Amazon's Prime Air Drones Will Soon Make Deliveries In Texas (engadget.com) 52
Amazon says it will start contacting customers in College Station, Texas, to gauge their interest in receiving orders via Prime Air. Engadget reports: Amazon says it was impressed by many elements of the city, including the research being conducted by Texas A&M University, such as work on drone technology. The US Census Bureau estimates the population of College Station was 120,000 as of last July, so while it isn't the biggest city around, it seems like a decent size for the initially rollout of Prime Air.
"Amazon's new facility presents a tremendous opportunity for College Station to be at the forefront of the development of drone delivery technology," Karl Mooney, the mayor of College Station, said. "We look forward to partnering with Amazon and Texas A&M and are confident that Amazon will be a productive, conscientious, and accountable participant in our community."
"Amazon's new facility presents a tremendous opportunity for College Station to be at the forefront of the development of drone delivery technology," Karl Mooney, the mayor of College Station, said. "We look forward to partnering with Amazon and Texas A&M and are confident that Amazon will be a productive, conscientious, and accountable participant in our community."
What a lovely idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Having bought a property far from major roads and businesses, I look forward to my hard earned peace and quiet being disrupted by that annoying buzz of drones delivering stuff to my neighbours...
Re:What a lovely idea (Score:5, Funny)
Buy some noise-cancelling headphones from Amazon. Duh!
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Re: What a lovely idea (Score:2)
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Except for that Federal law about shooting at aircraft. Minor detail.
EMP isnt a bullet and doesnt kill anyone.
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Except for that Federal law about shooting at aircraft. Minor detail.
EMP isnt a bullet and doesnt kill anyone.
Shooting a drone doesn't kill anyone either, unless it hits them in the head.
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Except for that Federal law about shooting at aircraft. Minor detail.
EMP isnt a bullet and doesnt kill anyone.
Doesn't matter, Federal law makes it a felony to willfully interfering, damage or destroy any aircraft under special jurisdiction of the US, which would include drones since they fall under FAA jurisdiction. Civil action is also possible. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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You have guns, and laws that say your allowed to defend your property. They are an invasion of your property Have at them.
As someone living in the Bryan/College Station metro area, we also have laws that say we’re not allowed to discharge firearms within city limits.
And yes, they do enforce that law. This isn’t the Wild West. This is a sleepy suburban-feeling area without a neighboring urban center.
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This is a sleepy suburban-feeling area without a neighboring urban center.
For now. Soon the Tech Industry will come for you as they have come for many other college towns.
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Maybe “sleepy” gives the wrong impression of how things are here.
Texas A&M is the biggest university in the US (both in terms of land area and student population), and is one of only a handful to have land, sea, and space grants, so tech is already here to the extent that it wants to be here. Aerospace, oil & gas, automotive, finance, chip design, robotics, genetics, defense, construction, etc.. You name it, it probably has a branch here in B/CS, especially since land is cheap, student l
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Looks like your data is a little out of date. University of Central Florida is now the largest university by student population. (71,948 vs 71,109) https://www.worldatlas.com/art... [worldatlas.com]
If you start adding remote/online enrollment, things get even more confusing.
= Community College of the Air Force -- 351,715
= Phoenix University -- 165,743
= Southern New Hampshire University -- 80,000
= Liberty University -- 75,044
= UMass Online -- 75,000
https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/. [uopeople.edu]
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Actually, the numbers I saw were a year more recent than the ones you linked and showed A&M around 73.5K. Regardless, I didn’t bring it up as a pissing contest (I really don’t care), so if UCF or someone else is bigger, that’s fine. The point is: A&M is huge and I brought up its student population to help shape an understanding of, or perhaps add some caveats to, what I meant when I described the place I live as “sleepy”. As such, I was referring exclusively to in-perso
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Mea Culpa. I didn't see any newer information in my search, but to be honest, I didn't do due diligence in verifying the timeliness of my information. I Googled to see what the student population at A&M was (HUGE!) and found the link I posted. My Alma Mater population was small by comparison (11K students)
Then I wondered about adding in remote studies, part-time, adult learning, etc. and found CCAF was by far the largest in this category, with the caveat that they only award Associate Degrees, not ba
AIr delivery of over the counter Plan B (Score:5, Funny)
Pharmaceuticals are an ideal low weight high cost item to deliver. I look forward to getting abortion pills delivered in Texas by drones from neighboring states.
Re: What a lovely idea (Score:2)
What are you going to do about your neighbor's tractors, ATVs, or shooting shit in their own backyards? Or the general aviation airstrip a town over. You still live in a place that has neighbors, and you might enjoy some of those things yourself. I can't imagine drone deliveries really being a problem out in the country honestly.
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They'll be target practice.
Why??? (Score:3, Insightful)
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WE don't want to pay humans, because WE want next day free delivery :-(
Airway robbery (Score:3, Funny)
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Nah, the he-boy shooter will just send Rover out to pick up the now fallen package..."who's a good dogie, who's a good dogie?!!" Texas dog stands up on hind legs, pulls out a six-shooter, plugs ownwe in ass...."who's a good human, who's a good human?!!". Wife comes out of the house, "who's a good dogie, who's a good dogie?!!".
Re:Airway robbery (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the high level of gun ownership in USA won't people just shoot them down then steal the delivery?
High level of gun ownership does not equate to high levels of competence in gun use. Most US gun nuts struggle to hit even a stationary target at anything except the closest of ranges never mind a moving target and that's not me talking, that's me quoting several of my American gun-owning friends who put some ambition into being good at using the guns. A whole lot of US gun nuts are also blissfully unaware of the fact that what goes up, must come down and that bullets that miss don't just come to a screeching halt in mid air and drop to the ground, they keep going and hit stuff you weren't aiming at.
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Hopefully most of them will use shotguns, which are the least dangerous gun to fire into the air, at least if loaded with bird shot. And that seems the logical load for drones.
Most US gun owners have inadequate range time period. It's not cheap. It's also not even easy to find a rifle range in most places, though handgun ranges are everywhere. And when you do, many if not most private gun ranges require NRA membership, because the NRA provides range insurance to members.
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Hopefully most of them will use shotguns, which are the least dangerous gun to fire into the air, at least if loaded with bird shot. And that seems the logical load for drones.
Most US gun owners have inadequate range time period. It's not cheap. It's also not even easy to find a rifle range in most places, though handgun ranges are everywhere. And when you do, many if not most private gun ranges require NRA membership, because the NRA provides range insurance to members.
I sometimes correspond with a few US based guy enthusiasts who are pretty strict on safety. They tell me that there are some ranges they just don't go to due to these ranges begin full of muppets that seem to be blissfully ignorant of even the basics of gun safety. They prefer the ranges run by an old retired soldier that yells at people for safety violations. As for range insurance, I'm surprised that is not included in your household insurance?!? That begin said, I'm theorising that these drones will prob
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Plus, if you shoot it down the package will come crashing to the ground at terminal velocity. Maybe with a bullet hole in it.
I expect these things have cameras all over them too.
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Given the high level of gun ownership in USA...
This is in Texas so multiply the number by five or six.
I'm not sure how many of those are shotguns though. Drones will be hard to hit with handguns.
Birdshot or buckshot? Maybe alternate them when you load.
Re: Airway robbery (Score:2)
So if you buy a drone ... (Score:2, Funny)
Aaand.... (Score:1)
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Interesting potential (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it'll be interesting to see what odd issues arise from this.
What happens if the drone accidentally drops the package?
If it crashes?
If it damages property?
If it is shot down or stolen?
If it catches glimpses inside someone's house?
If its battery dies before it makes it back home?
If it breaks noise ordinances?
If it hits a power/telecom line?
These are just a few that pop into my head, that I'm sure Amazon has already been thinking about. But I bet there are a dozen more issues that no one sees coming once this is really operational.
My new hobby... (Score:4, Funny)
Building an auto-tracking EMP turret in a dog igloo in my back yard to see how many drones I can bag without leaving any evidence whatsoever...
In the future they might be ornithopters! (Score:2)
So you could get your Christmas present delivered by Owl!
Did Wendover get this all wrong? (Score:2)
I wonder which of the reasons mentioned in that documentation have changed recently?
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Of course they haven't thought through all of the potential issues.
This drone stuff is a product of the "Move Fast and Break Stuff" generation.
Texans will use these for target practice (Score:1)
Message to my haters: be sure to keep using up your mod points on my reposts of reposts of reposts, so I run you dry, mmkay? Then you'll all be as toothless as, well, you are, you ridiculous MAGA-hat wearing geezers.
Also how about we use Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott for target practice? Better use for them than what they're doing now.
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LOL.
You people are at least as bad as Putin and Russia at gaslighting. Why do you even bother? No one believes you, everyone sees you for the garbage that you really are. Yet you persist in this utter and complete nonsense.
No matter. You re
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