Look up in the next few years and you could see the sky filling with automated airborne deliveries if Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has his way.
In a dramatic announcement made on prime time TV on Sunday night, the world's largest online retailer revealed it is testing premium same-day product delivery using small, pilotless helicopters called drones.
Around the size of a coffee table and able to take off and land vertically, the delivery drones are highly maneuverable with a top speed of 50 km/h.
It's parceled and slung under the drone which then takes off and drops the delivery on the patio of the customer's house within 30 minutes of placing the order before flying away again.
Even though his copter idea is causing quite a stir, with so many technical and regulatory challenges on the horizon, Jeff Bezos will be lucky to get the idea off the ground in the next 5 years.
Many of challenges faced by Bezos' airforce are similar to any freight distribution service. Within his fleet of delivery vehicles he has to solve the problems of wayfinding, fuel efficiency, asset tracking, safety, efficiency and scheduling.
This is complicated by traffic and congestion and collision avoidance problems through the airspace and the weather will be hard on the maintenance of his small but magnificent flying machines.
It's one thing to run out of fuel on the side of the road but to have cargo falling out of the sky will be seriously hazardous. A multi-billion business like Amazon could probably afford to take the risk but most businesses can't.
Even his fellow billionaire and tech entrepreneur Bill Gates has said, diplomatically, that Bezos is overly optimistic about his timelines. But, he says, "Tech pioneers dream big dreams, and I think he's allowed to have a vision".
Unlike the high profile flying gimmicks from the big-bucks businessman, GPS vehicle tracking software and fleet management is available here and now from Transpoco.
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