Between launching a charity-friendly buying program, announcing Sunday deliveries, and gearing up for the first wave of frenzied holiday shoppers, Amazon has been busy these past few weeks. But that didn't stop CEO Jeff Bezos from spending a decent chunk of time talking to Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes about something, well, new.
60 Minutes has been more than happy to tease the unveiling with a clip of Bezos leading Rose into a room to show him something that elicited an “Oh my God!” from the veteran TV journo. The exclamation seemed to stem from a place of pleasure rather than worry, but the segment just aired and the truth is out.
So what did Bezos' have up his proverbial sleeves? Amazon PrimeAir drones that could feasibly be used as autonomous delivery vehicles. To hear the chief executive tell it, those electric drones - or “octocopters” as he referred to them - could make for delivery times as low as 30 minutes. Naturally, the size of those drones means there's a strict upper limit to how much cargo they can carry, but Bezos says they can carry packages of up to five pounds for round trips as long as 10 miles. Thankfully for Amazon, that means nearly 86% of the items that it carries can be lashed onto one of its sky-bound couriers.
Just don't expect to see one of them land on your doorstep any time soon. The FAA still hasn't given its blessing to domestic drones yet (though it just recently laid out its vision for such a situation) which means the earliest Amazon will be legally able to bring PrimeAir online is in 2015 - a launch window that Bezos says is “optimistic” at best.
This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.
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