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Google, which is hoping to beam the internet to remote areas of the world via balloon, went before the UN's aviation agency to ask member states to let it ply their airspace.
The company's X Lab, which was created to pursue big-vision projects, said it hopes to establish a network of helium balloons floating in the stratosphere that will emit a powerful 4G signal to rural and difficult-to-access areas.
The new initiative—launched in 2013 and dubbed "Project Loon"—saw its first balloon take off from South America in February only to crash at a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, where it was discovered by villagers.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, had partnered with Sri Lanka to bring the internet to remote areas there. The country's Information and Communication Technology Agency, which coordinated the tests with Google, described the landing as controlled and scheduled.
Why not build a giant transmitter on the Moon?
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Saturday October 01 2016, @02:31AM
Google is not in the ISP business to make money.
Google is in the internet-advertising business.
People with no internet make no money for internet-anything businesses.
The best way to connect internet-less people to the internet is to provide them with significantly[1]-above-cost internet[2], and wait for cost-effective ISPs to realise they can make money by providing cheaper internet.
[1] but not excessively
[2] Which people will gladly use, as long as it's the only internet.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:02AM
Google is not in the ISP business to make money.
Then why Google Fiber? I suspect they DO make money where they install this.
And why fly Balloons over people who haven't got enough income to buy anything. You can't sell anything to penniless people. (Although they may be perfect targets if you want to encourage click-fraud.)
Its hard to figure what Google's game is here. You might think Facebook would be the first entrant into the low income end of the pool. But I can't see any real game plan for Google in going after the low end of the market.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:59PM
"Its hard to figure what Google's game is here". I disagree. GOOG profiles, correlates identites and warehouses data, then sells access to them. More people, more identities, more data, more moneh? Search engine result manipulations are a propagandists dream tool of soft, long-term manipulation of public opinion. Ensuring that one owns the pipes ensures permanent access?
As for crazier things... Google/doubleclick is a part of american State. I'd say the usual game, american domination of everything, for the sake of extracting profit and creating suffering.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 02 2016, @09:27PM
disagree. GOOG profiles, correlates identites and warehouses data, then sells access to them.
No, you've got that wrong.
Google pushes ads to people, but does not give the advertiser information about those people. (I've advertised with google for my day job. You get nothing back from them about who saw the ads, and you don't get anything back about who clicked the ads either unless you pull it from your own servers.
So your impression about google's game plane here is all based on faulty assumptions.
At most google gets a few pennies or tenths of a penny per clicked ad. They get nothing for an "impression". So if you advertise to people who can't buy your product, you get no clicks, and google gets not fees.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.