Did you see the 60 Minutes piece on Amazon’s plans to launch a drone delivery service? My social media streams were all abuzz with that story last night. On the program, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed a secret project to develop “Octocopter” drones – mini helicopters that will deliver packages us in just 30 minutes. According to Bezos, the drone delivery system (called Amazon Prime Air) will lift off in just 4 or 5 years. (Bezos may be a bit behind the trend – the Toronto Sun ran a story last week about drones delivering contraband packages to Quebec prison yards.) Right after the piece aired, I read The Future Is Physical, a smart blog post from IT about drones and what the future holds for us beyond package deliveries and government security. In the post, writer Bernie Michalik outlines a number of ways drones will become part of our everyday lives, and sooner that we might think:

People will have their own drones … There will be entertainment drones, security drones, maintenance drones, drones you can’t even imagine having yet, though you will.

It’s a quick and very smart post. Give it a read while you’re waiting for your online Amazon order to be processed? As an aside, the writer is someone who I have known as a Twitter friend for a couple of years, and have only recently met in person. That’s the kind of thing I couldn’t have envisioned 10 years ago. The future. It’s now. What do you think? Will you welcome the drones?