively nosy - kind of like like Google is today.
If you have a Fry's electronics store in your area give them a try. They are infinitely better than Radio Shack ever was even back when they were not obnoxious and sold lots of electronic components rather than lots of iPhone cases.
"Drones can't fly to an apartment.", well sure they can, just like FedEX does now: give it to the super or doorman. A lot of the places I've lived had a central delivery location, a lot more secure than leaning a flat panel TV up against my locked apartment door..... and truly modern high rises all have helicopter capable roof decks for safety...
That is sort of my point in general. If a drone flies to an apartment, or even a detached home, how is it going to make the hand off. If it lands on the helicopter deck, who at the building is even going to know it is up there? Can a drone accept a signature, or ring a doorbell, or carefully lean something against the door, put a delivery attempt notice on the doorknob?
That is sort of my point in general. If a drone flies to an apartment, or even a detached home, how is it going to make the hand off. If it lands on the helicopter deck, who at the building is even going to know it is up there? Can a drone accept a signature, or ring a doorbell, or carefully lean something against the door, put a delivery attempt notice on the doorknob?
Well, in the era of ubiquitous cellphones* the notification is easy: a text to the destination contact to pop out/up and take delivery either from the vehicle itself from an onboard cell or triggered by a signal back to HQ from the drone that it's on final approach. In lieu of those door stickers? Coincidentally I'd REALLY prefer a text I could take directly to UPS today to get my package rather than have to swing by my apartment to snag the notice and then, if I still have the time, double back to the UPS site I passed to get to my apartment and make the pickup.
The detached home, where there are no on-duty staff, would be different, but the issue was the high rises of future cities.
*I was just in a brewpub over the weekend where they automatically asked for my cellphone number to text me when my table was available (place was humungous) in replacement for those whirling right thingamabobs they hand out at the Curry Pizza Deck or Shake Shacks... and my Wilderness Permit reservation email notification was stated on the notice tol suffice to let me stay at the cheap backpacker's campground in Yosemite the night before and the night after my trip: just presented on my cellphone screen.
Comments
I seriously doubt delivery by drones is ever going to work. As the population continues to grow, more people, especially in dense urban areas, are going to be living in high rise apartments/condos. Drones can't fly to an apartment. The proliferation of commercial drones is going to be a nightmare anyway. If a drone ever rings my doorbell I'll probably knock it down with a baseball bat.
Sure but Amazon and also Google try a bunch of odd stuff, some of which works and some doesn't. Seems to be a part of their corporate DNA....
OTOH what is surely totally preposterous is Amazon is seeing the brick and mortar store with a counter and display shelves as the "future of retail".....
"Drones can't fly to an apartment.", well sure they can, just like FedEX does now: give it to the super or doorman. A lot of the places I've lived had a central delivery location, a lot more secure than leaning a flat panel TV up against my locked apartment door..... and truly modern high rises all have helicopter capable roof decks for safety...
Maybe Bezos is hoping there is a huge stash of new old stock Flavoradios hiding in one of those stores. Woo hoo.
Radio Shack turned me off decades ago when they started asking for every bit of private information about you every time you'd buy anything. They'd stop barely shy of asking for an on the spot blood test or DNA sample just to buy a 50 cent battery. I won't miss them at all since I quit going in their stores when they became intrusively nosy - kind of like like Google is today.
If you have a Fry's electronics store in your area give them a try. They are infinitely better than Radio Shack ever was even back when they were not obnoxious and sold lots of electronic components rather than lots of iPhone cases.
"Drones can't fly to an apartment.", well sure they can, just like FedEX does now: give it to the super or doorman. A lot of the places I've lived had a central delivery location, a lot more secure than leaning a flat panel TV up against my locked apartment door..... and truly modern high rises all have helicopter capable roof decks for safety...
That is sort of my point in general. If a drone flies to an apartment, or even a detached home, how is it going to make the hand off. If it lands on the helicopter deck, who at the building is even going to know it is up there? Can a drone accept a signature, or ring a doorbell, or carefully lean something against the door, put a delivery attempt notice on the doorknob?
That is sort of my point in general. If a drone flies to an apartment, or even a detached home, how is it going to make the hand off. If it lands on the helicopter deck, who at the building is even going to know it is up there? Can a drone accept a signature, or ring a doorbell, or carefully lean something against the door, put a delivery attempt notice on the doorknob?
Well, in the era of ubiquitous cellphones* the notification is easy: a text to the destination contact to pop out/up and take delivery either from the vehicle itself from an onboard cell or triggered by a signal back to HQ from the drone that it's on final approach. In lieu of those door stickers? Coincidentally I'd REALLY prefer a text I could take directly to UPS today to get my package rather than have to swing by my apartment to snag the notice and then, if I still have the time, double back to the UPS site I passed to get to my apartment and make the pickup.
The detached home, where there are no on-duty staff, would be different, but the issue was the high rises of future cities.
*I was just in a brewpub over the weekend where they automatically asked for my cellphone number to text me when my table was available (place was humungous) in replacement for those whirling right thingamabobs they hand out at the Curry Pizza Deck or Shake Shacks... and my Wilderness Permit reservation email notification was stated on the notice tol suffice to let me stay at the cheap backpacker's campground in Yosemite the night before and the night after my trip: just presented on my cellphone screen.
And in further news Amazon has actually opened a brick and mortar location:
"Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) announced that it has opened a pickup and drop-off location on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana."