Google is joining Amazon in the race to perfect the delivery drone. The company is conducting tests for its "Project Wing" drone delivery service in the wilds of Australia, according to an exclusive in The Atlantic published last week.
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The drones fall under the supervision of Google's shadowy Google X department, responsible for other wonders like Google Glass and the company's experiments with self-driving cars. The company claims it has been working on Project Wing for two years. And, of course, the whole supposed point is to serve Google customers better.
"What excited us from the beginning was that if the right thing could find anybody just in the moment that they need it, the world might be radically better place," Astro Teller, Google X director, told The Atlantic.
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Why is Google testing a drone program in Australia instead of its hometown of Mountain View, California?
"Australia has a long history of allowing civilian commercial use of UAVs so we were able to do many different tests and gather some great data about our technology, which was enormously helpful for this early-stage project," a Google spokesperson told Information Week in an email.
Like Amazon, though, the company can expect plenty of hurdles from governments and aviation officials-a NASA official recently told The New York Times that he didn't see a practical application for delivery drones in the near future.
