Backbytes: Google tests drones, start digging your bunker

'Project Wing' gets its first public flight, but how much of our lives does Google want to control?

Not content with controlling our internet browsers, mobile phones, search engine results, and where we eat if we blindly follow its maps app as many seem to, Google has finally lifted the lid on its "secret" Project Wing drone scheme, which if the web giant has its way, will see Google control delivery of physical goods too.

Of course, that's not how it's dressed up. According to Google marketing bods, the drone project has the ultimate aim of allowing its fleet of small, pre-programmed aircraft to fly into isolated areas and provide disaster relief.

"These planes have much more in common with the Google self-driving car than the remote-controlled airplanes people fly in parks on weekends," Google said in a statement, in a handy reminder that they want to control our cars too.

Because no one believes that Google's ultimate aims are humanitarian, right? Far more likely is that Project Wing is designed to fire a metaphorical missile at Amazon's similar plans for world domination by drone - while making Google a tidy (tax free) sum too, of course.

Fortunately, for those of us worried about the prospects of being enslaved by Google overlords and their drone armies, it seems any commercial use for the flying machines is some way off. Indeed, a video made by Google to show off its Project Wing shows the drone only flying a distance of about 40 metres, so world domination may have to wait.

So there's still time to dig the lead-lined bunker in the back garden. Better get on with it though, because neither Google nor Amazon is known for its ethical tactics or respect for privacy. Could the next big war be fought between Google and Amazon in the skies above us? Let's hope not...