Google Loon - Balloon Powered Internet For Everyone [Not A Great Project Name]

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Link: Loon for All: Project Loon: Google

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mcw6j-QWGMo

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Link: Loon’s final flight

 

When we unveiled Loon in June 2013, we meant everything in its name. It was a way-out-there and risky venture. Not just fragile-balloons-on-the-edge-of-space risky, but risky at the core of the question it was asking. Could this be the radical idea that might finally bring abundant, affordable Internet access, not just to the next billion, but to the last billion? To the last unconnected communities and those least able to pay?

 

Sadly, despite the team’s groundbreaking technical achievements over the last 9 years — doing many things previously thought impossible, like precisely navigating balloons in the stratosphere, creating a mesh network in the sky, or developing balloons that can withstand the harsh conditions of the stratosphere for more than a year — the road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped. So we’ve made the difficult decision to close down Loon. In the coming months, we’ll begin winding down operations and it will no longer be an Other Bet within Alphabet...