Could Google's purchase of drone maker Titan Aerospace mean it is ditching the idea of spreading the Internet through balloons, or could the Internet giant be up to something nefarious?
Although the deal has been confirmed, neither Google nor Titan Aerospace have let on exactly what will be done with the fleet of drone's potentially now at Google's disposal. The financial details have also not been released.
World domination by the company whose slogan is "Don't be evil" can probably be ruled out and in all likelihood the only group to be negatively affected by the deal is Facebook, which had the source of drones for its globe-spanning Internet delivery system pulled out from right under its nose.
However, there are two aspects that make this situation a little strange. First, Google bought Boston Dynamics, a firm that at one time developed battle bots for DARPA. Second, after the Titan deal was confirmed, Titan Aerospace's entire web page was eliminated and now only contains a brief message confirming the acquisition, the company logos and a link to Google's press office.
The message reads:
"At Titan Aerospace, we're passionate believers in the potential for technology (and in particular, atmospheric satellites) to improve people's lives. It's still early days for the technology we're developing, and there are a lot of ways that we think we could help people, whether it's providing Internet connections in remote areas or helping monitor environmental damage like oil spills and deforestation. That's why we couldn't be more excited to learn from and work with our new colleagues as we continue our research, testing and design work as part of the Google family.
To everyone here in New Mexico and around the world who has supported us so far -- thank you. We couldn't have made it this far without your support."
Besides possibly replacing Project Loon as Google's way of delivering Internet service to remote sections of the globe, there are some other likely potential uses.
One source is indicating the drones could be used for what it refers to as the Google All Terrain Automated Mapper and Analyzer and Manipulator. This system will gather data from the planet while providing web service and mapping. This, in turn, will help create more customers for the company.
Google and Facebook are not the only companies playing around with drones. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently announced his company is moving forward with its plan to use drones to deliver items to customers. The online retailer is in a flight testing stage and has plans to build several new generations of craft. Whether or not these will ever be allowed to make deliveries is still unknown as safety and FAA regulations have to be dealt with.
