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Jeff Bezos: Amazon's Drones Could Deliver Packages in 30 Minutes or Less

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Amazon's "Prime Air" Delivery Drones
Amazon's "Prime Air" drones are being designed as a same-day delivery system. (Image credit: Amazon.com)

If next-day delivery just isn't fast enough, Amazon may one day have a quicker (and more sci-fi) alternative for your online shopping needs: Drones that can transport packages from the retail giant's warehouse to your front door in 30 minutes or less.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos discussed the idea of using drones to deliver goods to customers in an interview Sunday night (Dec. 1) on "60 Minutes." The futuristic same-day delivery system, dubbed Prime Air, will consist of so-called octocopters that can airlift packages that weigh up to five pounds to any destination within a 10-mile radius of an Amazon warehouse, reported Bloomberg News.

"I know this looks like science fiction," Bezos said in the interview, according to the New York Times. "It's not."

Amazon's website promoting Prime Air states the technology is ready to enter commercial operations, but hinges on rulings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is currently working on regulations to govern the use of commercial drones.

"We hope the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015," the company wrote on the Prime Air website. "We will be ready at that time."

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Denise Chow
Denise Chow
Live Science Contributor

Denise Chow was the assistant managing editor at Live Science before moving to NBC News as a science reporter, where she focuses on general science and climate change. Before joining the Live Science team in 2013, she spent two years as a staff writer for Space.com, writing about rocket launches and covering NASA's final three space shuttle missions. A Canadian transplant, Denise has a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto, and a master's degree in journalism from New York University.