Google is buying drone-maker Titan Aerospace in a move poised to advance its airborne delivery of data services and mapping applications, according a Monday report in the Wall Street Journal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Titan’s aircraft, which it calls “atmospheric satellites,” are designed to stay aloft for years and can provide voice and data services, according to the company, and can take images of the Earth and carry atmospheric-based sensor systems. Facebook was in talks to buy the company earlier this year. But the social network later said it was bringing on team members from U.K.-based Ascenta, which makes its own solar-powered unmanned aircraft. Titan and its roughly 209 employees will remain based in New Mexico, the Journal report said. The Titan team will work closely with Google’s Project Loon, which is building high-altitude balloons to bring Internet access to more people throughout the world, the report said. Titan's Solara 50 unmanned, solar-powered aircraft.

Neither Google nor Titan immediately responded to comment. Titan may also work with Makani, an early-stage Google project geared toward the development of an airborne wind turbine for generating energy more efficiently, the report said. Advanced material design for lightweight flying vehicles, and algorithms for wind prediction and flight planning, would be a focus for the teams, according to the report. To comment on this article and other PCWorld content, visit our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.Google has acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace, the autonomous solar-powered flying vehicle company believed to be next in Facebook’s sights, in a move it says will help Project Loon in bringing internet to developing markets. The deal sees Google snatch Titan Aerospace out from under Facebook’s nose, after the social network had said earlier in the year that it was in talks around a potential acquisition. Facebook eventually bought a different drone specialist, Ascenta, to work on its ongoing project.

The Titan team, meanwhile, will be working for Google, it’s been confirmed, though in the same New Mexico location and under the same CEO. Titan’s drone technology already supports delivering wireless internet access to people and businesses below. Two models are currently in development, each with wings encrusted with solar panels that charge onboard batteries so that they can remain aloft for weeks. An initial launch was expected in 2015, offering as much as 1 Gbps download rates. ar parrot drone wholesaleWhether that will change with Google at the helm remains to be seen.ar drone 2 portugal Project Loon is Google’s existing scheme to use high-altitude balloons to coast the airstream and beam internet access down as they go. best ar drone tricks

Although the project was met with doubt when Google first announced it, earlier this month the company announced that Project Loon balloons had already circumnavigated the globe. The Titan tech may also be combined with earlier Google buy Makani, a company developing high-efficiency wind turbines. These are the drones that Google just bought “It’s still early days,” a Google spokesperson conceded of the drone technology, “but atmospheric satellites could help bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation.”parrot ar drone police kit Financial terms of the deal have not been announced, though rumors back around the time of the Facebook talks with Titan suggested a ballpart of around $60m.buy ar drone ireland

Google acquires drone maker Titan Aerospace Google acquires high-altitude drone maker Titan Aerospace, bringing the possibility of using drones to get people online into the fore MANILA, Philippines – Google is acquiring drone-making startup Titan Aerospace, the Wall Street Journal reports. Details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the Google-Titan Aerospace deal follows Facebook's acquisition of drone competitor Ascenta.ar drone 2 antenne Both Titan and Ascenta are known for developing high-altitude drones, which are capable of atmospheric heights. ar drone gps forumThese high-altitude drones can fly for years in the atmosphere on solar power. Google will apparently team up Titan Aerospace to help in the efforts of Project Loon, the balloon-powered Internet access initiative. TechCrunch adds that a combination of balloons and drones could "make a network of Internet-providing automatons even better at globe-trotting, with a higher degree of control and ability to react to changing conditions."

View your profile page Click close to continue. Thank You.You have successfully updated your account.Google has agreed to purchase Skybox Imaging, a Silicon Valley startup specializing in collecting Earth imagery from space, for $500 million in a deal that could springboard Google into a new business beaming broadband Internet from orbit with a proposed network of up to 180 satellites. Photo inside Skybox Imaging's satellite clean room. The cash acquisition was rumored in the satellite and technologies industries for several weeks as plans emerge for a Google-backed constellation of hundreds of small broadband communications satellites. Skybox Imaging builds and operates its own satellites to record high-definition videos of Earth from low Earth orbit several hundred miles up. The first Skybox satellite, named SkySat 1, launched in November on a Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rocket. SkySat 2 is set for launch June 28 on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"We've built and launched the world's smallest high-resolution imaging satellite, which collects beautiful and useful images and video every day," Skybox officials wrote in a blog post on the company's website. "We have built an incredible team and empowered them to push the state-of-the-art in imaging to new heights. The time is right to join a company who can challenge us to think even bigger and bolder, and who can support us in accelerating our ambitious vision." Founded in 2009 with a business plan devised in a Stanford University entrepreneurship course, Skybox Imaging manufactured its first two satellites with an in-house engineering team. The company has licensed the construction of 13 follow-on spacecraft to Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, Calif., an established satellite contractor. Under an exclusivity clause, Loral can exploit the Skybox-designed small satellite platform for other business, officials said. The first six Loral-built Skybox satellites will launch in late 2015 on an Orbital Sciences Corp. Minotaur-C rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Launch arrangements for the other seven satellites have not been announced. Once all 13 satellites are up, the Skybox constellation will revisit the same location on Earth three times per day. Skybox's SkySat 1 satellite recored this high-definition video of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai during a fly-over April 9. With its purchase of Skybox, Google becomes a party to the satellite deal with Space Systems/Loral. Skybox says the Loral-built satellites will have a top resolution of about 80 centimeters, or about 2.6 feet. The spacecraft will record high-definition video clips up to 90 seconds long at 30 frames per second. The satellites will grow Skybox's fleet of orbiting spacecraft to record high-resolution photos and video. The startup intends to offer imagery with rapid refresh to provide customers with more up-to-date views of cities, farms and industrial sites. Skybox says it will eventually have 24 satellites in orbit. In a statement released Tuesday, Google said the acquisition of Skybox is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals in the United States.

"Skybox's satellites will help keep Google Maps accurate with up-to-date imagery," Google said in a statement. "Over time, we also hope that Skybox's team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief -- areas Google has long been interested in." Google purchased solar-powered drone maker Titan Aerospace earlier this year to work on high-altitude aircraft that could loiter in the sky for years, collecting high-resolution imagery for disaster relief and environmental applications. The "atmospheric satellites" could also broadcast Internet connectivity with stronger signals than possible with craft orbiting in space. Facebook also announced it acquired a drone company, U.K.-based Ascenta, in March for similar purposes. Google and Skybox are based in Mountain View, Calif. "Skybox and Google share more than just a zip code," the Skybox blog post continued. "We both believe in making information (especially accurate geospatial information) accessible and useful.

And to do this, we're both willing to tackle problems head on -- whether it's building cars that drive themselves or designing our own satellites from scratch." While Skybox's potential contribution to Google Maps, a program used by millions every day, is apparent to observers, the application of Skybox's satellite technology to the Internet market also raises questions about the goals of Google's acquisition. In a scheme reminiscent of past failed multibillion-dollar telecom satellite projects, Google backs a company registered in Britain's Channel Islands called WorldVu or L5, which outlined plans in a filing with the International Telecommunications Union to construct a fleet of satellites to fly in polar orbits more than 500 miles above Earth, according to a report by Space News. The Wall Street Journal reported June 1 that Google plans to build and launch at least 180 small satellites. The paper cited anonymous sources who claimed the project could cost up to $3 billion.