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Facebook and Internet.org announce flying internet
By Stu Robarts March 28, 2014
Facebook and Internet.org are working on solutions to increase global internet access
The Connectivity Lab team at Facebook has been working on new technologies to improve and increase internet access across the globe. Proposed solutions include solar-powered drones and geosynchronous satellites, both of which would be able to beam internet access to earth. The announcement was made yesterday by Mark Zuckerberg, on behalf of the Internet.org partnership.
Internet.org was established last year with the aim of bringing internet access to the two-thirds of the world's population that doesn't currently have access. The partnership includes technology leaders, non-profit organizations, local communities and experts. Its founding partners include Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia.
Zuckerberg has been very much the spokesman for the Internet.org partnership since its inception and, earlier this month, Gizmag reported that Facebook was in talks to buy Titan Aerospace, a company that manufactures solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. Yesterday's announcement reinforces Facebook's commitment to the cause.
The Connectivity Lab was begun using the same engineering talent behind Facebook’s infrastructure team and the Open Compute Project. In addition, the team comprises UK-based high-altitude long-endurance aircraft firm Ascenta, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, the Ames Research Center at NASA and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
The team has been working on solar-powered high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft that can remain in the air for months at a time with a view to deploying them to provide reliable internet access to suburban areas in limited geographical regions. Low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous satellites are being investigated as a means of providing internet access to lower density areas.
For each of these approaches, the team is exploring the use of free-space optical communication (FSO), which employs invisible infra-red laser beams, as a means of transmitting data. According to Internet.org, "FSO is a promising technology that potentially allows us to dramatically boost the speed of internet connections provided by satellites and drones."
In the video , Facebook's Yael Maguire talks about the technologies that Internet.org is working on.
Source: http://www.Internet.org
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Track Google’s Project Loon Internet balloons in real time as they travel the world
Screen Shot 2014-03-02 at 11.33.11 am
Google’s Project Loon was unveiled in 2013 as an ambitious project to bring internet to some of the most remote parts of the world where it’s hard to get Internet access. The project’s still in full swing and you’re now able to track the balloons in real time as they travel the world. BhoXxEECUAApg0D Track Googles Project Loon Internet balloons in real time as they travel the world The helium balloons can now be tracked in real time using Flightradar24′s service, which shows a group of them being launched near Timaru, New Zealand and drifting out to sea at around 162 feet off the surface. The balloons are moving quite quickly at a rate of around 41 kilometers an hour at time of writing.
Google’s page for Project Loon shows that the balloons should keep drifting east towards South America as part of a plan to establish internet connectivity along the 40th Southern Parallel.
flightpath jul1 c2 Track Googles Project Loon Internet balloons in real time as they travel the world A previous balloon that was part of the project managed to travel past South America in just 12 days, so it’ll be interesting to track this new set of balloons in real time as they complete their journey across the Pacific Ocean.
The balloons are made to last over 100 days, so it looks like the travels of this group has only just begun.
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/03/01/track-googles-project-loon-balloons-travel-world/
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Hundreds of tiny satellites could soon deliver free internet worldwide
Published time: February 21, 2014 20:33
Edited time: February 23, 2014 11:34 Get short URL
The Small Satellite Orbital Deployer, deploys a set of NanoRacks CubeSats.(Reuters / NASA)The Small Satellite Orbital Deployer, deploys a set of NanoRacks CubeSats.(Reuters / NASA)
Developers say they are less than a year away from deploying prototype satellites that could someday soon broadcast free and universal internet all over the globe from high in orbit.
The “Outernet” project being bankrolled by the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) of New York is currently in the midst of conducting technical assessment of the project, but say by June they hope to develop test satellite in order to see how long-range WiFi would work if beamed down by a tiny 10x10x10-centimeter payload called a CubeSat.
If all goes as planned, a test CubeSat will be sent into orbit next January, and within a few years there could be hundreds of similar devices circling the Earth and sending back down internet signals. Once that is accomplished, countries that largely censor the web — like China and North Korea — would be hard-pressed to restrict internet access without also going into orbit.
"We exist to support the flow of independent news, information, and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies," MDIF President Peter Whitehead told the National Journal recently. "It enables fuller participation in public life, holds the powerful to account and protects the rights of the individual."
To accomplish as much, though, MDIF is facing a rather uphill battle, at least with regards to funding. Funny enough, sending hundreds of tiny WiFi ready satellites into orbit isn’t as inexpensive as one might imagine.
Syed Karim, MDIF's director of innovation, told the National Journal’s Alex Brown that it would take only three years and $12 billion to get the project up and running.
But "We don't have $12 billion,” Karim said, “so we'll do as much as we can with CubeSats and broadcast data.”
“Broadcasting data,” Outernet says on their website, “allows citizens to reduce their reliance on costly internet data plans in places where monthly fees are too expensive for average citizens. And offering continuously updated web content from space bypasses censorship of the Internet.”
Around 40 percent of the planet currently doesn’t have access to any sort of internet service, the company claims, but basic CubeSats could send one-way signals down to earth to deliver news or content through a “global notification system during emergencies and natural disasters,” their website says.
“Access to knowledge and information is a human right and Outernet will guarantee this right by taking a practical approach to information delivery. By transmitting digital content to mobile devices, simple antennae and existing satellite dishes, a basic level of news, information, education and entertainment will be available to all of humanity.” If they can succeed with that, then Outernet hopes to start figuring a way to let customers send data back to the CubeSats, ideally creating free, “two-way internet access for everyone” in a few years’ time.
During a recent question-and-answer session on the website Reddit, Karim explained that the Outernet project is already being more affordable because some of the most expensive aspects of the endeavor, at least with regards to research, have already been considered by other entrepreneurial space experts.
“There isn't a lot of raw research that is being done here; much of what is being described has already been proven by other small satellite programs and experiments,” Karim said.
“There's really nothing that is technically impossible to this,” he added. “But at the prospect of telecoms operators trying to shut the project down before it gets off the ground,” Karim said, “We will fight... and win.”
Meanwhile, his group is gunning to figure out how to make that dream a reality without going over budget. Getting one of those tiny CubeSats into orbit could cost upwards of $100,000, Brown reported, and slightly larger satellites being considered by Outernet could run three times that.
"We want to stay as small as possible, because size and weight are directly related to dollars," Karim said. "Much of the size is dictated by power requirements and the solar panels needed satisfy those requirements."
http://rt.com/usa/outernet-cubesat-free-internet-153/
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