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Google Buys Drone Maker Titan Aerospace
garymortimer (1882326) writes "Google has acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace. Titan is a New Mexico-based company that makes high-flying solar powered drones. There's no word on the price Google paid, but Facebook had been in talks to acquire the company earlier this year for a reported $60 million. Presumably, Google paid more than that to keep it away from Facebook. 'Google had just recently demonstrated how its Loon prototype balloons could traverse the globe in a remarkably short period of time, but the use of drones could conceivably make a network of Internet-providing automotons even better at globe-trotting, with a higher degree of control and ability to react to changing conditions. Some kind of hybrid system might also be in the pipeline that marries both technologies.'"
would either Google or especially Facebook be buying drone companies? These companies obviously have WAY too much money and are WAY overvalued. I suppose it is smart that rather than wait for the bubble to burst and the share price to crash, wiping out billions in value, they're trying to get stuff that is worth something while they still can. Still, this is actually kind of unsettling to me and makes me wonder if we may cruising obliviously towards the next text meltdown, sooner rather than later?
If they send up enough sats, could they make google maps realtime?
It just doesn't look good if you don't pay billion$.
How exactly would you expect them to build a wireless network without encroaching on everyone else's spectrum? Did you even think that through?
I know, don't feed the trolls but when did war driving turn into a bad thing? Was it when it stopped being internet hipster enough because 'big data' started to do it?
if paranoid = 1 {
Lock up your wifi
}
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
How exactly would you expect them to build a wireless network without encroaching on everyone else's spectrum?
The ground transmitter and drone will have a line-of-sight connection. So they could use microwave or even visible light. There is plenty of available spectrum for this type of application. Both the ground transmitter and drone could use a narrow directional signal.
I guess they'll be avoiding N.America. Cause last I recalled the FAA says no to commerical companies--that's unless Google is willing to create a business based on something the gov't says is illegal?
he already shot down Amazon's drone plan, based on mathematics of powering electric planes, and the number that would have to be in the air.
now, if Google was going to use drones to deliver upgrades and patches...
but I bet it just looked cool, and they had cash in their pocket while window shopping.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Is the availability of solar power, and the low energy need to run basic wi-fi
But one needs long-term trials showing survivability during storms and inclement weather events, as well as impacts on aviation due to mobile wi-fi.
The main design choice is between mobile wi-fi repeater platforms that communicate with satellites for a period of time, and ones that have a fairly long lifespan (2-3 years) and are mobile to locate at a specific region. If you keep things up in the air, stuff happens to them. In the New Zealand trials in remote areas, the lifespan was a bit short, so the cost per day of service depends on the weather.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And I thought they wanted makani kiteplains for green energy....they probably want them for the same as the other drones?
4wdloop
Cheapskates. They paid $1 billion for the 15-person company named Instagram that had no revenues. They also paid $19 billion for another company with no revenue named Whatsapp.
I'll start to get excited when they buy Hammond Robotics...
So Google owns AI tech, robots and now drones. I'll keep telling myself ''Fahrenheit 451' is just story. They used robotic dogs to assassinate the dissidents. Or worse, 'Terminator 2' used drones to shoot people on sight.
bring on the privacy busting airview.