Drone deliveries are cool and futuristic idea, and I'm sure they will happen at some point.
But there is a big difference between "Bezos thinks drone deliveries would be cool in 5 years time", and "Amazon starts drone deliveries". The article rightly concludes that at this time, it's a PR trick for driving black friday sales.
The concept of drone deliveries isn't that novel: at least 10 companies have announced that they are working on or have put out promotional videos of the same thing in the last few years. The novel and interesting bit would be to figure out the real logistical difficulties, which Amazon nor the others have yet presented.
The Tacocoptor was the first thing that came to mind when I was watching 60 Minutes. The difference here is that Amazon has a really compelling reason, and more importantly, the capability (money/people) to push the technology forward. I think that's really exciting.
But there is a big difference between "Bezos thinks drone deliveries would be cool in 5 years time", and "Amazon starts drone deliveries". The article rightly concludes that at this time, it's a PR trick for driving black friday sales.
The concept of drone deliveries isn't that novel: at least 10 companies have announced that they are working on or have put out promotional videos of the same thing in the last few years. The novel and interesting bit would be to figure out the real logistical difficulties, which Amazon nor the others have yet presented.
* http://mashable.com/2013/06/05/dominos-drone/
* http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/09/04/chinese-firm-tests-dro...
* http://tacocopter.com/
* http://www.dezeen.com/2013/10/16/flying-drones-to-deliver-te...