Amazon: An A to Z innovations trailblazer

Amazon has always valued itself to ideate and germinate the most ‘far-out' projects on the transformative technology front. To quote CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, "If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you’re going to double your inventiveness."

A true pioneer, in every sense of the word, Bezos goes by a very subtle and ingenious ideology: "It's always Day 1." This all-encompassing notion is what drives the company to not be a driftwood, rather be the fulcrum of groundbreaking innovations.

Image: Shutterstock

After establishing itself as an e-commerce giant, the company, in the last five years, has indulged in exhaustive future technology research. Advancing their focus into inventing and developing 'unique' products and services that grant customers an unprecedented user-experience. Be it the launch of its Prime Video in 2006, to the introduction of Alexa as a steady response to Apple’s Siri - the company never limited its avenues, given it started as an online book store.

This is a transformation that Amazon is proud of, if the news of its futuristic launches are any indication. On that note, here are seven of the company’s futuristic game-changers that the world should be excitedly looking out for.

Dropping packages via parachutes

• After its first successful drone delivery in the UK last December, Amazon is breaking new grounds with its delivery-by-drone method. At present it's testing a technique by which packages will be airdropped by drones and descend by means of parachute. Yes, you heard that right.

The initiative was recently patented and would presumably deliver the goods safely without harming either the contents or anything (or anyone) on the ground.

Underwater storage

• One of the company’s latest concept calls for underwater warehousing, thus reducing the pains of a complex web of limited on-ground storage. This involves airdropping packages into water bodies, then sunk to a specific water-level based on its density. When the particular package is up for delivery, a series of acoustic tones will be beamed to activate an in-built balloon to inflate by means of a gas canister and be collected for shipping. Not only will this concept help utilise and make accessible all the vast unused space, it can allow for multiple packages to be stored at varying water-depths, almost like a makeshift water-shelf.

Flying warehouse

• In the later part of last year, the company, through the US Patent and Trademark Office announced its plans to create an ‘airborne fulfilment centre’. This roughly translates to commissioning a ‘flying warehouse’, accessible by drones, to make seemingly speedy deliveries. According to CNN, this could help reduce the unnecessary amount of resources needed to make deliveries.

Echo Look

Echo Look, a new Amazon device with built-in LED lighting and depth-sensing camera, was recently unveiled at an event. At $199.99, it allows users to take full-length photos and videos, that too hands-free. The device also incorporates Amazon’s Alexa, which is said to rope in up to $10 billion in revenue to the company by 2020.

Army of in-house gadget experts

• The company announced only recently that it has been building its own silent army. This consists of in-house gadget experts, to offer free Alexa consultations as well as product installations to customers, for a base fee. Though relatively new, the service is active in seven different markets. The venture aims to help its customers set up a ‘smart home’, and help them use the company’s in-house devices most effectively.

Amazon Go

Through Amazon Go, a customer can visit a store, pick out the things they need off the shelf, and then walk out without having to wait in a long line! Using the same technology that is used in self-driving cars and sensor fusion, Amazon Go helps keep track of the kind and number of objects which are being taken off the shelves - with the receipt for the entire shopping list being charged to the customer’s Amazon account.

On the surface Amazon Go seems like it's competing just with dominating retail and supermarket chains, but the ingenuity of the idea could be giving stiff competition to online payment portals.

Amazon Rekognition Update

While this isn’t a new concept per say, the company updated and launched its ‘Amazon Rekognition’ last week. Owing to the new update, Amazon can now identify and contain suggestive or explicit content, while customers visit your website. It will also come with a series of new filters, using which you can determine the kind of images and content you think is appropriate to put up on your site.