Posted on 06/16/2013 9:29:43 PM PDT by TexGrill
Google has unveiled its ambitious project named “Loon” to eliminate Internet-blind spots around the world. The project is about using hot-air balloons carrying communications equipments as giant wireless Internet routers. People in areas over which Google’s hot-air balloons are passing can use free Wi-Fi service.
Google announced Saturday on its official blog that the global IT giant began test near Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, by shooting 30 hot-air balloons carrying 3G communications equipment into 20 kilometers above the ground. The plastic balloons with diameter of 15 meters will provide Internet service while maintaining a set distance between them in the vicinity of the ozone layer, two times higher than airplane route.
The key to the test is how to control the balloons floating in the sky. Other than communications equipment, the balloons carry a computer to navigate, an altitude controller and a solar power system to maintain altitude and direction with self-generated power. If the test ends successfully, Google will shoot thousands of balloons into the sky in a few years.
The word loon is an informal word indicating a crazy person. Google seems aware that the project will be no easy. However, the search giant said, “Our challenge is meaningful considering that two third of the world population have no access to the Internet.
Dr. Richard DeVaul of Google X Labs, the incubator of Project Loon, said, “Rather than on the northern hemisphere where wire and wireless networks are tightly linked, we’ll focus on Africa where there are a lot of vast deserts or jungles, South America and the southern hemisphere where small islands are scattered.”
(Excerpt) Read more at english.donga.com ...
But google will still “disappear” any information critical of Broncobomber...
I think I’m becoming a Luddite.
That would be helpful to internet water mercenaries?
“Anything to make the world more dependent on the grid—and by extension, to be controlled by those who control the grid..”
***
BINGO! It was never about ‘filling the space” but for Google to control that space for themselves, and passing off to their butt buddies the NSA.
I did not realize that two-thirds of the world was living a miserable existence without the internet.
How uncivilized!
No Facebook. No gay porn. No Tweeting on Twitter. No pop-ups. No Matt Drudge.
What is more no sense of security being offered by Prism knowing the American Gubmint is spying on you with Prism to keep you safe and secure.
There is no civilization unless Big Brother be watching your every move.
20 km in the air. Got latency?
those DU buckshot rounds someone posted on here as anti-drone ammo won’t have that sort of range... 2A allows for SAMs?
It reminds me of how colonial powers traded steel axes to natives that had only stone axes.
After a few years of that, those natives forgot how to make stone axes, and so were completely at the mercy of those who controlled the supply of steel axes.
And it pays for itself—if not immediately, then after a few years—because the more people that can get on the net and use Google’s website, the more Google can charge to advertise on its website.
That sounds like it was done on purpose...
They sure are doing well monetarily.
20 km. That’s 120 microseconds round trip for a radio signal.
My latency here in Silicon Valley is 16 milliseconds, the trip to and from the balloon is less than 1/100th that.
Send up an attack balloon with a remote controlled shotgun.
Hot-air balloons? A Fox story said helium, which seems much more likely.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/15/google-launches-internet-beaming-balloons/
Ed Schafer vindicated. Funny, the liberals in ND thought a similar idea for improving cell phone coverage in the state was laughable, despite the fact that there are areas still where you can’t get a signal, even with a booster and direcyional antenna.
Not enough coffee....
Is that the reason for the name though?
The loon, the size of a large duck or small goose, resembles these birds in shape when swimming. Like ducks and geese but unlike coots (which are Rallidae) and grebes (Podicipedidae), the loon's toes are connected by webbing. The bird may be confused with cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae), not too distant relatives of divers and like them are heavy set birds whose bellies – unlike those of ducks and geese – are submerged when swimming. Flying loons resemble a plump goose with a seagull's wings, relatively small in proportion to the bulky body.
...
The European Anglophone name "diver" comes from the bird's habit of catching fish by swimming calmly along the surface and then abruptly plunging into the water. The North American name "loon" likely comes from either the Old English word lumme, meaning lummox or awkward person, or the Scandinavian word lum meaning lame or clumsy. Either way, the name refers to the loon’s poor ability to walk on land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon
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