Hasta La Gadget!

Jeff Bezos shocked Middle America during a CBS “60 Minutes” segment with Charlie Rose: 30-minute Amazon deliveries by drones. Whether it’s a real product or genius PR stunt on the eve of the biggest online shopping day of the year, it doesn’t matter. The idea of a sky full of drones just hit the mainstream.

Amazon isn’t the first company to experiment delivery by drones. In fact, over the last year, several companies beat Amazon to the punch with very similar services testing carrying tacos, pizzas and packages by multi-rotor crafts.

Skycatch demonstrated its aptly-named Tacocopter at Disrupt SF 2013. It flew past attendees, delivering a warm taco feet from the panel of robotics experts.

But what about a pizza? A UK franchise of the U.S.-based Domino’s demonstrated over the summer a drone carrying two pizzas, forcing career pizza delivery men and women to question the longevity of their profession.

China-based SF Express started limited live trials of package deliveries earlier this year. And SF Express’ reveal wasn’t helped along with a prominent news agency like in Amazon’s case. Drones carrying packages were simply spotted in Dongguang, in southern China.

As reported by Quartz at the time, local companies are not bound by rigid government regulations and restrictions in China. Forget the black hole that is the FCC, apparently Chinese businesses that want to use drones must be granted approval from the local civil aviation authorities first. There’s a certain appeal to delivery drones in China. Heavily populated areas are fighting a losing battle against smog and traffic congestion. Drones could be part of the answer.

Amazon’s program would offer 30 minute deliveries of small items — that would cover 86% of Amazon’s orders, Bezos indicated during the 60 Minutes interview. In theory, this would completely eliminate the lack of instant gratification currently lacking from shopping online. In its place would be the fact that your order would be delivered by a drone. A drone! I would order a pack of pencils just to have them dropped on my front door by a robot. But this revolution will not happen anytime soon. At least not in the States.

Bezos is a marketing genius. Amazon Prime Air is unquestionably more marketing gimmick than service in the pipeline. Even Bezos cautioned on 60 Minutes that drone deliveries are still years out. The air regulations are not in place, and the drone technology still needs to mature.

Amazon is currently under fire for working and hiring practices. They are fighting a losing battle against making customers pay taxes in certain states. The Guardian discovered the retail behemoth skirted paying the UK’s corporation tax despite £7 billion in local sales. And there’s always talk about Amazon’s lack of substantial revenues. But now the company has drones!

If any company in the U.S. could pull this off, it would be Amazon. The retailer has demonstrated its knack for modernization time and time again. Of course there is a list of potential issues including regulations, scaling, and people with Airsoft guns. Innovation will overcome obstacles. However, the slope here is rather slippery. If Amazon can do this, why can’t Walmart? Will this solution to decongest roads simply result in congestion 30 meters above the ground?

Library books on demand. Inter-industrial complex deliveries. Even the delivery of a drone by a drone. The sky is the limit (sorry) for drone deliveries.

The most thrilling [marketing] advancement in recent years was unveiled last night on 60 Minutes. If you missed it—how could you have missed it?—Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos detailed the [marketing] future of his company for millions [of potential customers]: Amazon PrimeAir. The [marketing] future is here, and it is [vague promises of] 30-minute delivery by drones.

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Oh, Amazon. You’re silly. But also very right.

In Amazon’s latest assault on the gadget establishment, the Kindle HDK 8.9 takes on the iPad Air, correctly pointing out that Amazon’s offering has a better screen and is lighter than its Apple counterpart. Plus, the Kindle HDX 8.9 is cheaper.

With this advert, Amazon joins Microsoft in selling their wares directly against Apple’s. This commercial, like some of the Windows tablet tv spots, is rather blunt, right down to a mocking tone of the voice-over narrator. But, arguably, unlike the Microsoft attacks, Amazon’s selling points are valid and worth considering for some buyers.

The Kindle HDX 8.9 is a worthy competitor against the iPad. The screen is more dense and generally higher quality. The HDX is lighter and cheaper. For a good chunk of buyers, as in, those looking to watch YouTube videos, play some older games, and shop Amazon, the HDX is a great option. The only thing the HDX lacks is access to Apple’s iCloud ecosystem that brilliantly syncs commonly used communication and productivity tools across Apple computers and mobile devices.

Amazon has steadily grown into a legitimate consumer electronic company. From humble starts with the original Kindle, the retail giant knows how to start small and scale into a major player. Is the Kindle HDX better than the iPad? Not really, but the gap is quickly closing. Plus, drones.

Let’s ignore, for a moment, all of the obvious problems with a drone-based Amazon Prime delivery system. Let’s ignore the fact that you can get free stuff if you’re a good shot with a rifle. And let’s ignore the fact that a 10-mile range isn’t much when it comes to underserved rural areas and is a jungle of potential snags and snares in urban, populated areas. Let’s ignore the fact that, unless you’re having Amazon deliver something to your secluded place on Martha’s Vineyard, having a robot drop paperback books on your house sounds like a mess.

Let’s ignore the possibility that a drone falls on a person and gives him or her an Amazon Prime haircut. Or worse, let’s assume for a moment that the FAA allows Bezos to pull this off. Let’s figure out how and where Amazon can pull this off.

First, we know that Amazon has the manpower. They have a team of customer service experts on call 24/7 waiting for you to click the Mayday button on your Kindle Fire HDX. Bezos told me himself that they ramped up this massive operation in a few weeks and the customer service reps didn’t even know what they were preparing for until launch. Amazon can throw people a problem in a second.

Next we have companies like Airware that are building smart systems for unmanned drones. Presumably every Prime drone has to be completely manned and include some sort of emergency return system, but a human brain supplemented with a robot brain means a far smoother ride. Add in a simple robotic eye like Centeye and you’re basically as accurate as a Predator drone, albeit one loaded with copies of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid and not Hellfire missiles.

Finally, we know that Amazon has plenty of last-mile problems and wants to expand. This is the ultimate solution for those. This addresses the “where” of the question. Clearly Amazon isn’t going to fly these things in Manhattan. Instead, they will open brand-new markets for the retail giant.

A truck can pull into a rural hamlet and send out five or six drones in a few hours. They can spread out, like so many reverse honey bees, depositing their payloads and returning to the nest. It saves Amazon millions on shipping, it opens up new markets, and it improves their perception in the areas where delivery saturation is low. I can get Amazon stuff delivered overnight in Brooklyn but in some cases that’s far harder than Amazon would like. These drones are the ultimate in cost savings.

We’ve got to hand it to Bezos. This isn’t anything new – remember the Tacocopter? – but that Bezos is behind it catapults it well into the realm of possibility. Drones, as a tool, are very powerful and very smart. Amazon, as a company, is even more powerful and even smarter. It’s a match made in (dare I say it?) lower altitudes.

In a 60 Minutes interview, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon is working on delivery that’s even faster than Prime. The company wants to use octocopters to deliver your order within a half hour.

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