My back-of-the-envelope first-approximation math suggests you'd need "only" about half a million of these things to cover the entire surface area of the Earth. To me, that seemed a surprisingly low number.
Project Loon
211–220 of 299 posts
Re: Project Loon
#212This reminds me of the "swivel eyed loons" of last weeks episode of The Now Show
Re: Project Loon
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the first thing I thought as well!!
http://www.google.com/tisp/ :)
Re: Project Loon
#214Perhaps I'm pessimistic but my immediate thought is how much Google is involved, i.e are they providing the backbones the balloons connect to? The last thing I'd want is Google knowing every URL I visit.
Re: Project Loon
#215"Never mind about the NSA, here's this wacky project for the public good!"
Re: Project Loon
#216Plenty of pictures on their G+ page: https://plus.google.com/+ProjectLoon
Re: Project Loon
#217I love how google has so much money they can spend money on pet projects like these. No wonder they attract people with so many "impossible ideas" that sometimes turn out to be pet projects worth spending come money on.
Re: Project Loon
#218Re: Project Loon
#219What is "loon" about this? We've been flying stuff outer space for over 50 years.
Re: Project Loon
#220Wow....this is mind-blowing. The potential impact of a globally connected internet is crazy. No longer can a country fully filter/control all internet traffic. This could be a major boon to democracy. I wonder if Google did this, partially to piss China off. This seems like an awesome way to get around the 'Great Firewall'.
>This seems like an awesome way to get around the 'Great Firewall'.
Who says you can deploy them over china?