Google Gets Into Balloons Does It Have WiFi?
October 16, 2014
Google has a thing for transportation and maps. They mapped the entire world and gave us Google Street View and then they created a self-driving car. Google seems to have conquered streets and motor vehicles. Now they want to conquer the air. How? Are they using planes? No. Helicopters? No. Trained pigeons? No. Google decided to take to the air with balloons. Computer World tells us about a new balloon fleet in “GoogleX To Circle The Earth With Internet-Connected Balloon.”
Google plans to launch high-altitude balloons that will circle the planet and provide Internet to rural areas. Astro Teller, head of GoogleX, announced the new endeavor at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech. It has been dubbed Project Loon and if it successful more people will access the Internet.
“Google’s vision is to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on stratospheric winds about 12.4 miles high, providing Internet access to remote and underserved areas. The balloons communicate with specially designed antennas on the ground, which in turn connect to ground stations that connect to the local Internet service provider.”
The balloons will provide Internet using the same networks as mobile phones and issues about bandwidth are already popping up. There are also concerns about how many people the balloons will be able to support?
While GoogleX wants to deploy around the globe, how will countries like China respond? Will North Koreans find ways to learn about the world with the balloons? How about Russia? And the seeds of rebellion will be sown.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
