151–160 of 299 posts
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being a public company, Google can't really justify altruistic endeavours to its shareholders unless they will also benefit from the project.
With Google's share class structure, they don't have to justify anything to their shareholders, only to their employees.
???
What kind of technology are they using to send the signal from the balloons to the ground? Though there were succesfull attempts to establish succesful WIFI links from the ground to stratoshpere(even 25 miles as I recall) this was achieved using precise DIRECT antennas (impossible when balloons are in constant movement) ???
Project Loon currently uses ISM bands (specifically 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands) that are available for anyone to use.
Still doesn't explain how they achieve good quality link
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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.
It does not have it now, because they want to focus on the basics. Once that is done, adding a camera is not a big deal.
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. :)
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It does not have it now, because they want to focus on the basics. Once that is done, adding a camera is not a big deal.
But I feel like that would make the media -- followed by average people -- go crazy. Consider the current NSA news combined with "Google puts hundreds of cameras in the sky".
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With Google's share class structure, they don't have to justify anything to their shareholders, only to their employees.
Whoa?! Care to elaborate on that or at least point to a relevant link? You really made me curious...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With Google's share class structure, they don't have to justify anything to their shareholders, only to their employees.
Whoa?! Care to elaborate on that or at least point to a relevant link? You really made me curious...
Regarding the share structure, Google has two classes of shares, or maybe three by now. Class C shares don't get to vote, and I can't remember if they exist yet (IIRC they were voted into existence a year ago, but only pending various hurdles that I think might not have yet been cleared). Class B shares are worth 10x as much as Class A shares, for voting purposes. Guess who owns most (all?) of the Class B shares.
Anyway, the various share classes are all a bit beside-the-point. The real point is that when you add up all the votes, Larry and Sergey control a lot of them. And then there's Eric. And then there are a few CxOs/SVPs with meaningful shares. So basically a small group of people, who have led Google to its current state, are in control. Other shareholders are just along for the ride.
On top of all that, Google has always warned potential buyers that they don't give a shit about quarterly earnings, and they care about long plays and such, from the IPO forward. If minority shareholders were to sue the company for lack of fiduciary care, I think this would go poorly for them.
You could look up modern SEC filings to have a more-detailed breakdown, but here's a years-out-of-date summary I found with a few minutes use of... you guessed it.
.1 - 1W Balloon height adjustments
.1 - .5W Flight tracking, control and management
.5 - 2W RF power and conversions (balloon-to-ground)
.5 - 2W RF power and conversions (balloon-to-baloon)
1 - 2W Packet routing, processing and baseband processing
Essential missing insight: how to they lower/rise the balloons and deflate/inflate them? With 100days service time you cannot simply vent gas. So a pump and compressor is needed?
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without addressing the remainder of your comment.. > I feel bad that you can't believe [..] the same could be said for naiveté.
Contrast their behavior, with other companies sitting on mountains of cash. They don't need to do this. Yet they do. That's good enough for me. Though opening up their index and creating a search marketplace might seal the deal.