It was a good year for imaginative military innovations. From "Star Wars"-style speeders to an inescapable surveillance drone, many of the futuristic advances seem straight out of science fiction or Hollywood blockbusters. Remember those speeder bikes in "Return of the Jedi" that raced through the air? The US military may get to zoom around the battlespace on a type of real-life version in the not-so-distant future. Malloy Aeronautics and SURVICE Engineering Company teamed up to further develop Malloy's Hoverbike for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Besides government regulations, bad weather, weight restrictions, and all the other issues that plague Amazon's budding drone delivery service, the company must also face the prospect of thieves shooting down drones to steal their packages. It's a problem that Amazon has been working on since at least 2014, when it filed a patent for "countermeasures" to protect drones against everything from gunshots to hackers breaching its navigation software. The patent was approved last week, GeekWire reported, offering insight into how Amazon intends to safeguard drone-borne packages of the future. The patent describes two main lines of defense for the drones. The first are electronic systems designed to detect signal jammers or other hacking attempts, including a backup communications interface if the primary one is compromised.

That's what the likes of Amazon hope. Drones have the potential to carry small items quickly from one place to another without having to worry about traffic, personnel costs or labour strikes. But it's a bit more complicated than that: drones as we know them today are either giant, expensive killing machines or small, hovering things that can carry little more than a camera. Most can already ferry a small box of items weighing a couple of kilograms, but Amazon and others are looking to build drones capable of carrying up to 25kg for around 10 miles, likely meaning packages weighing under 3kg each. Good enough for onions and a pint of milk – but forget getting your next washer-drier flown into your back yard.

Further automation of the retail sector raises issues far beyond the needless luxuries of choice, convenience and speed of delivery (Amazon to test drone deliveries in British skies, 27 July). I wonder if the "demand" for stuff to be delivered by robot to our door within 30 minutes of ordering really exists – is modern satisfaction really that shallow? But in an increasingly automated society, where are the wages to buy these goods going to come from? While Brexit showed that politicians were detached from the anger of the dispossessed of this country, where are they on the automation of yet more of the jobs that so many people depend on? It seems they are keen to race headlong into a very misty future.

Amazon has filed for a patent on a flying warehouse equipped with drones to deliver goods. The warehouse would be carried by an airship and would visit places where Amazon expects there to be high levels of demand. The patent also covers support vehicles designed to restock the structure, which would hover 45,000ft (14,000m) in the air. Documents show Amazon believes the combination of the flying warehouse and drones would deliver goods considerably faster than ground-based warehouses, the BBC reported. There are suggestions the warehouses would be located above festivals or sporting events and smaller airships could act as shuttles taking drones, people and supplies to the warehouse.

Amazon has filed a patent for flying warehouses that could use a fleet of drones to make deliveries to customers. A patent document filed in 2014 in the US describes giant airships as "airborne fulfilment centres" (AFCs) that could be stationed above metropolitan areas and used to store and quickly deliver items at times of high demand, using drones dispatched directly from the airship. The technology and e-commerce giant is already testing drone deliveries in the UK, and made its first commercial delivery under the trial in Cambridgeshire this month. The patent filing also suggests smaller aircraft and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could ferry workers to and from the ship as well as replenish stock. "The AFC may be an airship that remains at a high altitude (eg 45,000ft) and UAVs with ordered items may be deployed from the AFC to deliver ordered items to user-designated delivery locations," the filing reads.

Amazon is exploring the use of giant airships to serve as mobile, flying warehouses that could help the online retail giant deliver more of its goods by drone. You might already be familiar with Amazon's drone delivery service, which recently received a demo in Britain for the first time. But the idea for a fleet of large airships, disclosed in filings to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, expand on those ambitions dramatically. Imagine you're at a baseball game and wanted to buy a meal or a jersey without ever leaving your seat. The system Amazon describes would allow you to place an order and receive the item within minutes.

Some commentators said it was just a publicity stunt. But the notion began to seem less far-fetched when Google revealed its own drone-based delivery effort in 2014, something it calls Project Wing. And in the early months of 2016, DHL actually integrated drones into its logistics network, albeit in an extremely limited way--delivering packages to a single mountaintop in Germany that is difficult to access by car in winter. "It started to get momentum after serious players came in," says Parimal Kopardekar, NASA's senior engineer for air transportation systems, who has been researching ways to work these buzzing little contraptions into an air traffic control system created for full-size aircraft. "We need to accommodate drones."

Amazon has filed a patent for massive flying warehouses equipped with fleets of drones that deliver goods to key locations. Carried by an airship, the warehouses would visit places Amazon expects demand for certain goods to boom. It says one use could be near sporting events or festivals where they would sell food or souvenirs to spectators. The patent also envisages a series of support vehicles that would be used to restock the flying structures. The filing significantly expands on Amazon's plans to use drones to make deliveries. Earlier this month it made the first commercial delivery using a drone via a test scheme running in Cambridge.

Amazon plans to use giant flying warehouses to help its drones make deliveries, a new patent reveals. Described as'airborne fulfilment centres' (AFC), these airships will hover over cities at 45,000ft before releasing drones to deliver goods. The patent follows news earlier this month that Amazon had made the first successful delivery by drone, after shipping a parcel to a customer in Cambridge. Amazon plans to use giant flying warehouses to help its drones make deliveries, a new patent reveals. Described as'airborne fulfilment centres' (AFC), these airships will hove over cities at 45,000ft before releasing drones to deliver goods The latest patent was filed back in May of this year and recently uncovered by Zoe Leavitt of CB Insights.