A video on social media pretty much has everyone looking to the skies above them. Is there really an Amazon blimp sending drones out to deliver packages? Certainly, the company has invested a ton of money in developing these blimp/drone combos, and have said as much. But so far, no one has seen any results. Or have we??
Not at all terrifying pic.twitter.com/KYpEIyY6D6
— Chris Taylor (@christaylor_nyc) April 2, 2019
The video shows Amazon blimps releasing the drones upon an unsuspecting city, which looks to be somewhere in Asia. This lead to outcry. It’s the first sign of Skynet! A Blade Runner-esque dystopian future! (There were those blimps in Blade Runner! It was foretold!) A parody video of the Amazon blimp made the rounds set to the Imperial March from Star Wars even.
Alas, the video is indeed a fake. According to a report by Gizmodo, the very convincing looking Amazon drone blimp was created by a video production artist in Hiroshima, Japan who goes by the Twitter handle zozi009. Via images of the renderings, one can see the Amazon blimp and drones were completely fabricated on a computer. Major props go to zozi009, because even to the well-trained eye, these blimps were very hard to clock as phony.
午後のネタバレ。信じてる人は皆無だろうけど一応。thetaVでHDRI作ってそのままライティングした。後ろに余計なものも入れてみたけどあまり気づかれてない模様。 pic.twitter.com/o4P8z5agz9
— zozi(厳島神社の人） (@zozi009) April 1, 2019
Fake or not, sooner or later, the Amazon drone blimps will happen, and our skies will be dotted with them. And once Amazon does it, other companies will all soon follow. I suppose it seems kind of scary. However, when commercial flights became an everyday thing, people were terrified. They thought it would ruin the skies and begin the end of the world. Now we don’t even think about it.
Of course, a drone-deploying blimp can be used to deliver far more nefarious products than that nice comforter you ordered. Maybe there is a reason to be scared after all.
Images: Albert Ross
