Amazon is testing mini drones which could deliver packages to customers in just 30 minutes, its chief executive has revealed.
During a TV appearance in the United States, Jeff Bezos played a video showing the tiny robotic devices, known as octocopters, which pick up items in small yellow buckets and whiz them through the air.
"I know this looks like science fiction. It's not," Mr Bezos told CBS television's 60 Minutes show.
"We can do half-hour delivery ... and we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds (2.3kg), which covers 86% of the items that we deliver."
The mini drones are powered by electric motors and could cover areas within a 10-mile (16km) radius of fulfilment centres, allowing Amazon to cover a significant portion of the population in urban areas in the US.
Amazon have trialled the drone delivery service - see the Amazon Prime-Air leaving a 'fulfillment centre', or warehouse, in the US above
Aviation approval
The retail giant's ambitious project still requires additional safety testing and federal approval but Mr Bezos estimated that Prime Air, as the service would be called, could be up and running within five years.
The mini drones operate autonomously and drop items at target locations thanks to GPS coordinates transmitted to them.
"It's very green ... better than driving trucks around," said Mr Bezos.
Amazon said the octocopters would be "ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place", noting that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was actively working on rules for unmanned aerial vehicles.
It projected a more optimistic timeline than Mr Bezos himself for the project to be activated, saying the FAA's rules could be in place as early as 2015 and that Amazon Prime Air would be ready at that time.
Staying relevant
Mr Bezos hinted that part of the motivation behind the mini drones was to make sure Amazon remains on the cutting edge of the retail industry.
"Companies have short life spans ... and Amazon will be disrupted one day," he said. "I would love for it to be after I'm dead."
It is not known if there are plans for the service to be launched outside of the US.
