Reader’s Entertainment reported back in October about an Australian text book publisher that was delivering their books via drone. Today, Amazon has announced that they will be using drones in a ‘limited test’ to their customers. In a CBS 60-Minutes interview, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder said, “I know this looks like science fiction, but it’s not. We can do half-hour delivery . . . and we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds (2.3kg), which covers 86% of the items that we deliver.”
The Amazon drones are call “Octocopters” and according to Amazon will be able to deliver orders in “half an hour”. The drones have electric motors, use GPS tracking to find their customer, and can deliver packages in a “10-mile radius” of select distribution centers. The service dubbed “Prime Air” is still in it’s infancy with testing, US regulations to deal with and the complicated use of air space both in the U.S. and in Europe. Bezos said it would be another five years before the system was completely operational.
“One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today,” added Bezos.
Have a look at Amazon’s video for Prime Air:
