Government grounds Amazon drones

Amazon.com has overcome the forces gravity to deliver their customers with superb service, will the retail giant be able to overcome the formidable forces of... government bureaucracy?

Politico reports:

The safety question falls to the FAA, which is set to issue regulations for the smaller drones Amazon plans to use early next year. The FAA is separately planning to use test sites to help craft rules for larger drones that will share airspace with existing planes, although it declined to say whether any of them would involve drones intended for commercial delivery.

Amazon said it was working with the the agency to develop the rules, and the FAA confirmed to POLITICO on Monday that “Jeff Bezos let our safety organization know of his plans.”

The FAA has already shown reluctance to push the technological envelope too far — witness the years of debate it took for the agency to finally allow airline passengers to keep their e-readers and tablets switched on during takeoff and landing.