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Breakthrough in Alphabet's Balloon-Based Internet Project Means It Might Actually Work (recode.net)
Loon, the balloon project that aims to deliver internet to parts of the world that lack reliable connectivity, announced this week that due to advancements in the machine learning software, it can now deploy fewer balloons to provide greater connectivity. From a report on Recode: The Loon balloon project is part of X, the experimental division of Alphabet, Google's parent company. Now in its fourth year, the engineers at Loon say their new machine learning techniques significantly shorten their timeline for launching the project. Initially, engineers proposed that the Loon balloons would float around the globe and that they would have to find a way to keep the balloons a safe traveling distance apart and replace a balloon that drifted from an area that needed connectivity. Now, the team says they've found a way to keep the balloons in a much more concentrated location, thanks to their improved altitude control and navigation system. Loon says that balloons will now make small loops over a land mass, instead of circumnavigating the whole planet.
Wor, what is it good for?
Because, Chad, lots of places don't have "local telecoms."
Why do these companies keep working on such nonsense? Solar drones, loon balloons, thousands of micro satellites... why not parter with local telecoms and hardwire this shit?
Clearly you've never dealt with Comcast.
I couldn't think of many. Even in the most backwater areas I found people running around with mobile phones.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Indeed. I think internet is definitely one of the bear necessities of life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Word
Obsolutely nathing.
"Is it worth doing?" is the question,
Technically, there is no reason this cannot be made to work. However, financially, it may not be workable.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Wizard of Wor was one of my favorite arcade games back in the early 1980's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Wor
If you can hit an aircraft at an altitude of 65k feet, then it's probably classified as "one of the largest anti-aircraft cannons ever built" rather than a "bb gun".
If you can hit an aircraft at an altitude of 65k feet, then it's probably classified as "one of the largest anti-aircraft cannons ever built" rather than a "bb gun".
Just attach your bb gun along with a remote firing mechanism to another balloon and release it. It's like sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, only with balloons and bb guns.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Using my scrabble super powers, may I suggest the following verb infinitive forms that begin with WOR:
WORSHIP
WORSEN
WORRY
WORRIT
WORM.
That's pretty much it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Chad's official urbanization rate is 22.5%...coincidence? http://www.indexmundi.com/chad...
The question is: What % of revenue goes to paying for tower security and paying off the local kleptocrats?
Cell towers in the country would likely be dismantled and sold for scrap, unless guarded 24x7. Payoffs to the locals are required on top of the payoffs to the national government. It can quickly become a deal breaker when all the potential customers are poor.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They are probably running around to look for, you know, reception
Presumably it was typed on a Google balloon internet connection.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Satellites already exist for data connections and are quasi profitable. However there are technical issues with satellites for broad band internet service, and the biggest is the available spectral space is quite limiting for vast tracts of the developed world. Basically the issues with satellites are more than just cost
But that begs the question here really.. Is this new approach of using temporary balloon based distribution with the effort? I'm not so sure. Where I see the advantage of this idea, how's the operating cost of such a system going to be less than the existing cell network? What spectrum space are they planning to use? How will they obtain the rights to that space unless they buy it? Perhaps they plan to use 802.11 A/N spectrum under what ever passes as FCC part 15 in the UK?
If they are buying spectrum, they will go broke before they begin because the will be bidding with the Cell companies for the same space... If they are using unlicensed 802.11 a/n, then I wish them luck but I don't support their effort. 802.11 a/n is congested bad enough now, we don't need more emitters floating around making matters worse. Plus as a Amateur radio licensee, I have rights to a lot of that spectrum and thus have priority over part 15 users, and I actually do use some of that space and would not welcome their unlicensed intrusion.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101