121–130 of 299 posts
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Minor nitpick: AT&T has done a shit-ton of research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs edit: apparently a different beast than today's AT&T
Minor nitpick: The company now known as AT&T is essentially Cingular wireless; they bought the remnants of AT&Ts cell network and the rights to the name.
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Minor nitpick: AT&T has done a shit-ton of research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs edit: apparently a different beast than today's AT&T
AT&T spun off Bell Labs in the 90's as part of Lucent. Lucent was acquired by Alcatel. Alcatel shut down Bell labs in 2008.
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Almost everything they're done is centered around ads and getting more data on their users to sell more ads. Even this project, in the end it's about getting more people online to look at their ads. (not sure how much ad revenue you can get from poor places, but whatever) EDIT: To those saying they're playing the long game; Playing the long game doesn't make sense. The long game is being fully wired. By the time poor…
It's not like in mid-90's the Internet started getting big and the telecoms started running wires because it was the best option. They based the new network offerings on the infrastructure that had been in place for decades. Developing areas don't have that existing infrastructure. Perhaps setting up a wired infrastructure will make the most financial sense. However, I don't think that's a foregone conclusion, and a…
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So the question, then, is how high do you need to go before you're no longer in a country's airspace?
As far as I know there is no international agreement on this. Altitude can vary from 30Km to 160Km. Most countries seem to claim somewhere between 70Km and 100Km as their airspace. If someone has more details on this, it's very welcome.
I've always wanted a near-live satellite image for Google maps. If this takes off that'll be possible. I could find a parking spot from the sky. :)
Loon has no such capability. http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#tab=technology Q: WILL THE BALLOONS HAVE CAMERAS OR CAPTURE ANY IMAGERY OF THE GROUND? A: No.
Any news about other "moonshot" projects that Google[x] is working on besides self-driving cars and Loon?
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The balloons are not going to move in one direction though. The video also mentioned you can steer the balloons, which means, there is way to keep them above the ground and not the ocean.
Just cover the continent will require a lot of balloons. The world has 148,429,000 sq km. If you cover 1600 sq km per balloon, that is 92768 balloons. Just cover Africa will require around 20k balloons. It will only work out, if Google can increase the coverage area per balloon.
Wasn't Page about to focus? Shutting down small, useful and used tools because Google should only do a few thngs, but all of them well? So will this litter the countryside, and even worse, the oceans with electronic equipment incl. highly toxic batteries? will they maintain and retrieve every single one of those balloons? who pays for that?
I find it odd that you assume they're going to take these highly advanced routers and litter with them.
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The long game is being fully wired. No, the long game is wireless communications (and renewable energy). One of the reasons for fast growth in some developing countries is the fact that they don't have to make the same investments in infrastructure that developed countries made in the past.
Wireless is a hack, it will never replace wired. Sure, in Africa they get online with mobile phones, but that's only because it's not profitable _yet_ to run landlines. Even 56K would be better than mobile, but since it's Africa they don't even have that. Give it a few more decades and they'll be wired just like everyone else.
It's been years since I've had a landline phone. I'm sure I'll eventually drop my landline high speed internet connection too.