(Sample Material) Study Kit on Current Affairs for UPSC Mains Examination
Science and Technology: Project Loon
Among Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s key announcements this week while on a visit to India was to get India on board “Loon”. The company wants to reach out to the ‘two in three Indians” who don’t have access to the Internet.
Google Loon
- Even by Google’s standards, it’s audacious enough for one of the engineers involved to term it a “mad, mad idea that might actually work”.
- That apart, it refers to a network of about a thousand balloons which will surf the stratosphere and stand in for telecom towers to beam Internet to underserved regions.
World and Loons
- California and Brazil have seen some initial experiments but the bulk of the most ambitious exercises is in New Zealand, with its vast, barren spaces and relatively-freer airspace.
- However, the stated aim of the initiative is to be able to move balloons into India, Africa and hopefully all of the five billion people without the Internet.
