Bye bye Australia Post?

[Sventek]

Well, maybe...

Amazon Testing Octocopters for Delivery, CEO Tells

[MADOGA]

i think There was a thread about using these things to deliver pizzas a few weeks ago,

ultimately these flying gizmos will be just used to spy on us.

[BikeRider]

Courier services maybe but I cannot see it delivering mail when there is no standardised placement of letter boxes. Some of the letter boxes I've delivered to are set in a position where a contortionist would feel right at home so there are distinct limitations to a robotic system.

[98kellrs]

A van can carry like 200 parcels vs. an octocopter carrying one or two. Surely can't be worth the effort?

"Sorry sir we lost your parcel because the operator forgot to recharge the batteries and it plummeted 200m into the concrete...killing a pedestrial in the process."

[=Stevo=]

A van can carry like 200 parcels vs. an octocopter carrying one or two. Surely can't be worth the effort?

"Sorry sir we lost your parcel because the operator forgot to recharge the batteries and it plummeted 200m into the concrete...killing a pedestrial in the process."

Not one for one, but lets assume each copter costs $5k mass produced, and a van is 60k with all the on road costs, you could afford a dozen of them for the same price... and no driver wages, as well as minimal fuel bills (light electricity use) and they probably land on their own little self-recharging station/dock thing.

12 copters delivering 1 parcel each, every 30 mins would be the equivalent of one driver delivering a parcel every 2.5 minutes. I think the copters would win.

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

Yep.

If you can be replaced by a robot you eventually will be.

Won't happen in short order, but over the next few decades as people with heavy reliance on physical postage continue to literally die off, postal services aren't worth running with humans.

Think about it. Once you nail the logic for the addressing system and the hardware is useful enough for the drops, paying a warm body to do this shit becomes a bad idea really quickly.

[rod]

Yeah, lookout Australia Post! Imagine the japes during school holidays as bored kids get onto the "take down the drone + win a prize" thing. But yeah, a lot of people are either on borrowed time, or should be on borrowed time when it comes to being replace by a robot. I hear some Amazon shareholders are interviewing Magic 8 Balls right now to replace their meat-based CEO right now.....

[mekon]

Better spent using copters to follow parcel post and couriers and recon them and if slacking off with my deliveries or stealing them launch a drone and drop a small incendiary device into their laps.