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Amazon Go hints at the future of retail stores

Shopping cart
The checkout-less shopping experience envisioned for the Amazon Go store is part of a long-term trend in retail automation. (Bigstock Photo)

First there were supermarket shelves. Then barcode scanners, then self-checkout lines, then online shopping. Amazon’s move to take the grocery checkout counter completely out of the loop is the latest disappearing act for the brick-and-mortar retail experience.

But it’s not unexpected: Walmart and Whole Foods also have been working on ways to streamline grocery shopping, using automation and robotics. And the competition could heat up quickly.

“Retailers will be looking to understand what percentage of their current customers are utilizing Amazon, with the thinking that these will be the customers that are most at risk to the Amazon threat,” Matt Sargent, senior vice president for retail at Frank N. Magid Associates, wrote last week in a post that anticipated Amazon’s latest move.

Magid’s research suggests that Amazon shoppers are weighted in favor of the under-44 population, those with kids in the household, those who go to grocery stores more than once a week, and those who make it a point to buy locally. In short, just the kinds of customers that grocery stores want to hang onto.

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Related story: Amazon to open first checkout-less grocery store in early 2017

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How Britain sees the drone revolution

Amazon drone
Amazon is testing its delivery drone system in Britain. (Amazon Photo)

Regulators have to work out lots of issues before they let drones start delivering packages routinely, but in Britain at least, there’s a timetable.

“We’ve got a soft target of 2020,” Michael Clark, deputy director at Britain’s Department for Transport, told GeekWire. And although the Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t announced its own timetable, 2020 could well be a soft target for U.S. operations as well.

Clark and other British transport officials discussed the U.K. perspective on unmanned aircraft systems last week while visiting the States for the Drone World Expo in San Jose, Calif.

Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority is playing a key role in Amazon’s plans to develop delivery drones, highlighted by the Seattle-based retailer’s flight test program near Cambridge.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke warmly about the company’s relationship with British regulators last month at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. “We’re getting really good cooperation from the British equivalent of the FAA, the CAA,” he said. “It’s incredible. It’s really cool.”

For what it’s worth, the feeling is mutual: “Amazon is a pathfinder,” Clark said.

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Jeff Bezos shares big ideas at Museum of Flight

Jeff Bezos
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos shows off a tortoise cufflink during the Pathfinder Awards banquet at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. The tortoise symbolizes the approach Bezos takes with his Blue Origin space venture. “We believe slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” he says. (Credit: Tania Shepard / Azzura Photography)

Someday, you’ll be printing out a landing pad to guide an Amazon drone to its delivery, or maybe taking a suborbital space trip on a Blue Origin rocket ship, or marveling over the mechanism of a clock designed to run for 10,000 years.

Such were the visions laid out by Amazon’s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, on Oct. 22 as he received one of this year’s Pathfinder Awards from the Museum of Flight.

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Boeing to convert nine 767 jets for Amazon Air

Amazon Prime Air jet
The first branded Amazon Prime Air jet, operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings under a lease agreement, made its public debut in August. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

Boeing says it will convert nine used 767 passenger jets into freighters for Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, which will use them in its cargo transport operations for Amazon.

Amazon made a splash in August when it unveiled its first branded Prime Air jet and spilled the details about its air cargo ambitions.

New York-based Atlas Air as well as Ohio-based Air Transport Services Group have been flying packages for the online retailing giant for months. By the end of 2018, each of the companies expects to be operating 20 leased 767 jets for Amazon deliveries.

Atlas Air spokeswoman Bonnie Rodney told GeekWire via email that her company is currently using one aircraft – the branded 767 that made its public debut at Seattle’s Seafair festival. But she added that “we have acquired the vast majority of the aircraft that we will need for Amazon … and we have secured all of the conversion slots” for Amazon Prime Air’s jets.

That includes the nine slots announced today.

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Reporter hunts for Amazon’s drones in Britain

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Amazon is expanding its drone testing operation in the English countryside, to smooth the way for what it hopes will be an aerial package delivery system. But exactly where are the tests taking place?

Based on clues from the BBC, plus interviews with local sources, Business Insider’s Sam Shead went out to farm fields southeast of Cambridge, near a place called Worsted Lodge.

In one of the fields, he found two bases that were located at each end of the acreage, about 400 meters (a quarter-mile) apart. Next to each of the bases, there were apparent landing spots made from patches of artificial grass.

The locale is near Amazon’s research and development center in Cambridge, which would make it handy for drone testing teams. But there’s at least one piece of evidence that’s missing: No drones were spotted.

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Amazon provides a peek at delivery drone design

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A figure from Amazon’s patent application shows how a delivery drone’s rotors would be encased in a protective shroud. (Credit: Amazon via USPTO)

A newly published patent application almost literally delves into the nuts and bolts of the package-delivering drones that Amazon is developing – but it also makes clear that the look of the drones could vary, depending on where and how they’re being used.

The proposed designs include quadcopters and octocopters, drones with motors as wide as 18 inches that are mounted vertically to push the craft and its cargo through the air, and drones with fixed wings that extend well beyond the craft’s protective shroud.

That safety shroud is the common thread in all of the described designs.

The application was filed in December 2014 by Gur Kimchi and Rick Welsh, two of the lead engineers for Amazon Prime Air, but published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office only last week.

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Photos: Amazon One wows the Seafair crowd

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Amazon’s first “Prime Air” cargo jet soars over Seafair. (Credit: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures)

Amazon’s first branded cargo jet made its daylight debut today at Seattle’s Boeing Seafair Air Show, but not before show announcer Mark Christopher drummed up a bit of drama.

As the program got under way, Christopher drew the attention of hundreds of spectators to a white dot approaching from the north. “It seems like a normal jet, but this is about to make history,” he said.

Then, as Seafair fans made out the Prime Air lettering on the side of the Boeing 767-300 jet, and the Amazon smile logo painted on its tail, the announcer made the formal introduction.

“Flying for the first time is Amazon One!” Christopher boomed as the plane buzzed past, just 500 feet above Lake Washington.

Check out all the pictures on GeekWire.

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Amazon Prime Air jet makes stealthy debut

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Amazon’s first branded freighter jet sits inside a Boeing hangar. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

The first freighter jet to carry the Amazon brand is primed for its public debut in Seafair’s sunny skies, after making a stealthy flight from New York to Seattle in the middle of the night.

“It’s hard for me not to be a little bit giddy, almost. This is the first time I’ve actually seen the plane in person,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said at a press preview that took place behind closed hangar doors at the Boeing Co.’s Seattle Delivery Center on Aug. 4.

The plane, emblazoned with “Amazon” on its belly, “Prime Air” on its sides and the Amazon smile logo on its tail, will fly over Lake Washington during the Boeing Seafair Air Show at around 1:15 p.m. Aug. 5 through 7. Until now, the big reveal was kept so hush-hush that Seafair organizers referred to the event only as a “Special Guest Flyover.”

The Boeing 767-300 jet is part of what will eventually become a fleet of 40 planes, transporting cargo between Amazon’s distribution centers for delivery to customers. Clark said the planes will mesh with Amazon’s network of 4,000 branded truck trailers, the Uber-like Amazon Flex delivery system, and the services provided by transportation partners such as UPS and FedEx.

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Less ugh, more yay on Amazon Prime Day

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Cute kitten or Exploding Kittens on Amazon Prime Day? You decide. (Credit: Amazon via Twitter)

Amazon says its second annual Prime Day outdid the first one on the sales front – and although some Twitter users reported “Add to Cart” fails, the social-media metrics for Tuesday’s shopping extravaganza showed improvement as well.

At least that’s the verdict from Adobe Digital Insights, which cites figures that are at least as solid as Amazon’s sales report. The assessment is based on more than 4 million blips that were aggregated from blogs, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress, Reddit, Foursquare and other sources in July 2015 and July 2016.

Check out the five top takeaways on GeekWire.

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Amazon’s drone plan leaves issues up in the air

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One of the Amazon Prime Air prototypes has horizontal and vertical rotors. (Amazon photo)

How much will it cost to get a 30-minute drone delivery from Amazon Prime Air? A newly published interview with Amazon executive Paul Misener suggests that the pricing question and other key issues have yet to be figured out.

In the interview with Yahoo Tech columnist David Pogue, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy provides a detailed run-through of the Seattle-based online retailer’s plan for aerial delivery dominance.

Many of the details have been laid out before. Others appear to remain up in the air.

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