Slashdot Mirror


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.

6 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Re:will it Wor? by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wor, what is it good for?

  2. Re:Why? by Fwipp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because, Chad, lots of places don't have "local telecoms."

  3. Re:Why? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re: will it Wor? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Obsolutely nathing.

  5. Re:Where's my BB gun? by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  6. Re:will it Wor? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Funny

    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