61–70 of 125 posts
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Photoshopping an image and not captioning it as an "artist's concept" or something similar is absolutely a violation of traditional journalistic integrity. This is not a picture of a "Google Blimp." It's not even a picture of a blimp in Africa.
That picture is not a free-flying blimp, but an Army aerostat (tethered balloon). About 10 are used to enforce the southern US border. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System
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Because they photoshopped a stock image??? Seriously? You understand how journalism and blogging works, right?
Photoshopping an image and not captioning it as an "artist's concept" or something similar is absolutely a violation of traditional journalistic integrity. This is not a picture of a "Google Blimp." It's not even a picture of a blimp in Africa.
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Isn't it a bit much to give Berners-Lee credit for this? I was with you up to that point. :)
He was definitely an important step in getting to this point. The WWW is what made the internet mainstream. That and ICQ.
Speaking of how society uses the internet, I traveled through Ghana for four weeks last year and I heard that one of the reasons internet cafes aren't really wanted in smaller towns in Ghana is that people worried about it corrupting their youth, and not in the way you think: they worry about their children getting involved with the 419'ers[1].
And I must admit, I did see a lot of scammers in the smaller cafes, mostly teenage boys, often a few of them working together. Once I even witnessed a really well organised romance scam[2]: some would be setting up fake dating profiles, looking for pretty pictures of scantilly clad African women, some would be chatting with unsuspecting victims, pretending to be some kind of mail-order African bride (who sadly had a broken webcam), discussing how best to bait the victim, and there actually was a guy "managing" the whole group. It was crazy how coordinated the whole effort was.
Before this gets misinterpreted: I'm not saying you can't trust Africans who are online, obviously - most of them will be people with a higher education and internet at home or the university. I guess the problem with these small internet cafes is that the most likely early adopters are these 419'ers.
Anyway, I wonder how getting internet access to everyone will impact all of this. Maybe it will force the local governments to really start taking the problem seriously.
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High resolution ground photography and mobile location tracking came to mind. Google often cooperates with government and police.
> Google often cooperates with government and police. Next you're going to tell me that they're considered a legal entity in many countries.
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> That is outside the range of small arms: the furthest confirmed sniper kill to date was at a range of 1,250 m. Also keep in mind that snipers are shooting at humans. That's a much, much harder target than a blimp.
Well it'd be ten times as large in your scope, but I don't think I'd call it an "easier target"-- you have to deal with a much more dramatic arc and unknowable atmospheric wind conditions.
In the areas where these blimps will be deployed, there almost certainly hasn't been the same discussions of privacy, tracking, corporate abuse, data breaches and perils of giving personal information out on the web nor the 20 years of background to go with it. You don't suppose Google will be educating the future web users to protect themselves from Google, do you?
Seems to me users would have access to the same Internet as you or me. They will be able to read about these issues, just the same as we can.
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Well it'd be ten times as large in your scope, but I don't think I'd call it an "easier target"-- you have to deal with a much more dramatic arc and unknowable atmospheric wind conditions.
Then you keep firing until you hit it.
And also don't forget the numbers I'm using suggest this is only plausible if you're firing more or less straight up, meaning the area you're ultimately targeting is where you are.
I suspect it will be more mobile internet than desktops - you do have to realise that these dayse the African economy practically runs on mobile phones, and land lines are uncommon to nonexistent. I wonder how that changes the way they'll use internet access. Speaking of how society uses the internet, I traveled through Ghana for four weeks last year and I heard that one of the reasons internet cafes aren't really wa…
Problem for whom?