Amazon is thinking about shipping you packages you haven't ordered yet

Looking forward to buying the next season of Game of Thrones on Blu-ray? Amazon may already be preparing to send it to you. The retail giant is working on an idea it calls "anticipatory shipping" as a way to reduce package transit times. It's everything the name implies -- according to a December patent, the system will send items out before they are ordered. That doesn't mean you'll start receiving unannounced packages from Seattle, however: the patent's examples illustrate a speculative shipment system that deploys goods to specific geographical areas. If a customer in that area places an order that matches a nearby package, it would then be redirected to its final destination. Sure, our next box-set might not land with the fanfare of a drone delivery, but anything that gets us our R.R. Martin fix sooner is certainly a good thing.