{"id":2631,"date":"2018-07-12T21:59:38","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T17:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=2631"},"modified":"2018-07-12T21:59:38","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T17:59:38","slug":"google-spins-off-internet-balloon-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/07\/12\/google-spins-off-internet-balloon-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Google spins off internet balloon project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google’s plans for a fleet of stratospheric space balloons beaming internet to remote corners of the world have moved a step closer after its parent company Alphabet spun off the project as a separate business.<\/p>\n

Loon has been part<\/a>\u00a0of the umbrella company\u2019s X research division for the last seven years, but now after its \u201cgraduation\u201d it will be required to be more financially accountable than when it was in development.<\/p>\n

The announcement is a statement of intent from Google that it is committed to developing the seven-year-old project and comes just weeks after Facebook\u00a0revealed it was pulling back on its own plans to provide wireless internet connections\u00a0<\/a>from the sky when the company grounded a drone project.<\/p>\n

There was no news on the progress of Loon\u2019s technology other than its new business, which will be a subsidiary of Alphabet, will be headed up by chief executive Alastair Westgarth, who has overseen the project since the start of\u00a02017.<\/p>\n

“Now that the foundational technology for these projects is built, Loon and Wing are ready to take their products into the world,” X chief executive Astro Teller said.<\/p>\n

Unofficial development on the project began in 2011 under incubation in Google X, which became known simply as X,\u00a0with a series of trial runs in California’s Central Valley. The project was officially announced as a Google project in June 2013.<\/p>\n

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L<\/span>ast year, Project Loon\u00a0helped out following two natural disasters, including sending its balloons to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to provide people with access to internet and text messages. The other mission last year\u00a0involved\u00a0connecting\u00a0people in flood zones\u00a0in Peru<\/a>, around its capital Lima, when\u00a0extreme rain and storms hit the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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M<\/span>ade from sheets of polyethylene, each tennis court sized balloon is built to last more than 100 days in the stratosphere before returning to the ground in a controlled descent. One\u00a0of its strongest\u00a0balloons\u00a0has survived\u00a0for 198 days\u00a0in the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

The new company currently\u00a0reports on its website that it is able to\u00a0launch\u00a0a new balloon into the edge of space\u00a0every 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

Alphabet also spun out Project Wing, a drone delivery system, from its X research division as an independent business. It will also remain a subsidiary with James Ryan Burgess as its new chief executive.<\/p>\n

“Now that the foundational technology for these projects is built, Loon and Wing are ready to take their products into the world,” X chief executive Astro Teller said.<\/p>\n

“This is work best done outside of the prototyping-focused environment of X.”<\/p>\n

Alphabet said the companies’ financial performance would be included in its earnings statement under the “Other Bets” category.<\/p>\n

These are the fourth and fifth X businesses to spin out and became their own Alphabet companies, following cyber-security business Chronicle, driverless car company Waymo and healthcare business Verily.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Telegraph<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google’s plans for a fleet of stratospheric space balloons beaming internet to remote corners of the world have moved a step closer after its parent company Alphabet spun off the project as a separate business. Loon has been part\u00a0of the umbrella company\u2019s X research division for the last seven years, but now after its \u201cgraduation\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2633,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions\/2633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}