11 ms·

Facebook In Talks To Acquire Drone Maker Titan Aerospace

78 points by ssclafani 13y ago

andyjohnson0 13y ago
I'm wondering how this would work in practice. Does anyone know what kind of receiver/transmitter would be needed to communicate with a drone 20km or more away? Is it feasible, in terms of device size and power consumption, to embed such a radio in a like a laptop? How about a smartphone? Or is the idea that the drone would communicate with base stations that would use conventional wireless signalling to talk to user devices? And if so, how does using a drone improve upon the current approach linking base stations using microwave links? Thoughts, anyone?
nctalaviya 13y ago
One more step to success...
eieio 13y ago
I thought the article's title was a joke when I first read it! Facebook acquiring a drone maker seemed absolutely bizarre to me, as it made me think of military drones. After reading the article, this doesn't seem any sillier than Google's Loon program. I don't have the technical knowledge to know which will likely prove to be more effective.
- amaks 13y ago
  It actually becomes obvious after realizing that all Facebook does is copying Google.
  - oscargrouch 13y ago
    "When you just dont know what to do, follow the leader".. facebook is sitting in a pile of bad decisions.. i wonder when their karma will start to hunt them down.. Google can make a LOT of mistakes right now (and weird bets) without hurting them much.. but this is not the reality to the majority of other players.. Trying to play Google's game will make them feel dizzy very soon
    - swagvok 13y ago
      I think making decisions like this aren't poor. You can honestly learn a lot when something fails. So what if this doesn't work? The field of drone development will grow and produce better products because of this, Facebook will potentially grow even more, and a bunch of third world countries have the potential to come online and experience the web.
- tjmc 13y ago
  Drone aircraft are a much better option than balloons which can't be directed. You can keep a drone over an urban area, deploy, bring it down and keep it separated from other drones in a much more controlled way. Mesh networking them is also a possibility. You can also move a drone in case of particularly large storm cells. 20km is above most weather, but a large cumulonimbus can occasionally get up there. Good to see Vern Raburn's name there too - he did some innovative work at Eclipse before the GFC wiped them out.
Tossrock 13y ago
I guess the drone's not vaporware after all (as posited in the previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528598)
lmg643 13y ago
Interesting to contrast national business strategies in Africa. China is pursuing something like neo-neo-colonialism. See these recent China-Zimbabwe deals: http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2014/01/30/zimbabwe-adopts-chinese-yuan-as-legal-currency http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2014/01/30/zi... http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/70687/china-plans-airbase-in-zim.html http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/70687/china-plans-... Zuck which wants to fly drones so they can setup facebook accounts and see advertising. Somehow I think it will take more development on the ground to make the ultra long ball work for facebook, unless they are hoping someone else will figure that part out. Like Gates.
primitivesuave 13y ago
When I was in Tanzania, there were many places where people hadn't even heard of Facebook. Human interaction is entirely face-to-face, and the only way to Snapchat someone would be to literally stick your face through their window. Same goes for pokes. Why they want to propagate the loneliness and technology-dependence of the modern age onto the truly free societies of the world is beyond me.
- rodly 13y ago
  Why a company wants to make more money is beyond you?
- jonnybgood 13y ago
  Face to face communication is archaic and barbaric. We must spread the Holy Interwebs of Google and Facebook to these uncivilized people and show them the glory of the App. History of the world.
  - trhway 13y ago
    >Face to face communication is archaic and barbaric. one can imagine how in say 20 years looking somebody in the face and/or speaking directly to somebody instead of "into communicator" would be a major faux pas
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Why they want to propagate the loneliness and technology-dependence of the modern age onto the truly free societies of the world is beyond me. Because technology, and therefore it should be better. Social modes of interaction must obey technological and business developments. Also fatalism: you can't stop progress. So, in general, the current way to view technology is the polar opposite of the optimist modernist way of 19th, early 20th century, were people believed they'd be in control. Now it's all about "adapting".
- archivator 13y ago
  Comments like this, full with a longing for a simpler time, amuse me. No one's making anyone communicate in a "lonely" way. If you don't like it, you are free to demand your preferred means of communication. What you'll find, however, is that people generally like it. "I tweet in my dreams," someone I know one said. The truth of the matter is, constant communication is valuable. Not in the market cap type of way but as a type of human interaction. It matters to people. It helps them organize parties, revolutions, their lives around a stream of current data. Is it distracting and addicting? Yes, it can be. But that's not a problem with the technology. If you lack the self-discipline to live in this deluge of information, guess what - help is one Google search away. I guess my overall point is that the bandwidth of human communication has only ever been growing. It's not gonna stop now, so there's no point in longing for a long gone idyllic past. P.S. I understand the hatred for dopamine triggers, wrapped in HTML. Meditation helps. P.P.S. I'm making an assumption that people willfully choose a medium as a basis for discourse. That's not the case most of the time. I believe everyone should be made aware of how the medium they're using influences their thoughts and actions. I'm all up for having more media, though.
jpkeisala 13y ago
Access to Facebook, that's only thing they really needed in Africa.
maaku 13y ago
Is it April 1st already?
dotBen 13y ago
Someone described Google's foray into driverless cars, robots etc as the emergence of Google as a conglomerate. Those projects are just too many steps away from advertising revenue to claim they're all part of a common vision. The same is true for Amazon, Microsoft, etc as examples of successful technology conglomerates. With similar capital available to it, Facebook needs to stop thinking "one trick pony" as a social network and start thinking conglomerate too. Investing in drone technology is a good start for them.
- kevando 13y ago
  Unlike those other companies, Facebook has a clear vision: Connect the world. If you listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about that vision, you see that facebook.com is just a part of the over arching goal. It's really cool to see such conviction. Rather: Google, Amazon, Microsoft - those companies just print money and have the luxury to think 10 steps ahead. Granted some of the most brilliant minds work for them, so their view of 10 steps ahead is often spot on and extremely innovative (gmail, aws, IE). jk jk on IE. Honestly, I am not sure what Microsoft has done lately..
  - raldi 13y ago
    Age of Empires was pretty good.
    - kevando 13y ago
      PRETTY good? One time on multi-player I was decimated to a single peon and buried my way into a nook in the forest and rebuilt a mighty army and was ultimately defeated. Damnit, I was depressed after that one..
      - meddlepal 13y ago
        The Black Forest survivalist strategy. Also good was carving a back entrance into your enemies base.
outside1234 13y ago
$60m seems so quaint, so frugal these days.
- trhway 13y ago
  if the drones could really stay airborne for 24h at about the same altitude it would be at least 1-2 orders of magnitude more expensive. The 24h is holy grail of this industry because above clouds it is the same basically as 5 years. Once somebody develops it, it will be a game changer for many industries.
bedhead 13y ago
Maybe I'm crazy, but this has a surprisingly high ick-factor to it. I dunno, it just strikes me as so pathetic and misguided and almost exploitative. These places that are so poor there is no internet connection need...Facebook? (Btw, you can spare me the altruistic angle, because I aint buying it.)
- abbasmehdi 13y ago
  If, along with FB access, they are bringing internet access to a region previously without it, then it's a good thing; because internet access is a net positive (unless you feel you are worse off with internet than you'd be without). I don't have a FB account anymore and find the internet valuable on a daily basis. Just my 2 cents.
- quahaug 13y ago
  Given Facebook's predilection for collaborating with the NSA, perhaps this is a government program to civilianize the image of drones. The military industrial complex really needs someone from the commercial sector to step up and rinse out a the bad aftertaste of all those funeral and wedding attendees that were blasted limb from limb by hellfire missiles. Jeff Bezos tried his damnedest to make them seem like santa clause just in time for christmas, but we need some real megawatt tech celebrities to work their magic. Bezos is balding, for christ's sake. I mean Mark Zuckerberg with all his cute, cuddly animal-loving vegetarian tendencies wouldn't harm a fly. If HE'S okay with drones, then they MUST be okay! (insert obligatory emoticon) And, oh yeah... CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 15 PANOPTICOID DRONES MANUFACTUED BY LOCKHEED, YOUR LOCAL SHERRIF'S DEPARTMENT WILL BE ENFORCING ALL EVICTIONS IN YOUR COUNTY BY NON-LETHAL PEPPER-STUN DRONE STRIKE. IN THE EVENT THAT YOUR HOME IS FORECLOSED, YOU WILL BE ORDERED TO VACATE UNDER THREAT OF NON-LETHAL FORCE. --- CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 27 PROTOBEDIENT DRONES MANUFACTUED BY NORTHROP/GRUMMAN ALL TRAFFIC STOPS ON STATE ROAD 902 WILL NOW BE CONDUCTED AUTONOMOUSLY. DO NOT TAUNT THE PROTOBEDIENT DRONE. ***end citizen alert notification***
- fit2rule 13y ago
  I agree with you on the ick factor, but on the other hand I think there is much to be said for the idea of getting disparate and non-communicative cultures to try to understand each other, and if thats going to happen through the mechanism of kids growing up and using social networking, then I'm all for it. Of course, I'd much prefer to see someone go to places like Tanzania and so on, with the goal to teach these people how to make their own drones and networks out of the scrap pollution fobbed off on them by the Western world, and who knows .. maybe we'll see that happening now that the idea is out there. From my perspective, it's damned easy to make a drone out of an old DVD player, some pieces of foamboard, and so on - whats not so easy is to find an application for it that will truly help people. Put an old cell phone in the fuselage and use it to transmit bitcoin between the villages? Great f'n idea..
joe_the_user 13y ago
This also could be nice if Comcast is intent on being the One Big Internet Chokepoint. Once they have their fleet of Internet drones working, they could move them to other underserved areas, like California!
amaks 13y ago
"A machine learning researcher, a crypto-currency expert, and an Erlang programmer walk into a bar. Facebook buys the bar for $27 billion."
- samwilliams 13y ago
  This made me laugh loudly out loud (LLOL?). Thank you for brightening my morning!
- uniclaude 13y ago
  You could at least give credit to the author of the joke. https://twitter.com/ML_Hipster/status/438418306769244160 https://twitter.com/ML_Hipster/status/438418306769244160
  - amaks 13y ago
    Sorry for that, I found it in livejournal.com without any reference to the original author.
malandrew 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if there were national security issues involved as well. Putting Facebook anywhere in the world provides solid communications data on a broad cross-section of any society in the world. The data is likely to be so good that you can very effectively monitor that nation. TBH, I don't know why companies like Facebook and Google don't manage their own hedgefunds based on aggregate data that they know before anyone else. Currency markets would be an obvious one to participate in.
shittyanalogy 13y ago
Facebook needs to pivot.

78 points by ssclafani 13y ago

I'm wondering how this would work in practice. Does anyone know what kind of receiver/transmitter would be needed to communicate with a drone 20km or more away? Is it feasible, in terms of device size and power consumption, to embed such a radio in a like a laptop? How about a smartphone? Or is the idea that the drone would communicate with base stations that would use conventional wireless signalling to talk to user devices? And if so, how does using a drone improve upon the current approach linking base stations using microwave links? Thoughts, anyone?

nctalaviya 13y ago

One more step to success...

eieio 13y ago

I thought the article's title was a joke when I first read it! Facebook acquiring a drone maker seemed absolutely bizarre to me, as it made me think of military drones. After reading the article, this doesn't seem any sillier than Google's Loon program. I don't have the technical knowledge to know which will likely prove to be more effective.

amaks 13y ago
It actually becomes obvious after realizing that all Facebook does is copying Google.
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  "When you just dont know what to do, follow the leader".. facebook is sitting in a pile of bad decisions.. i wonder when their karma will start to hunt them down.. Google can make a LOT of mistakes right now (and weird bets) without hurting them much.. but this is not the reality to the majority of other players.. Trying to play Google's game will make them feel dizzy very soon
  - swagvok 13y ago
    I think making decisions like this aren't poor. You can honestly learn a lot when something fails. So what if this doesn't work? The field of drone development will grow and produce better products because of this, Facebook will potentially grow even more, and a bunch of third world countries have the potential to come online and experience the web.
tjmc 13y ago
Drone aircraft are a much better option than balloons which can't be directed. You can keep a drone over an urban area, deploy, bring it down and keep it separated from other drones in a much more controlled way. Mesh networking them is also a possibility. You can also move a drone in case of particularly large storm cells. 20km is above most weather, but a large cumulonimbus can occasionally get up there. Good to see Vern Raburn's name there too - he did some innovative work at Eclipse before the GFC wiped them out.

Tossrock 13y ago

I guess the drone's not vaporware after all (as posited in the previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528598)

lmg643 13y ago

Interesting to contrast national business strategies in Africa. China is pursuing something like neo-neo-colonialism. See these recent China-Zimbabwe deals: http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2014/01/30/zimbabwe-adopts-chinese-yuan-as-legal-currency http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2014/01/30/zi... http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/70687/china-plans-airbase-in-zim.html http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/70687/china-plans-... Zuck which wants to fly drones so they can setup facebook accounts and see advertising. Somehow I think it will take more development on the ground to make the ultra long ball work for facebook, unless they are hoping someone else will figure that part out. Like Gates.

primitivesuave 13y ago

When I was in Tanzania, there were many places where people hadn't even heard of Facebook. Human interaction is entirely face-to-face, and the only way to Snapchat someone would be to literally stick your face through their window. Same goes for pokes. Why they want to propagate the loneliness and technology-dependence of the modern age onto the truly free societies of the world is beyond me.

rodly 13y ago
Why a company wants to make more money is beyond you?
jonnybgood 13y ago
Face to face communication is archaic and barbaric. We must spread the Holy Interwebs of Google and Facebook to these uncivilized people and show them the glory of the App. History of the world.
- trhway 13y ago
  >Face to face communication is archaic and barbaric. one can imagine how in say 20 years looking somebody in the face and/or speaking directly to somebody instead of "into communicator" would be a major faux pas
coldtea 13y ago
>Why they want to propagate the loneliness and technology-dependence of the modern age onto the truly free societies of the world is beyond me. Because technology, and therefore it should be better. Social modes of interaction must obey technological and business developments. Also fatalism: you can't stop progress. So, in general, the current way to view technology is the polar opposite of the optimist modernist way of 19th, early 20th century, were people believed they'd be in control. Now it's all about "adapting".
archivator 13y ago
Comments like this, full with a longing for a simpler time, amuse me. No one's making anyone communicate in a "lonely" way. If you don't like it, you are free to demand your preferred means of communication. What you'll find, however, is that people generally like it. "I tweet in my dreams," someone I know one said. The truth of the matter is, constant communication is valuable. Not in the market cap type of way but as a type of human interaction. It matters to people. It helps them organize parties, revolutions, their lives around a stream of current data. Is it distracting and addicting? Yes, it can be. But that's not a problem with the technology. If you lack the self-discipline to live in this deluge of information, guess what - help is one Google search away. I guess my overall point is that the bandwidth of human communication has only ever been growing. It's not gonna stop now, so there's no point in longing for a long gone idyllic past. P.S. I understand the hatred for dopamine triggers, wrapped in HTML. Meditation helps. P.P.S. I'm making an assumption that people willfully choose a medium as a basis for discourse. That's not the case most of the time. I believe everyone should be made aware of how the medium they're using influences their thoughts and actions. I'm all up for having more media, though.

jpkeisala 13y ago

Access to Facebook, that's only thing they really needed in Africa.

maaku 13y ago

Is it April 1st already?

dotBen 13y ago

Someone described Google's foray into driverless cars, robots etc as the emergence of Google as a conglomerate. Those projects are just too many steps away from advertising revenue to claim they're all part of a common vision. The same is true for Amazon, Microsoft, etc as examples of successful technology conglomerates. With similar capital available to it, Facebook needs to stop thinking "one trick pony" as a social network and start thinking conglomerate too. Investing in drone technology is a good start for them.

kevando 13y ago
Unlike those other companies, Facebook has a clear vision: Connect the world. If you listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about that vision, you see that facebook.com is just a part of the over arching goal. It's really cool to see such conviction. Rather: Google, Amazon, Microsoft - those companies just print money and have the luxury to think 10 steps ahead. Granted some of the most brilliant minds work for them, so their view of 10 steps ahead is often spot on and extremely innovative (gmail, aws, IE). jk jk on IE. Honestly, I am not sure what Microsoft has done lately..
- raldi 13y ago
  Age of Empires was pretty good.
  - kevando 13y ago
    PRETTY good? One time on multi-player I was decimated to a single peon and buried my way into a nook in the forest and rebuilt a mighty army and was ultimately defeated. Damnit, I was depressed after that one..
    - meddlepal 13y ago
      The Black Forest survivalist strategy. Also good was carving a back entrance into your enemies base.

outside1234 13y ago

$60m seems so quaint, so frugal these days.

trhway 13y ago
if the drones could really stay airborne for 24h at about the same altitude it would be at least 1-2 orders of magnitude more expensive. The 24h is holy grail of this industry because above clouds it is the same basically as 5 years. Once somebody develops it, it will be a game changer for many industries.

bedhead 13y ago

Maybe I'm crazy, but this has a surprisingly high ick-factor to it. I dunno, it just strikes me as so pathetic and misguided and almost exploitative. These places that are so poor there is no internet connection need...Facebook? (Btw, you can spare me the altruistic angle, because I aint buying it.)

abbasmehdi 13y ago
If, along with FB access, they are bringing internet access to a region previously without it, then it's a good thing; because internet access is a net positive (unless you feel you are worse off with internet than you'd be without). I don't have a FB account anymore and find the internet valuable on a daily basis. Just my 2 cents.
quahaug 13y ago
Given Facebook's predilection for collaborating with the NSA, perhaps this is a government program to civilianize the image of drones. The military industrial complex really needs someone from the commercial sector to step up and rinse out a the bad aftertaste of all those funeral and wedding attendees that were blasted limb from limb by hellfire missiles. Jeff Bezos tried his damnedest to make them seem like santa clause just in time for christmas, but we need some real megawatt tech celebrities to work their magic. Bezos is balding, for christ's sake. I mean Mark Zuckerberg with all his cute, cuddly animal-loving vegetarian tendencies wouldn't harm a fly. If HE'S okay with drones, then they MUST be okay! (insert obligatory emoticon) And, oh yeah... CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 15 PANOPTICOID DRONES MANUFACTUED BY LOCKHEED, YOUR LOCAL SHERRIF'S DEPARTMENT WILL BE ENFORCING ALL EVICTIONS IN YOUR COUNTY BY NON-LETHAL PEPPER-STUN DRONE STRIKE. IN THE EVENT THAT YOUR HOME IS FORECLOSED, YOU WILL BE ORDERED TO VACATE UNDER THREAT OF NON-LETHAL FORCE. --- CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 27 PROTOBEDIENT DRONES MANUFACTUED BY NORTHROP/GRUMMAN ALL TRAFFIC STOPS ON STATE ROAD 902 WILL NOW BE CONDUCTED AUTONOMOUSLY. DO NOT TAUNT THE PROTOBEDIENT DRONE. ***end citizen alert notification***
fit2rule 13y ago
I agree with you on the ick factor, but on the other hand I think there is much to be said for the idea of getting disparate and non-communicative cultures to try to understand each other, and if thats going to happen through the mechanism of kids growing up and using social networking, then I'm all for it. Of course, I'd much prefer to see someone go to places like Tanzania and so on, with the goal to teach these people how to make their own drones and networks out of the scrap pollution fobbed off on them by the Western world, and who knows .. maybe we'll see that happening now that the idea is out there. From my perspective, it's damned easy to make a drone out of an old DVD player, some pieces of foamboard, and so on - whats not so easy is to find an application for it that will truly help people. Put an old cell phone in the fuselage and use it to transmit bitcoin between the villages? Great f'n idea..

joe_the_user 13y ago

This also could be nice if Comcast is intent on being the One Big Internet Chokepoint. Once they have their fleet of Internet drones working, they could move them to other underserved areas, like California!

amaks 13y ago

"A machine learning researcher, a crypto-currency expert, and an Erlang programmer walk into a bar. Facebook buys the bar for $27 billion."

samwilliams 13y ago
This made me laugh loudly out loud (LLOL?). Thank you for brightening my morning!
uniclaude 13y ago
You could at least give credit to the author of the joke. https://twitter.com/ML_Hipster/status/438418306769244160 https://twitter.com/ML_Hipster/status/438418306769244160
- amaks 13y ago
  Sorry for that, I found it in livejournal.com without any reference to the original author.

malandrew 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if there were national security issues involved as well. Putting Facebook anywhere in the world provides solid communications data on a broad cross-section of any society in the world. The data is likely to be so good that you can very effectively monitor that nation. TBH, I don't know why companies like Facebook and Google don't manage their own hedgefunds based on aggregate data that they know before anyone else. Currency markets would be an obvious one to participate in.

shittyanalogy 13y ago

Facebook needs to pivot.