i do think this is a stupid idea, as you say people will take a pop at them, and what if something goes wrong with them, we could be talking thousands of them in our skies.

I don't think this will take off if you excuse the pun.

Al

Just wait for the first one to have a battery or engine failure and it drops on someones head the lawyers will have kittens of joy.

Apparently they will be restricted to lanes at 300ft height and about 100 feet wide a sort of drone highway for delivery's.

No need for airguns security people already have a drone catcher that takes over the signal and lands it at your feet, so all they need to do is hack the site to cherry pick all the expensive items on the way to customer.

Another thing said today was that its a foolproof unhackable system that just wont go wrong and as we all know nothing is unhackable so its already looking like the Hindenberg.

To be able to get a delivery you will need to buy a 'Landing Mat' from them and it must be placed outside so the drone can deliver the item, another advert to the thieves that something expensive may be due for delivery.

Well, I love the idea and I think it will take off; if not now then definitely within 10-15 years.
Unhackable - yeah, that's definitely possible. It's just enough if all of the communication goes over a channel secured with asymmetric cryptography, where the key pair is generated individually per flight. Any tampering would require physical access to the drone.
The issues to solve are quite different: range and maximum load, not the safety. Automated systems will be safer than controlled by an user, and we have plenty of these flying already. Lawyers waiting for an accident to happen? I think it's a bit over exaggerated. If done correctly there will be less accidents than there are caused by delivery vans.

And that's fine, especially since the deliveries to rural locations make the highest cost for the couriers and drive the cost of services in cities up. It will start there, allow the technology to mature and prove its safety, which will be a gateway to further development of such services. We are living in the future, there's no stopping that.

I think the distances they would need to travel in USA in rural areas would be a problem not to mention the irresistable opportunity for someone with a gun to take a shot at what would be a pretty easy target to hit.And how much could they really carry? Plus it would be incredibly inefficient to deliver one package at a time to a rural area.

I could see in an urban area dropping packages within a few miles of a warehouse, but in my area the nearest big city is 45 miles away.

Carl

If you need a landing pad, they will probably incorporate the hire of one in the Prime subscription. It's obviously prime members who have the most deliveries, so it maybe more economical to use drones than endless free next day deliveries.

I can only see them carrying items up to a certain value though due to security risks. A bit like only being able to use contactless cards up to £30. Will be mainly used for books, computer games and DVD's, that sort of thing.