If you live in southwest Virginia, don't be surprised at the sight of a drone winging its way on another airborne delivery run over your neighborhood soon. Wing, the drone delivery service spun off from Alphabet's Google, hopes to start flights to homes and businesses in the Blacksburg and Christiansburg areas by the end of the year now that it has the blessings of the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA announced earlier this week that it had approved Wing as the first air carrier certified for drone delivery. In receiving the certification, Wing beat Amazon to the punch despite all the attention that the online merchandise giant has drawn over its interest in deliveries by air. Both companies, along with others, have been racing to develop drones as a more cost-effective way of delivering small, high-value orders, like medicine.

Google has received approval from US regulators to deploy a futuristic technology that allows smart devices to be controlled by hand gestures alone. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved Project Soli, which was first announced by Google four years ago, saying that it would "serve the public interest" to push forward with development of the technology. The interactive control system uses radar-based motion sensors to detect and track hand movements with millimetre accuracy. This allows people to interact with devices without the need for any form of physical controls. The idea is that people will be able to control everything from TVs to smart watches in an intuitive, touch-free way.

Google launches Pixel 3, Pixel Slate, and Google Home Hub. Two people in my office mistook the Google Pixel Slate tablet I had lying on a desk for one of Apple's newest iPad Pros. At home, my 11-year-old son made the same mistake. If you are Google, this isn't necessarily a bad thing since the company will presumably have to persuade a would-be iPad Pro buyer to choose its pricey new tablet instead. I'm not quite ready to do that myself, though Google's new 1.6-pound anodized aluminum Chrome OS tablet is a capable alternative with a 12.3-inch high resolution touch display that is lovely to look at, notwithstanding bezels that are a little thicker than those on the iPad Pro.

Google looks to make a big splash at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, touting the Google Assistant. Apple TV has Siri, Amazon's Fire TV has Alexa, and now, Roku has joined forces with the Google Assistant to bring an established voice to its popular streaming players and branded TVs. Roku, the No. 1 streaming player, had offered its own voice search, but Google's Assistant, generally accessed via Google Home speakers, is more widely used by the public. Roku, in announcing new products for the fall Monday, didn't specify a time frame for the change, only saying it would be "soon," and for most existing devices. Additionally, the Roku TVs will have more functionality with Google, allowing viewers to say "Hey, Google," to turn their TV on and off, turn up the volume, mute, switch inputs and change channels, but only if the set is connected to an antenna.

Google Assistant wants to make the world a little bit brighter with its newest feature. Tony Spitz has the details. Google has some new job search tools for military veterans that make it easier for them to find civilian jobs fitting the skills they had in the military. Google has some new job search tools, especially for military veterans and their families who are looking for work. The new features, available now, let military service members and their families search "Jobs for Veterans" and then enter specific military job codes (MOS, AFSC, NEC, etc.) to find civilian jobs with skills similar to those they used in the military.

The Great Firewall of China is the largest-scale internet censorship operation in the world. The Chinese state says the firewall is there to promote societal harmony within an increasing population of billions of people. It considers the internet in China as part of its sovereign territory. Eight years ago, Google withdrew from China, pulling its search and other services out because of country's limits to freedom of speech. But it is now planning to relaunch a heavily censored version of its services in China, according to a whistleblower who spoke to online news website The Intercept.

Google Duplex will call salons, restaurants, and pretend to be your personal human. Google has its robot work cut out for it. Janell Goplen automatically hangs up the phone when she receives automated calls to her Clearwater restaurant in Newport, Oregon. In the summer, Google will begin testing its controversial new plan to have the Google Assistant smartphone app make human-sounding calls for restaurant reservations and hair-cut appointments. If Goplen were to get the call and she sensed that it was robotic, "I'd hang up," she says.

If you care more about your smart speaker's sound than which digital assistant it employs, the new Google Home Max speaker should be on your holiday short list. After days of pumping an eclectic range of music through Google's $399 speaker -- from AC/DC to the Three Tenors -- it's clear the Google Home Max is in a class by itself when it comes to filling a home or apartment with sounds even an audiophile could appreciate. Admittedly, for many people the decision to purchase this or that voice-activated smart speaker has often boiled down to which AI-infused digital assistant you're most comfortable engaging with in your home, most likely Amazon's Alexa or the Google Assistant. But when music is the priority, different features come into play. Certainly, at $399 there is a high price to pay for such sonic joy.

See how self-driving cars prepare for the real world inside a private testing facility owned by Google's autonomous car company, Waymo. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. See how self-driving cars prepare for the real world inside a private testing facility owned by Google's autonomous car company, Waymo.

A Waymo self driving minivan stops for a cyclist at the company's private test facility in central California. Stretched across 91 arid acres here in the central part of the state is Castle, the name derived from the former air base that occupied this plot that is now a private testing facility owned by Waymo, the autonomous car company run by the search giant. For the past five years, engineers and test drivers have been running dozens of cars through their paces in order to better prepare them for real world scenarios of rude drivers and clumsy movers. For Waymo workers toiling in secrecy under a hot sun, the first-ever arrival Monday of a gaggle of reporters was a bit of a coming out party. "I've been out here for five years testing and testing," said Stephanie Villegas, head of structured testing, during a demonstration that showed how a self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivan would yield to an aggressive driver.