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Google blimps will carry wireless signal across Africa
- jfb 13y agoThis is so much more awesome than Glass, it defies description.
- jmilkbal 13y agoIn 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?
- acgourley 13y agoI honestly don't care if they do. Users of this service come out ahead without them doing so. It puts them in a better place to gain experience about these issues and learn how to protect themselves moving forward.
- cloudwalking 13y agoSeems 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.
- Chronic24 13y agoAccess to the same internet. Yes. But we were introduced to the internet when Google wasn't "evil" as some people say it is today.
- rz2k 13y agoThere haven't been many serious discussions about privacy or tracking in the US either. The only exceptions might be health data and some financial data, yet much of that information could probably be mined to, using data on purchases and online activity. Here's [1] just one example of the type of thing that is easily possible. It meant that if you bought a new high end car during the last campaign you were likely to receive a direct mail solicitation for campaign contribution from one or both of the presidential candidates. Maybe that is good or maybe it is bad, but there have been few serious discussions, and during recent years the Supreme Court has declined to recognize most notions of any rights to privacy. [1] http://buxtonco.com/industry-solutions/political/ http://buxtonco.com/industry-solutions/political/
- frozenport 13y agoDoesn't using TV signals or satellite require special hardware that doesn't come on cheap android phones?
- ihsw 13y agoThe article is fairly light on technical details, however the signals will probably be some manner of 3G (or even LTE).
- Thrymr 13y ago> the signals will probably be some manner of 3G (or even LTE). That contradicts the details that are in the article: "Google lobbyists are targeting regulators across developing countries to allow them to use airwaves currently reserved for television broadcasts - which operate at lower frequencies and can therefore penetrate buildings and travel longer distances than current WiFi technology." It looks like it will depend on access points that serve as routers.
- ajasmin 13y agoWhat is the rest of the world doing with these old analog TV bands? Is that part of the spectrum already exploited by cell carriers?
- notatoad 13y agoyes. these blimps must be providing links between APs on the ground, not direct connections to users.
- cloudwalking 13y agoOnly Google...
- ok_craig 13y agoThat image of the Google blimp almost looks like the logo was photoshopped on. Any way to tell if that's real or not?
- spacemanaki 13y agoYep, I think it's photoshopped: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4995227882/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4995227882/
- ams6110 13y agoNo journalistic integrity at Wired, I guess.
- darkchasma 13y agoBecause they photoshopped a stock image??? Seriously? You understand how journalism and blogging works, right?
- ams6110 13y agoPhotoshopping 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.
- cpeterso 13y agoWired should have just posted an abstract sketch, something that says "blimp" but is clearly not pretending to be a "GBlimp".
- leecbaker 13y agoThat 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System
- betterunix 13y agoMy girlfriend just asked a question that had not even occurred to me: what happens during a storm? I am sure Google's engineers have a way to handle that, but I am genuinely curious about what their solution is.
- cfn 13y agoI am not an expert but I would guess that they would ground the blimp and secure it.
- zeckalpha 13y agoI believe the blimps would be above the cloud layer.
- ams6110 13y agoWhat happens when local militants/vandals shoot them down?
- bennyg 13y agoLocal militants/vandals then lose access to the internet - and hopefully get reprimanded by the other folks of the area. Hopefully said militants/vandals would be more willing to use the services (maybe even to further their own nefarious goals) than destroy them.
- Hovertruck 13y agoThey'd probably find more value in the general populace not having access to the rest of the world.
- a-priori 13y agoI don't know what altitude they'd fly at, but this quote from the Wikipedia article on Airships says: "In November 2006, the U.S. Army bought an A380+ airship from American Blimp Corporation through a Systems level contract with Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen Hamilton. The airship started flight tests in late 2007, with a primary goal of carrying 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of payload to an altitude of 15,000 ft (4,600 m) under remote control and autonomous waypoint navigation." So it's perfectly possible for these things to typically fly a few kilometres above the ground. That is outside the range of small arms: the furthest confirmed sniper kill to date was at a range of 1,250 m. So while it would certainly be possible for someone to shoot one of these airships down using aircraft or guided missiles, they would not be able to with small arms fire. Except during takeoff and landing, of course.
- LowKarmaAccount 13y agoThis is the greatest innovation since Virtudyne's "The Digital Donkey" [1] — which is a parody of SimIndiana [2]. There really have been donkey cart driven libraries. [3] Of course, there really have been projects that used balloons in the upper atmosphere. It is actually difficult to maintain a balloon at a constant altitude in the upper atmosphere because you have to account for daily temperature variation and changing wind patterns. The most famous project of this sort was Project Mogul[4], which attempted to put a balloon in the atmosphere's analogue of the SOFAR channel to listen for anything that sounded like a nuclear test in the Soviet Union. One of the Project Mogul balloons crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The government's cover story was that it was a "weather balloon", which of course, it wasn't. But it wasn't an alien spaceship, either. [1]: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Virtudyne_0x3a__The_Digital_Donkey.aspx http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Virtudyne_0x3a__The_Digital_... [2]: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/040707b.html http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/040707b.html [3]: http://archive.ifla.org/V/press/pr0225-02.htm http://archive.ifla.org/V/press/pr0225-02.htm [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul
- cinquemb 13y agoNow AFRICOM won't need to buy more bandwidth from china…
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoAnd so it begins. There is a new age coming, one where we realise surveillance is ubiquitous and more importantly carries benefits for us as well as loss of what we thought of as privacy. This is probably a good thing. These blimps will not be the last of atmospheric and LEO orbitals that will criss cross the globe and provide always-on services we suddenly cannot live without. We do need to manage who holds and uses information that relates to us personally, but in the end our children will always know where they and their friends are, will be able to look at any point on the globe instantly (want to see the giraffe running across the Serengeti right now) and the losses, well, we will deal with them. The benefits are going to be huge. Tim Berners-Lee, look what you started.
- scott_karana 13y agoIsn't it a bit much to give Berners-Lee credit for this? I was with you up to that point. :)
- themstheones 13y agoHe was definitely an important step in getting to this point. The WWW is what made the internet mainstream. That and ICQ.
- silvestrov 13y agoIf he hadn't taken that step, somebody else would a bit later. Even Microsoft tried to do their thing.
- DougWebb 13y agoMicrosoft tried to compete with Novell Netware, which was strictly focused on internal corporate network services. it was only much later that Bill Gates noticed the internet and WWW. But if the WWW hadn't existed, most likely MS would have followed the path of AOL and CompuServe, creating a walled garden for subscribers-only. It's unlikely that any corporation would have created the open web like TBL did.
- Yuioup 13y agoI wonder if they're taking precautions against the blimps being shot down.
- abenga 13y agoContrary to (popular?) opinion most of Africa is not a warzone. With extremely few exceptions (Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo), most of Sub-Saharan Africa is in the middle of an extended period of peace. It's inconceivable that if ever deployed, any of these blimps will be interfered with in the airspaces of East Africa (aside from Somalia) or over any country south of them.
- icebraining 13y agoPeople were shooting drones in the US[1]; you don't to assume a warzone to consider it a risk. [1] http://www.suasnews.com/2012/11/19719/activists-drone-shot-out-of-the-sky-for-fourth-time/ http://www.suasnews.com/2012/11/19719/activists-drone-shot-o... (Yes, the drone may have been above private grounds; so probably will the blimps)
- Cushman 13y agoIt'd be rather more difficult than that to take out a high-altitude blimp with small arms. One hesitates to say impossible, but it's wildly unlikely without organized military involvement.
- saraid216 13y agoThe US is also notoriously high-density in guns and the will to fire them; many of its inhabitants do indeed believe they live in a warzone.
- GIFtheory 13y agoI wonder if they've heard of these guys: http://ahumanright.org http://ahumanright.org. They had an interesting, albeit somewhat quixotic-sounding, campaign to buy a satellite (TerreStar-1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerreStar-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerreStar-1) for the same purpose. Unfortunately, the satellite was sold before they could raise enough money, but it looks like they're still around and contemplating ideas.
- siculars 13y agoSo is Google a carrier in these locales? Net net this is a Good Thing™ for access in Africa. Unfortunately soon Google and other carriers like them will be asked to implement all sorts of nasty filtering, censoring and generally anti-privacy tomfoolery. How will this play with their base back home in the good 'ole US of A? Recall how Yahoo got lambasted here for their cooperation with China. And they weren't even a carrier.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rusbra 13y ago...And Google continues to impress
- relaunched 13y agoI thought when they hired Eric Brewer as VP of Infrastructure it was for his general CAP and high-scalability expertise. Maybe they hired him for his experience bringing wireless internet to developing nations / the third world...or both! http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/ http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/
- cpeterso 13y agoDoes broadcasting an unwanted wireless internet across a nation's borders count as an act of war? If the US broadcast open Wi-Fi across North Korea's or China's borders, they would be unhappy. Something like Radio Free Europe.
- sciurus 13y agoThis article comes pretty close to plagiarizing the source article it's based on - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578503350402434918.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732397500457850...
- nwzpaperman 13y agoPretty sure google should deploy wifi blimps to south/north Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. before throwing resources at African wifi. I guess google plans to inherit Nigerian family fortunes and such and only needs the coms infrastructure to obtain it.
- sschaevitz 13y agoThe aggregate population of the states that you mention have is approximately 16.5 million. The impact of those 16.5 million people coming online (if, as you claim, they currently don't have adequate access) is almost trivial compared to the impact these non-traditional internet connections could have for on the order of 1 billion people. I suppose you were just being snarky, but I (and Eric Schmidt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqfC0l3W0B4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqfC0l3W0B4) think this project could have a massive impact on the state of the internet.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoDownvoted because your comment consists of an unsubstantiated assertion followed by a dismissive slur.
- nwzpaperman 13y agoAssertion? Do explain your authority on Africa to me. As someone who has family in Africa, right now, and more going within a month, I am confident in my assertion that Africa is a failed continent. Everyone on earth has tried to civilize, ahem, "bring online" Africa and failed beyond resource extraction. It is a money pit and there are no rules. There is significant precedence for failure if you open any history book. It is arrogant to think you can influence anything meaningful there. Show some humility and invest in your own back yard where you have a slightly higher chance of making a meaningful impact.
- oblique63 13y ago> if you open any history book. It is arrogant to think you can influence anything meaningful there. On the contrary, if you read any history book, you'll most likely realize the wonders of human progress, achievement, and optimism. The only arrogant conclusion to draw from that would be to underestimate human potential. Luckily, progress has historically come about thanks to the dismissal of such conservative presuppositions.
- pshc 13y agoToo bad mesh networking hasn't got off the ground in a big way (?). Couldn't individuals hoist weather balloons with mesh transmitters and build these sorts of networks bottom-up?
- vanderZwan 13y agoI 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 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. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam
- Myrmornis 13y ago> I guess the problem with these small internet cafes is that the most likely early adopters are these 419'ers. Problem for whom?
- Sven7 13y agoDo these teens have access to tech training/education in theses areas?
- Myrmornis 13y agoEven with your "Before this gets misinterpreted" sentence, your post is essentially saying: "Oh yes, well, internet in Africa would be nice, but those Africans, you know, they mainly use the internet to try to scam people in the first world". As such it is inaccurate, smug, racist and ignorant, and reflects an implicit assumption that the world should be organized so that it is benign to the interests of affluent westerners.
- mdturnerphys 13y agoHmmm . . . possible connection to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5754619 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5754619 ?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoSo Google gets hammered in several jurisdictions by driving a car with cameras around and now they are planning a blimp? I'm sure an intermediate cell network in disaster zones but full time RF surveillance? Why would a country agree to that?
- brianherbert 13y agoI'm curious, are there any plans to work with local providers? It would be a shame for African telcoms lose out to Google.
- Kinnard 13y agoAfrica will be bigger than both India and China combined. There are whole cities waiting to be built. Check out the Solow growth model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_growth_model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_growth_model
- tokenadult 13y agoThis story seems very thinly sourced. I'm having trouble verifying it through reports in more reliable media outlets. The blog post by Google linked from the article doesn't have the same speculation that the article submitted here has.
- jasonlgrimes 13y agoNow, if we could get them to feature NFL games :P
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nichols 13y agoIn related news, Larry Page now demands to be addressed as "Father Comstock" when in the GooglePlex.
- Apocryphon 13y agoSomething for the sheep standing on Zanzibar to look up at.
- jfb 13y agoWell, I appreciate a good John Brunner callback.
- buyx 13y agoSouth Africa's digital TV migration has been held up for a few years, for various depressing, third-world reasons. Google seems to have found a workaround, according to the article, by detecting unused parts of the spectrum. Perhaps that's what will replace the "digital-TV dividend" in SA.
- henroth 13y agoAs someone posting from rural Malawi on a perfectly fine internet connection based on the cellular network, why blimps?
- jjuliano 13y agoWe need to design a phone that is cheap enough and runs on distributed wireless power + massive P2P Internet.