Farmer Richard Barnes from Cambridgeshire in England admitted he is a "bit of a luddite" -- meaning non too tech savvy -- despite receiving the first drone-delivered parcel from online retail giant Amazon. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos first referred to him as "Richard B" in a tweet that described their first commercial drone delivery in Cambridgeshire.
According to The Telegraph, Richard Barnes is not much when it comes to technology. The news website described the irony as "the [delivery] was the culmination of years of development at Amazon's nearby facility" where "some of [England's] brightest engineers" had delivered to a man who did not understand the monumental feats of such technology.
Amazon had approached him for a trial run of their drone program during the summer. After making his orders using his online account through a laptop, his order of a bag of popcorn and an Amazon TV stick sat right in front of his doorstep dropped off by a drone.
The successful delivery via drone is now the springboard for further research and improvements to Amazon's drone program. Analysts found CEO Jeff Bezos as crazy for having drones deliver products to buyers three years ago but the logic continues to make sense as the technology develops steadily.
The popcorn and Amazon TV stick arrived 23 minutes after Richard Barnes verified his purchase. The efficacy of drones provides Amazon a further step towards developing its own transportation network that could one day compete with leading movers UPS and FedEx Corporation. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon faced huge delivery costs despite slow delivery speeds that rose by 43% in 2016's third quarter.
Like all giant companies, Amazon's huge innovative steps could overshadow some issues it has. CEO Jeff Bezos had to defend the company's practices once as allegations of workplace abuse and marginalizing employees with "personal ordeals such as cancer and miscarriages" have surfaced.
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