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Facebook's Slender 'Aquila' Drone To Provide Internet In Remote Areas
Mickeycaskill writes: Facebook will start testing a 400kg drone with the wingspan of a Boeing 737 next year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said, as part of the company's drive to connect people in remote areas to the Internet. Aquila will fly between 60,000ft and 90,000ft as to avoid adverse weather conditions and commercial air routes, while the attached laster can transmit data at 10Gbps. Facebook claims it can accurately connect with a point the size of a US 5-cent coin from more than 10 miles away.
Kentucky is rural, remote and rowdy. Some dude murdered a drone there just last week, don't expect a ROI!!!
Aquila was actually an R/C sailplane design from before your were born. I have the plans in my closet. Great plane for sure. It was never a "drone" (whatever the fuck than means any more). Fucking kids these days. No knowledge, no skill, only Internet.
I'm quite familiar with Internet tech but never heard the need to stretch leather to make shoes. Perhaps they're making shoes for people so they can walk to the Internet cafe?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Granted a 737 is smaller than a 747 or A380, but I would hardly call it "slender", as far as aircraft go.
Is it a shocker? A company that tracks your lives (forever) all the way down to relationships, real-time locations, opinions on any/everything, likes/dislikes, conversations, education and medical histories, home address, is your kid sick, the names of your pets, everything, you-name-it... is going to send up drones.
So if you look up and see 10 drones, they are all Facebook right?
news at 11
(facebook/twitter buttons on slashdot are retarded btw.. ghostery blocks them)
as part of the company's drive to connect people in remote areas to Facebook.
Fixed that for them.
you got to believe that the various spy camera groups^ are drooling over these multiuse platforms.
^Facebook and Google to start with. you thought I meant someone else?
It doesn't take a house full of popcorn to see that Zuck is a real genius.
It is extremely profitable to mine information for advertising. So profitable that these companies can do shit like this. I'm surprised that they haven't thought of blimps.
Google, facebook, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc ... are NOT tech companies. They are advertising companies and should be treated as such.
Those 5-cent coins are made out of wood! They'll light right up!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It sounds impressive that they can connect at 10 miles away, until you realize that 60,000-90,000 feet is 11-17 miles up. Out of range at the low end!!
now I wonder who else would piggy back on a targeting system like that.....to drop a payload rather than a packet....
Hitting a 5 cent size target from 10 miles away is quite useless when you are 17 miles up. Who comes up with that stuff?
so the USA will be more inclined to go to war with nations like Iran in the near future.
And everyone in America forgets how pigeons have a tendency to come home to roost. Remember - they hate you for your "freedoms"!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Four billion people without Internet connections? That's a lot of equipment to utilize that Internet connection.
Ah, now I understand: "That exercise is left to the student to solve."
Clearly the government outsourced all intelligence work to Facebook. Facebook now has ELINT drones. Optical reconnaissance will come next, I presume?
Ezekiel 23:20
Excuse me, but does this seem out of touch to anybody else? The world has much bigger problems than Internet access in remote areas. While Zuckerberg is busy playing with drones Syria is still burning, disease, poverty and starvation continue to grip most of the African continent and Vladimir Putin threatens to take Europe and the United States to the brink of war, not even to mention the bellicose Chinese policies of military expansion in the South China Sea. At least Bill Gates is pursuing more practical goals with his foundation, including farming and vaccinations. Meanwhile the Silicon Valley types, epitomized by Zuckerberg, refuse to acknowledge reality and in so doing, fail to offer any genuine assistance towards solving the greater problems in this world. Internet access? How about starting at the top of the problem list rather than the bottom?
Boom motherf.......
Sexconker, you certainly didn't intend it, but for once you're right: Facebook is for cows.
Should we get you a different toy to play with than just the See and Say? Surely you're getting bored with it by now, kiddo. How about a nice Ironman Mister Potato-head?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Remember - they hate you for your "freedoms"!
Why the hate me doesn't concern me as long as they fear me or, as Machiavelli said:
"Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present."
Something with that kind of wingspan but weighs only 400 kg (that's 880 lbs) is gonna be very thin.
Their codename betrays them: I wouldn't name a drone Aquila unless it has some high-resolution cameras.
Just waiting for 880 lbs to land on someone's head or house....
I think "slender" was in reference to the fuselage, not the wings.
It's facebook. They provide you access to them, then you won't get out of their walled garden.
Just wait for 120,000lbs landing on someone's head or house when a 737 goes down!
It's almost as if you didn't look at the picture in the linked article.
No sig today...
Because people without roads, electricity, secure food/water and health care need Internet access first
The Emperor provides...WiFi...
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
You're right, I didn't. I was remembering a picture of this Facebook drone for internet. It probably has a different name.