Story By:TJ McCue of Forbes
Amazon’s recent announcement around drone delivery captured the world’s attention. It is a creative idea. But, as Chris Anderson, founder of 3D Robotics (and also the creative mind that has propelled Wired,TED, DIY Drones, and other innovations to success), said about the idea before Amazon even suggested it: “It’s incredibly stupid.”
Now to be clear, I’m a huge fan of Amazon and I would not bet against Mr. Bezos. I know someone who did and still kicks himself for not investing in the company. While I believe they are seriously pursuing it, I don’t believe it will happen in the near term. I would rather follow Chris Anderson into niche markets that need and can use drones today (besides the military) like cropdusting for farming. You can read about his start in drones at Wired.
To read the full story visit:http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/12/31/nevermind-amazon-prime-drones-google-has-future-delivery-vehicle-with-uber/
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
@R_Lefebvre I was a bit shocked at that too w/Forbes not fact checking on the Chris-es :) . With all due respect, is any paper fact checking nowadays?!
Drones and Uber are basically a long term (or tail? ;) ) effect. What Amazon is proposing is similar to Uber in the long run: amazon delivers goods and Uber, well it's a stretch, delivers people. Eventually autonomy is the key factor here and Uber is funded by Google, so naturally: Google+robotics (i.e. 7 companies)+Google Car+Uber == autonomously 'delivering people', aka Amazon drones.
Of course for Forbes, it's big $$$ as Uber is a hot startup. but for most of us, Uber is ride sharing service (that to me runs a lot like craigslist). I've used it, not much different from a taxi, even in wait times at least here in SoCal.
I'm missing a link on dronespeak rofl
Perhaps an underpaid (or not paid) Intern at Forbes.com has learned something lately about fact-checking.
BTW, how's your football? :)
I wasn't suggesting anything untoward. I just at first was surprised, because I had never heard that before. Then on fact checking it, I was surprised that somebody writing for Forbes would make the mistake. ;)
Chris Anderson is a very common name. I'm not the TED founder (although, confusingly, he is a good friend and I've spoken at TED several times). As John points out there is a Wikipedia disambiguation page to refer to on this.
Ah... I see what you mean, Robert. Maybe reporting deadlines result in mistakes. Maybe "our" Chris Anderson can clear up the confusion! :-)
Sidecar is a similar service, as I mentioned in this blog post last July after the sUSB Expo conference..
John, my point was it appears TJ McCue has attributed "our" Chris Anderson as the founder of TED. Seems he made a mistake?
About Uber. There are many others now in mostly urban areas. I think the point of the article is that packages could just as well be delivered by operations like Uber's, instead of by drones.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next