The days of waiting, well... days for a package delivery might soon be over.
Already, we've been seeing same-day delivery services from retailers and startups including Amazon, Ebay (Ebay Now), Google Shopping Express, Instacart, Postmates and WunWun... not to mention services such as Task Rabbit that allow you to hire your own personal assistant by the hour to make deliveries.
While Google has been testing the same-day delivery market with their Google Shopping Express, they confirmed on Thursday that they have a new delivery service in the works... and this time, it's by drone.
Aptly titled Project Wing, the prototype delivery system uses self-flying vehicles rather than on-demand human couriers. The project is one of many that was developed in Google's top-secret "Google X" laboratory where they focus on developing advanced technologies for tomorrow's needs.
As part of their research, Google built a Project Wing vehicle and traveled to the vast open sky of Queensland, Australia to perform some test flights. While testing the prototype vehicle, the Project Wing team successfully delivered a variety of small objects that the delivery system would use if put into full production. Among these items were a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats, and water to a pair of Australian farmers.
"We're only just beginning to develop the technology to make a safe delivery system possible, but we think that there's tremendous potential to transport goods more quickly, safely and efficiently," Google wrote on YouTube.
Google X has been working on some fairly futuristic technology for awhile now and Project Wing is only one of many successful projects that have come out of their internal incubator. Among other recent projects to come out of the lab is the self-driving car that has been making the rounds on various media outlets as of late.
But while the self-driving cars, Google Glass and other impressive hardware technologies are great, they really only offer immediate benefits to a small population in the Western world who are able to spend over $1,000 on a smart device.
Project Wing is different in that while it appears to be a robotic shopping delivery system, it is also capable of delivering goods quickly to disaster locations:
"Even just a few of these, being able to shuttle nearly continuously could service a very large number of people in an emergency situation," said Google X's Astro Teller to the BBC.
With dozens of people working on the project, the goal of making it a reality doesn't seem too far off.
