Google Balloon Project Gets Off The Ground
A remote spot in New Zealand is the site for the first test of Project Loon, a bid to link billions across the globe to the web.
1:47pm Saturday 15 June 2013
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Google has unveiled plans to provide the internet to the billions who cannot currently access the web - using balloons circling the globe.
The internet giant's secretive X research lab is behind the move, called Project Loon in recognition of how strange the idea sounds.
Scientists launched a trial on Saturday in New Zealand's South Island, letting off a string of jellyfish-shaped balloons in the sky about Lake Tekapo.
The aim is for the flimsy helium-filled inflatables, which are made from plastic film, to beam the internet back down to earth as they sail past on the wind.
It has taken the lab, which also came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, 18 months to reach this point.
Ultimately Google hopes to launch thousands of balloons into the stratosphere and bridge the digital divide between the 4.8 billion offline and 2.2 billion online.
If successful, the technology could allow countries to avoid the expense of laying fibre cable and dramatically increase internet use in areas such as Africa and southeast Asia.
Project leader Mike Cassidy said: "It's a huge moonshot. A really big goal to go after. The power of the internet is probably one of the most transformative technologies of our time."
Project Loon founder Richard DeVaul added: "It's a very fundamentally democratic thing that what links everyone together is the sky and the winds."
The balloons were released near Christchurch
Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur from outside Christchurch, was the first person to receive Google Balloon internet access after signing up with 50 others to test out the project.
It was kept such a secret that no-one would explain to the guinea pigs what they were involved in.
Technicians came to their homes and attached bright red receivers the size of basketballs and resembling giant Google map pins to the outside walls.
Engineers used eight large laptops to check wind data and manoeuvre the balloons over peaks by making sure they floated at a particular level.
Mr Nimmo had internet access for around 15 minutes before the balloon transmitting it sailed past - he used it to check the weather.
"It's been weird but it's been exciting to be part of something new," he said of the experience.
The balloons scavenge power from card table-sized solar panels dangling down and picking up enough charge in four hours to last a day.
They travel below satellites but twice as high as aeroplanes, and receive signals from ground stations below.
Each balloon could provide an internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 780 square miles, and terrain is not a challenge.
This means they could stream it into the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan, or Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates four in 100 people are online.
Anyone using Google Balloon Internet would need a receiver plugged into their computer to get the signal, the costs of which have yet to be disclosed.
Because the signals travel through the unlicensed spectrum, the firm would not have to go through difficult regulatory procedures for wireless communication.
Mr Cassidy said the next phase of the launch was to fly 300 balloons in a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
Some charities experts hailed the project and said it could help billions but others warned about more negative consequences, such as a surge in consumerism.
Temple University communications professor Patrick Murphy said: "The nutritional and medical information, farming techniques, democratic principles - those are the wonderful parts of it. But you also have everyone wanting to drive a car, eat a steak, drink a Coke."
Richard Bennett, from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, added: "I'm really glad that Google is doing this kind of speculative research but it remains to be seen how practical any of these things are."
Before travelling to New Zealand, Google spent several months on secret launches in California's central valley - prompting some interesting speculation.
Mr DeVaul said: "We were chasing balloons around from trucks on the ground and people were calling in reports about UFOs."
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