In an appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced prototype delivery drones, or “Octocopters,” that the company hopes to use to “get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less.” A video of a prototype Octocopter, dubbed Amazon Prime Air, shows a worker in an Amazon warehouse putting an order in a box and placing it on a conveyer belt. A boxy, four-legged machine then picks up the box and flies it to a customer’s home. But according to Amazon’s YouTube page, delivery drones won’t be ready anytime soon: “Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.”
“I know this looks like science fiction. It’s not,” Bezos told 60 Minutes. “We can do half-hour delivery… and we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds, which covers 86 percent of the items that we deliver.”
From Amazon: “We’re excited to share Prime Air – something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab. The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. This is footage from a recent test flight.”
