How do you feel about drones? Do you think they’re an easier more manageable way of doing things and going to places where humans can’t? Or are you terrified of them evolving, dropping out of the sky and trying to take each and every human out on a path to robotic dominance? Well you’d better make up your mind quick as drones will soon be everywhere and there’ll be little we can do to stop it. Thus far we’ve seen drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles) used in military operations for both surveillance and actual attacks, mapping (particularly in times of crises or natural disasters where aid workers are unable to assess the situation) and most recently with Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service we’ve seen them used to help receive our goods. It’s the latter path that Google’s Project Wing is set to follow with their newly announced drone service likely to be used to deliver goods.
Part of Google’s ‘Google X’ wing, a branch of Google that is in charge of coming up with experimental ideas (they are also the team behind Project Loon and Google Glass), they have reportedly worked on Project Wing for two years. As explained in the above video, Project Wing is still in the experimental stage but it holds plenty of promise. Rather than Amazon’s Prime Air drones which appear to just descend to the ground before dropping the package off, Google’s Project Wing drones will drop an ‘egg’ to the ground, releasing the package on impact which perhaps seems a safer way of doing things than the drones dropping out of the sky (albeit in a controlled manner). Of course there is still the genuine concern that these things could clunk someone in the head (the drop of the egg doesn’t seem particularly speedy either) so Google will likely have to factor this in if they want to bring it to market.
It’s also worth noting that despite the security concerns, Google’s Project Wing could be a valuable alternative to Amazon’s own offering. For example, Amazon Prime Air is fine if you want products ordered through Amazon but what if you want something that’s not listed? Or if there’s no Amazon depot near your house? Project Wing could work incredibly well for that reason and it would offer up some much needed market competition too. Google are currently asking for potential Project Wing partners to sign up here though so testing is about to go further. We’ll keep you posted once we know more.
Source: BBC
Do you think drones are ready to be used out in public? Leave a comment and let us know.
