Google launches Internet-beaming balloons

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By NICK PERRY AND MARTHA MENDOZA

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) - Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.

It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how wacky the idea may sound. Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.

Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts.

If successful, the technology might allow countries to leapfrog the expense of laying fiber cable, dramatically increasing Internet usage in places such as Africa and Southeast Asia.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130615/DA6TVCL02.html

[gordianot]

1. Somehow the idea of parts of world without internet sounds appealing but I am addicted.

[GeorgeGist]

2. GoogleSpooks?

The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites.

[canoeist52]

3. They care so deeply about those poor people with no internet connection...

that's why they're doing this altruistic thing - to help humanity!

Who will be paying for this? Yep, spying.

[Hosnon]

8. I don't think that was ever asserted or implied.

Google is an internet company, i.e., it makes its money from people who use the internet.

They're just broadening their customer base.

[MADem]

13. I know there are people in Iran who would give anything for an internet that

the government didn't block/bottle up.

Where you stand depends on where you sit, I suppose.

[joshcryer]

16. You can avoid corporate data mining.

It's just a pain in the butt. Eventually the internet will be free.

[nonoxy9]

4. Let's see, 4B people with no computers, electricity,

Let alone healthy food and clean water, ( ok not all but many of them) but at least they'll have the Internet BEAMED to them! Yay, Google!

[greiner3]

5. Sorry;

Your post failed.

The billions you speak of with "no computers, electricity let alone healthy food and clean water..." would have access to all of these within a short walking distance near centers of government and/or commerce as access to the Internet becomes available.

As the ideas from searching the web as to problems endemic to their each particular set of problems comes to bear, these groups of people will FIND answers.

I speak of finding sites such as those donating computers, creating potable water out of 2 liter soda bottles, how to identify parasites and deal with them, how to get the highest crop yield out of the available soil...

Since most of these peoples live in the tropics/subtropics, there is more than ample sunshine; yes you guessed it, they can devote, at first, their scant resources to produce their OWN electricity via solar power.

So you see nonoxy9, with just scattered nodes of Internet access, the lack of basic human needs can, and will, be surmounted and lead to a bettering of the billions you speak of.

But I'm sure you didn't mean that it's wrong to even TRY to better their lot in life, with ABSOLUTELY NO COST TO YOU!

[PatSeg]

6. Well said

You have to start somewhere and communication can transform the world.

[MADem]

14. +1

I think people who don't like it have a choice--they can LOG OFF.

There are people who live out in the middle of nowhere, who have clean water, who have electricity--maybe not much, but enough to run the well pump--but who don't have the internet. And who would benefit from it.

[caraher]

7. My goodness, the first reaction is to don the tinfoil hat?

There are certainly selfish motives at work here on Google's part. But there's no need to go off the deep end with speculation... these sorts of balloons are very bare-bones affairs, and while you certainly can fly cameras on them you're not going to fly anything heavy, which means you're not going to be doing any serious spying on individuals (especially given that your balloon basically just flies where the wind takes it; you can't really plan any detailed surveillance this way).

But yeah, it will certainly be used for "spying" the way the internet already IS used for spying: mainly by Google and other internet behemoths tracking what these up-to-4 billion additional net users do.

As for the issue of more "basic" needs in poor areas, knowledge can be as important as food and water, because it can be harnessed to obtain them. Think about William Kamkwamba, who as a boy in Malawi harnessed what he learned from a few library books to bring electricity to his home and village using scrap (mainly bicycle parts). Note in particular his reaction to his very first Google search (at the end of the Daily Show interview):

"Where was this Google all this time?"

Yes, we use the internet for lots of frivolous nonsense; but it's not all cat videos and porn. The Kamkwambas of the world have a right to share in the world's store of knowledge every bit as much as our own sons and daughters do. I don't think this project is diverting resources that would otherwise be spent on food, shelter or medical care for the indigent, so I have no sympathy for the cynicism.

[wtmusic]

11. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

Loosely, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts".

I agree that the Kamkwambas of the world have a right to share in the world's store of knowledge every bit as much as our own sons and daughters do. Being dependent on one multi-national corporation for that "knowledge" is asking for it.

[caraher]

12. Fine... may someone else step in

The capability is worth developing. In the meantime, who else is actually doing it?

I would certainly prefer that someone other than Google would do it, but so far they aren't.

[FrodosPet]

17. So "We" need to step up then!

Build something better for the world that is not dependent on money. Remember, "They" will never fix diddly crap. "We" have to make things right.

"We" have the ability. But do "We" have the willpower? Are "We" willing to step outside of our comfort zone? Are "We" willing to make the sacrifices in material comforts necessary to give those 4 Billion people an existence that does not suck?

Nah, too much work. Let's just sit back. pack a bowl, and post about how "They" aren't doing anything.

[wtmusic]

18. Everytime you use quotes a kitten dies somewhere.

How could you?

[FrodosPet]

21. Oh my "God", NO!!!!!

Not the poor "kittens"!

[dipsydoodle]

9. Odd looking things

[wtmusic]

10. What could possibly go wrong?

[ymetca]

15. Creditor Balloons

Yep, I'm thinking Philip K. Dick's creditor balloons, following you everywhere, demanding payment.

[kentauros]

19. Whatever happened to their support for Internet Over Power Grid?

I never heard anything more of that one, and it's a highly viable and wonderful method to get Internet and even cable

The balloon idea poses problems that either they aren't considering, or no one has pointed them out. Such as the fact that balloons go where the wind goes, the wind tends to concentrate into streams, and those streams don't follow straight lines (such as sticking to the 40th parallel.) Unless they tether them to the ground, they won't cover as large an area as claimed.

I noticed in the article that they said the balloons would be guided to collection points for replacement. Nothing is said for how that guidance works. Also mentioned was in case of failure, they have parachutes. Well, neither does you much good if it fails out over the oceans, and the possible consequences to marine life.

Why not tether them? You can run a string of lights up the tether so aircraft don't run into them, much as is done with 2000' towers. And when it fails, you either pull it back down again, or follow the tether if it was a catastrophic failure.

Better yet, put up your own geo-synchronous, full-globe Internet Satellite system. It's not like y'all can't afford it...

[freedomnorth]

20. What about radiation?

I heard there might be some serious health problems from increased microwave frying...

[quadrature]

22. spy balloons. how wonderful. nt

nt

[caraher]

24. xkcd's take

Actually, I don't quite get it...