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Facebook completes construction of first full-scale aircraft, Aquila [video]
- melling 11y agoPlanes that fly for 3 months at a time on sunlight, bringing the Internet to people isn't cool?
- MichaelGG 11y agoThat'd be cool. But bringing limited network access to certain sites, such as Facebook, is less cool.
- arthurcolle 11y agowikipedia is a supoorted website. thats really cool
- nostromo 11y ago> supported website Think about how terrible that is.
- sokoloff 11y agoIs it better or worse than simply: NO CARRIER I argue it's better.
- melling 11y agoPeople aren't even considering that once it becomes a solved problem, the next company that wants to do it gets the knowledge for free. Figuring out the engineering also has value. Other uses for autonomous solar airplanes? Delivering medicine and supplies to remote areas?
- xanderstrike 11y ago> Other uses for autonomous solar airplanes? Delivering medicine and supplies to remote areas? Or even, say in five to ten years when the cost of the technology drops, delivering unrestricted, high speed internet to hundreds of millions of people.
- pervycreeper 11y ago>Think about how terrible that is. In theory, absolutely. In practice, too much of the useful web is concentrated in a small number of fiefdoms. And that is ultimately our fault, not theirs.
- bhntr3 11y agoYou know what's cool? A billion planes. Sorry. I had to. But really, I think everyone's a little sad that this kind of impressive technical achievement is in pursuit of a questionable final objective. We're so advanced now with so many smart people, we're not really limited by what we CAN build but what we DO build. There are so many things that are theoretically possible but what we spend our time and money on is often so mundane. I think it would be cool if there were thousands of these planes flying around providing free internet to everyone. What we'll probably get is hundreds flying around giving free facebook to some people. But I shouldn't complain. At least research is getting implemented. That is cool.
- motoboi 11y agoI would like to now why 3 months. Do they need to change batteries?
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y agoScheduled maintenance, I suspect. Inspect and maintain rather than wait till it falls out of the sky.
- jacquesm 11y agoThat would be cool but that's not what this is.
- josh2600 11y agoThis is quite a thing. Does anyone know how they're achieving the 10gbps data rate? I'm wondering if they're doing something like vortex beam forming... http://www.gizmag.com/twisted-light-beam-data-transmission-vienna/34713/ http://www.gizmag.com/twisted-light-beam-data-transmission-v... and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030401809011043 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030401809... (Although this article is about using a physical fiber).
- jaycroft 11y agoThey're likely not using something too exotic: 10Gbps free space optical links have been available commercially for a few years now (see products by AOptix). The tricky part is pointing them and getting the last bit of power on target. If they're actually forming links at 100's of km separation they're already on par with what APL was doing just 2 or 3 years ago [1]. Impressive that they not only have the data terminal to develop but have had the additional complication of building a new airframe as well. Having worked on the pointing/tracking/acquisition side of this problem that's the part that's truly impressive to me. Sub-microradian pointing is not trivial. Their "red beam following green beam" shots in the video must be included for a bit of a laugh... [1] http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/ScienceAndEngineeringTechnology/Documents/Hybrid%20RF%20Network%20and%20Free%20Space%20Optical%20Communications.pdf http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/ScienceAndEngineerin...
- dharma1 11y agoAgreed, this is very cool. How do free space optical links work in the rain though? Shouldn't be a problem for the link between aircrafts as they fly above the weather but might be for aircraft-ground link if that's optical. Hope FB will open source parts of this! I know NASA has been looking at optical links for high bandwidth space communication, this accurate tracking would really help
- colsandurz 11y agoAirborne lasercom isn't anything new. Hi-throughput lasercom to the moon is though: https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/LLCDachievesrecorddatadownloadspeed.html https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/LLCDachievesrecorddatadownloadsp...
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- dnautics 11y agoWhy is that so horrible that marketing ad money pays for it? And it's also not obvious that there 'is no other way to get there', but rather that way of getting there got there first.
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- melling 11y agoThere certainly are other ways. It is a shame the world isn't a better place. Turn off your computer and get out there and get it done. Complaining because a company needs to align its investments with future growth doesn't help. Many companies only make plans for the next several quarters. It's actually refreshing when one does research that will pay off in a decade.
- jeremy7600 11y agoJust, no. This is frightening on many levels. A facebook plane? To get people on facebook, right? To get them on the internet is secondary to Zuckerbergs goals here, lets be honest. A walled garden? Come on. It should be the whole internet or they shouldn't even bother. A walled garden, with no security protocols, with the intention of getting the entire world on facebook? Not cool.
- melling 11y agoYes. Most people and companies have to justify their extensive time and boat loads of money spent. He wants to grow his business and he's willing to invest to do it. If Coca Cola built roads to villages to sell their products, you would also be unhappy?
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- jlas 11y agoHow about Coca Cola's Skype machine: http://youtu.be/zlA9tXYxD8g http://youtu.be/zlA9tXYxD8g
- oscargrouch 11y ago> If Coca Cola built roads to villages to sell their products, you would also be unhappy? If Coca Cola built roads to villages to sell their products , but only Coca Cola trucks could use the roads - FTFY Now that doesnt look so good, does it?
- samstave 11y agoMay 14th, 2024:In other news, today marks the 11th time in recent months that ISIS terrorists were able to shoot down a Facebook Aquila V.9 autonomous internet drown. Cutting off Facebook and general internet access to millions of Facebook users in the arid region. Officials from Facebook, the NSA, and the NTSB were unavailable to comment. This tragedy highlighted on this, Mark Zuckerberg's 40th birthday.
- panic 11y agoThis is not an effort to provide the full internet. See this critique by the EFF for more details: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-not-neutra...
- onewaystreet 11y agoSomeone has to pay for this. Providing the full internet isn't an option.
- tdaltonc 11y agoIf it's not the "full internet" then it's not the internet. They shouldn't dress this up like a charitable project.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoSome internet > no internet
- dropit_sphere 11y agoI don't think that's true. We can substitute (no internet + desire for internet) in for the right side, and I think that's better than (some internet + lessened desire for full internet)
- javert 11y agoI would like to see these used in the US to break the telco monopoly stranglehold. Of course it's likely the FAA/FCC would make sure not to let that happen. edit: I mean same tech, but not deployed by Facebook.
- rhino369 11y agoThe US has the density and wealth to do this via landbased towers. So AT&T, Tmobile, Verizon, and Sprint already do it. This is more about reaching remote, sparsely populated areas.
- ericjang 11y agoThis video has given me a newfound respect for Facebook. Many engineers at tech companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. report that they feel overqualified for their work. I imagine many yearn for the chance to work on moonshot projects like these - is there any reason why secretive research divisions at these companies are so small, when there is plenty of engineering talent to go around internally?
- g_delgado14 11y agoI'm guessing cause the 'overqualified' engineers are tied up with what they were hired to do. Not to mention that the monumental risk that a company takes on when they do moonshot projects. There are very lax expectations of any profitability in the near term, so there seems to be large disincentives to invest heavily ... esp when the company is public and facing quarter by quarter scrutiny.
- nostrademons 11y agoBecause more engineers makes for a worse product, particularly if you're doing something very innovative that requires a lot of iteration. The amount of code you can write grows linearly with number of engineers, but communication costs grow quadratically. Therefore, the speed at which you can execute is inversely proportional to the size of the team, unless you can cut communication costs. Established projects can do this with architectural decisions that prevent one engineer from needing to know about or communicate with other engineers working on unrelated parts of the product. New projects cannot, because the architecture hasn't been established yet. That's why every innovative product grows out of a small team.
- aakster 11y agoI think also because there is some negative sentiment to projects like these from people like bill gates, companies like FB try to keep it on the down low until they have something worth showing.
- motoboi 11y agoThere is this idea that small teams with great leadership are more effective at innovation.
- kelvin0 11y agoSo the NSA`s 'surveillance' activities can now look like a benevolent mary poppins feel good internet provider? Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have worked on such a project ... just not for FB ... sorry, not a fan.
- shirro 11y agoI hate Facebook and what it does to people. There is nothing worse than sitting in a room full of zombies on their mobiles. Despite all the great tech my first thought is how satisfying it would be for one of these to be taken down by a ground to Facebook missile.
- roymurdock 11y agoThere's an interesting phenomenon where people in developing countries begin to think that Facebook is the full extent of the internet: Indonesians surveyed by Galpaya told her that they didn’t use the internet. But in focus groups, they would talk enthusiastically about how much time they spent on Facebook. Galpaya, a researcher (and now CEO) with LIRNEasia, a think tank, called Rohan Samarajiva, her boss at the time, to tell him what she had discovered. “It seemed that in their minds, the Internet did not exist; only Facebook,” he concluded. [1] I feel extremely lucky and privileged to have grown up with an open internet, where there was at least some (diminishing) percent of websites that did not treat me like a product to be marketed to advertisers, prodding and analyzing, constantly gamifying and creeping ever-inwards on my privacy. I deactivated my account a few months ago because it felt like Facebook was taking more from me in terms of time and energy than I was gaining from it. There is a huge benefit to bringing the connectivity of Facebook to developing countries and remote territories. Many people wouldn't be able to run businesses or keep in touch with family without it. I just wish it didn't come with the strangely uncomfortable, sell-your-soul type of vibe that a project funded by publicly owned, for-profit venture usually generates. Especially when PR tries to spin it off as a charitable or humane act. Once you go public, it's about profit and it always will be. And a lot of the time, that's fine. Our country was founded and continues to run on capitalistic principles. Just don't hide behind any false pretenses and you'll have my support 100%. [1] http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/ http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-ide...
- forgetsusername 11y ago>think that Facebook is the full extent of the internet: My mother wanted to "get on the internet" because of the Facebook phenomenon a few years ago. Now she thinks Facebook is the full extent of the internet. Googling something or visiting a "homepage" is completely foreign to her. She'll search in the Facebook bar or ask questions in her feed if she's looking for information. Now she has a smartphone, and outside of texting and the odd call, only uses the Facebook app. Obviously, her aptitude and usage is minimal, but it's an interesting phenomenon to behold.
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- PakG1 11y agoSo Facebook is the new AOL/Compuserve in some places. Did AOL die because people prefer the full open Internet, or did AOL die because it was too limited? Either way, history will likely repeat itself. Are people on this thread really worried that as things develop, people won't want to reach outside of the wall garden eventually? I think they will naturally.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y agoYou're probably right. It'll be interesting to see what sort of protocol tunnelling people create. IOFM - Internet Over Facebook Messenger and such.
- Onochie 11y agoI believe that as facebook gains the territory, so does Instagram, messenger, WhatsApp, and every other acquired product. So the plan isn't really to just deliver internet service but to buy up the social world in the area without competitors. Since about 1.49 billion of the 1/3 of the internet enabled regions use one of Facebook products even with the competitions, it's evident that this project would triple their impact.
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- trhway 11y agomultiple months on station - dream come true for data acquisition in a lot of civilian and not very civilian applications. Like a platform for that gigapixel/Argus continuously recording everything happening in the city. Almost not existent noise and IR signature, and with carbon fiber construction i'd suppose very low radar cross-section. It can toil for months near China/Russia/etc. airspace listening/watching/etc. Or electronic CAP/AWACS kind of mission during peace time over aircraft carrier group. Sky isn't even the limit :)
- jacquesm 11y agoAOL 2.0.
- deft 11y agoWhy are people on HN actually supporting this? Facebook built a plane to beam its horrible timesink to even more people. Facebook is not a good thing. No company "gives things away" out of the good of their heart. They built a PLANE. Honestly, the only word I can describe this with is: scary.
- jstuxx 11y agoAgreed. The Internet isn't a good thing either. People make it out as the Internet is the great place for people to connect with each other and this great repository of information. Whilst this is true to an extent, the Internet certainly has the potential to be a cause for good it isn't used that way. The Internet is mostly a political device to push political propaganda, promote hate speech to divide people, and promote the sex culture by making pornography easily accessible.
- restalis 11y agoLasers are a poor choice for atmospheric communication, unless this kind of infrastructure is specifically designed to be deployed in places like deserts with a clear sky all the year around!
- mnw21cam 11y agoAt 60,000 feet altitude, the sky is pretty clear all the year round. There is also a lot less air, further reducing distortion and attenuation.
- meric 11y agoAnother attempt at producing a machine that can fly for months. The Pluto project[1]: "The nuclear engine could, in principle, operate for months, so a Pluto cruise missile could be left airborne for a prolonged time before being directed to carry out its attack." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto