Technology

Today

Aerospace
Technology
timeline
1903 - Orville and

Wilbur Wright fly first

successful self-propelled
airplane.

Job listings highlight safe

outlook for the future of
drone delivery systems.

Black Friday no
bounty as deals,
online shopping
cause sales to fall.

Photo courtesy of Amazon

With today being the one in furtherance of a busiyear anniversary of its offi- ness purpose, and thus,
cial reveal, Amazons idea of the operation would not
delivering its packages via fall within the statutory
drone aircraft has had sev- requirement of recreation
eral hurdles since its initial or hobby purpose. Deannouncement by CEO Jeff spite all of these hang ups,
Bezos.
the agency has promised
The FAA released a plan of that it would research the
action in regards to the use commercial application
of unmanned aircraft sys- of small drones later this
tems last November after 30 year, with potential new
years of deliberation over rules in place possibly by
the matter, and as of this
the end of 2015, allowpast June, its ruling that
ing for Amazon to take
recreational use of unproper action to employ
manned aircraft is illegal has qualified individuals.
seemingly left the idea dead A series of job listings
in the air. The FAA explicitly from the company has
mentioned that, If an indi- revealed that it is looking
vidual offers free shipping in for flight operations engiassociation with a purchase neers, site leaders, project
or other offer, FAA would managers, software develconstrue the shipping to be
Continued on Page 2

Continued on Page 2

E-commerce giant Amazon looks to hire for concepts.

by Steven Gill, via Times, USA Today

1918 - United States

Post Office establishes

airmail service

1950s - Technologies

such as long-range missiles, computer systems,

electronic controls,
combustion chemistry,
and new composite
structures made possible by the aerospace
industry

1972 - NASA begins

the shuttle program

1981 - First Space

Shuttle flight

2004 - Burt Ruan cap-

tures the $10 million X

Prize for the first private manned spacecraft
to exceed an altitude of
328,000.

2013 - Amazon CEO

annouces drone
livery system

de-

by The Associated Press,

with CNBC.com
The Black Friday shopping weekend may be
losing its mojo.
A survey of shoppers
released Sunday by the
National Retail Federation shows how early
discounting, more online
shopping and an improving economy have fewer
people shopping on the
weekend that kicks off the
holiday shopping season.
Overall, 133.7 million
people shopped at stores
and online over the fourday holiday weekend,
down 5.2 percent from
last year, according to a
survey of 4,631 consumers by the trade group.
Total spending for the
weekend is expected to
fall 11 percent to $50.9
billion from an estimated
$57.4 billion last year.
Shoppers, on average,
are expected to spend
$380.95 over the four
days, down 6.4 percent
from $407.02 last year.
Shoppers managed to
take advantage which

Drone Safety

Continued from Page 1

managers, software developers, and office managers, all with mentions of

Amazon Prime Air tagged
alongside them. The posting reads, If you want
to apply state-of-the-art
technologies to solve
extreme-scale real world
problems If you want
the satisfaction of providing visible benefit to
end-users in an iterative
fast paced environment
This is your opportunity.
The new jobs, based at
Amazons Seattle headquarters, will involve
working with regulatory
authorities, planning out
test flights and executing
the flights themselves.
Several years of flight test
experience are required
for the jobs, showing
Amazons mindfulness towards accuracy and safety
for this new venture.

Black Friday
Continued from Page 1
take advantage of early
sales, which many retailers began offering well in
advance of Black Friday.
The shifting of deals and
promotions pushed up
store traffic on Thanksgiving Day by 27.3 percent,
noted retail analytics firm
ShopperTrak, but dampened Black Friday visits
by 5.6 percent. A separate
report showed that online
sales surged year over
year, suggesting consumers may have shifted their
purchases to the Internet.

Amazon Echo to revolutionize

home comfort and entertainment.
By Stevem Gill

Alexa, the code name of the AI used for the voice recognition program, is said to
be capable of continually learning and adding more capability over time.
Photo courtesy of Amazon
With companies such
as Microsoft, Sony, and
Apple revolutionizing the
simplistic, and yet inclusive, nature of the home
entertainment experience
with their various devices,
Seattle-based company
Amazon has continued
to distinguish itself from
its storefront origins. In
efforts to extend its consumer electronics roster,
which includes the Kindle
family of e-readers and
tablets and its recently
introduced Fire TV, with
the Amazon Echo. The
system, capable of deliv-

ering news, information,

and weather, is said to
acoustically fine-tune
itself with the size of any
room to deliver optimal
sound and voice accuracy.
Enhanced sound cancellation, combined with a series of seven microphones
utilizing beam-forming
technology that allows for
directional reception of
sounds, gives the Echo the
capability to answer questions even while playing
music. Hands-free voice
control for online services
is coupled with Bluetooth-enabled capabilites

for streaming services

from your device.
The failings of the Fire
Phone has shown Amazon that the move back
to items that accentuated the various products
that could already be
purchased through the
company could prove to
be more profitable by utilizing the products offered
from the online wholesaler in changing ways with
revolutionary first-party
products to assure their
installed fan base has
potential for continual
growth.