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We’ve had a few guesses on why Google would be throwing their annual developer conference — Google IO 2016 — outdoors, one of those having to do with drones and Project Wing, one of the company’s many Moonshot projects to come out of their X Labs.
Last we heard from Wing, team lead David Voss telling Tech Times they were looking toward their first consumers flights in the US launching sometime in 2017 (after parent company Alphabet pinned down details with the Federal Aviation Administration). While that’s still a ways off, it only makes sense we’d receive an update on the project during this year’s Google IO. What better way to celebrate the impending launch of a service than with an official logo, something we stumbled across in a recent trademark filing. Here’s what it looks like:
Project Wing, although a drone delivery service is just one of many flying vehicles tech companies are investing in. Facebook recently teamed up with drone maker DJI to announce on stage during F8 (Facebook’s developer conference) that Facebook Live Streaming was officially headed to the DJI GO app. GoPro is another, announcing during last year’s Code Conference that they, too, will soon offer their own in-house video drone. Although nobody has actually seen it, GoPro recently showed off some 4K footage from the vehicle holding one of its expensive action cameras. It’s still unclear when it will actually land on the market, but GoPro says they’re gunning for the first half of 2016.
While most of these are for drones are strictly for recreational use, Google’s only real competition is Amazon. The online retailer’s drone delivery service — dubbed Amazon Prime Air — has made plenty of headlines since becoming official back in December of 2013. Late last year, Amazon showed off new prototype Prime Air drones, something that looked like mini cargo airlplanes than the quadrocopters that normally pop into your head when you hear the word “drone.” You can read more about Amazon Prime Air in this exclusive interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
Of course, as we mentioned before, there’s still plenty of red tape surrounding any and all drone services, something that’s sure to hold things up at some point during its development. We’re excited to see what comes of Google’s Project Wing and will update when we hear more.
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