While most of the world probably thinks the idea of Amazon using drones to deliver packages is a joke or a figment of Jeff Bezos' imagination, the Amazon CEO told shareholders this week that Prime Air is on its way to becoming a reality.
Bezos gave this tidbit of news in a letter to Amazon shareholders and while he did not come right out and use the word drone he alluded to the project.
"The Prime Air team is already flight testing our 5th and 6th generation aerial vehicles, and we are in the design phase on generations 7 and 8," he said.
The drone delivery system first came to light when Bezos brought up the idea when he appeared on 60 Minutes back in December. Amazon even posted a cute video of an aerial vehicle delivering a package to a home. The company has no timetable for making the program operational. In addition to the technical issues, there are FAA regulations that also have to be taken into consideration.
Bezos did not limit himself to pie-in-the-sky experimental delivery options, but he ran through those based on ground vehicles that the company has put into practice. These being Sunday deliver service that Amazon kicked off in select cities in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service. The company will increase the areas where this is available in 2014, he said.
At an even lower tech level Bezos mentioned the Amazon bike carriers it uses in places like India and China where there is a limited delivery infrastructure. It also put into place a last-mile service in the UK because the local carriers could not handle the company's volume at certain times.
Bezos also addressed its new Fire TV box.
"Fire TV has big hardware specs in a category that's previously been hardware-light. It shows. Fire TV is fast and fluid. And our ASAP technology predicts what you might want to watch and pre-buffers it, so shows start instantly. Our team also put a small microphone in the remote control. Hold down the mic button on the remote, and you can speak your search term rather than type it into an alphabet grid. The team has done a terrific job - the voice search actually works," he wrote.
Also being mentioned was Amazon Game Studios, which has developed its first game called Sev Zero. The company has big plans for this and upcoming games, including being able to play them on devices such as the Fire tablet.
