EPTGoogle Loon: Balloon-Powered Internet - Page 3
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Derez
Netherlands6068 Posts
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
They called the project 'Sky-High' and I've seen the slides and everything! Pretty cool to see this actually become realized :B | ||
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DonKey_
Liechtenstein1356 Posts
Also what stops an individual from hacking these and then landing them somewhere for themselves to recover? | ||
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Leafty
France84 Posts
On June 16 2013 03:28 Prog455 wrote: People are still using Telecoms, but the technology to replace them is here. Imagine if you get free internet. Most people use Facebook or Twitter rather than SMS, and i doubt that it'll take long before people use skype anyway. Free internet? How? Using telepathy? At the end of the day it's still telecommunications. You use Facebook or Skype to chat with your friends rather than the phone, but the internet still has to get there down to your phone/tablet. And that is not going to be free. If Google operates balloons over your head to bring you internet you'll have to pay them for the service. By the way, if they say it can cover an area as big as NY, it is absolutely impossible to handle the associated bandwidth, so it is designed to support low density places. On June 16 2013 04:00 DonKey_ wrote: Any word on how weather effects the service, and what the bit-rate is for the service? Also what stops an individual from hacking these and then landing them somewhere for themselves to recover? If the security is like your standard router, it's not so bad since physical access is quite hard to achieve. | ||
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Like a Boss
502 Posts
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Nacl(Draq)
United States302 Posts
Google: Has access to everyone's information, helps you hide it from your loved ones. | ||
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yOngKIN
Korea (North)656 Posts
On June 16 2013 04:37 Like a Boss wrote: Pretty sure the Zergs have been using a similar overlord balloon technology to bring in view from all around the world too. So true lol | ||
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Leafty
France84 Posts
Tomorrow's internet: - What's new on TL? - 'Spawn more overloons' | ||
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uZr
20 Posts
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On June 16 2013 04:51 uZr wrote: Am I the only one worried that those balloons could end up colliding with planes ? I mean it's not like it was easy to control everything up there, and if a ballon gets sucked in jet streams used by civil aviation this would be a disaster ... Won't happen: Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather. They are carried around the Earth by winds and they can be steered by rising or descending to an altitude with winds moving in the desired direction. People connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal bounces from balloon to balloon, then to the global Internet back on Earth. | ||
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Hitch-22
Canada753 Posts
These are pretty cool, google proving why I have so much faith in them once again. | ||
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heroyi
United States1064 Posts
People should watch the videos xD under 10km from the surface about is where the weathers, planes and mountains occupy the sky. The balloons will be at around 20km. Far from hitting objects, below obstructing satellites and quite far from being hit or physically hacked by terrorists. Obviously this will spark a lot of debate from the recent events of PRISM and what not. That and Google is known to record data. But right now this is pretty damn awesome. If the resources were not limited, information could flow through otherwise impossible oppressed states. This will make society more efficient and faster. We would be more connected (although this can be seen both ways). All in all I welcome this and hope this goes far. | ||
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DonKey_
Liechtenstein1356 Posts
On June 16 2013 05:27 Hitch-22 wrote: Half the people wondering about weather or flights really need to start watching the videos posted in the OP and not just asking questions without doing any research. You all, equally, piss me off for your incompetence. These are pretty cool, google proving why I have so much faith in them once again. Ya I know the balloons will be 20km up in the stratosphere and won't be affected by weather. I was more curious about the signals quality when it has to travel through storm systems. On June 16 2013 04:14 Leafty wrote: If the security is like your standard router, it's not so bad since physical access is quite hard to achieve. As far as hacking goes, the process goes quite a bit over my head, I admit. Would it not be possible to hack these devices without physical tampering though? I just am reminded of how Iran took a US military UAV out of the sky before. Not saying it will be terrorists or rogue administrations that do not want these passing over their "airspace", but the opportunity seems to be there, even for someone with just a curiosity. | ||
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heroyi
United States1064 Posts
On June 16 2013 05:34 DonKey_ wrote: Ya I know the balloons will be 20km up in the stratosphere and won't be affected by weather. I was more curious about the signals quality when it has to travel through storm systems. As far as hacking goes, the process goes quite a bit over my head, I admit. Would it not be possible to hack these devices without physical tampering though? I just am reminded of how Iran took a US military UAV out of the sky before. Not saying it will be terrorists or rogue administrations that do not want these passing over their "airspace", but the opportunity seems to be there, even for someone with just a curiosity. The UAV incident is a bit different because that was more of a spoofing attack. Iran jammed the UAVs GPS/satellite essentially and because the UAV was "lost" it took in Iran's false coordinates package and landed itself into the ground. For this scenario, the only access or damage terrorists could do is if they targeted the stations that are being fed off of the balloons which would be effective in ushering in a black out. But as for information leakage I am confident in Google installing some sort of protocols in the event the station is attacked. They can't jam the balloons since they run off of wind. The only thing jamming the balloons would do is the control center at Google corp would lose signal to that balloon(s). Now they could try to intercept the signal and hijack it and what not but I doubt the encryption will be very easy to crack. I am also sure Google will know that someone is trying to illegally access the balloon's data just by looking at the packets sent and received by the station and how many are missing. | ||
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methematics
United States392 Posts
On June 16 2013 03:47 farvacola wrote: That sounds like the making for an excellent bit of dystopic fiction: in a world in which exploding balloons bring internet to the masses, a young boy with a latex allergy and a destiny bound for greatness is born. First time i've really loled in front of a computer for a while. | ||
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Leafty
France84 Posts
On June 16 2013 06:14 heroyi wrote: The UAV incident is a bit different because that was more of a spoofing attack. Iran jammed the UAVs GPS/satellite essentially and because the UAV was "lost" it took in Iran's false coordinates package and landed itself into the ground. For this scenario, the only access or damage terrorists could do is if they targeted the stations that are being fed off of the balloons which would be effective in ushering in a black out. But as for information leakage I am confident in Google installing some sort of protocols in the event the station is attacked. They can't jam the balloons since they run off of wind. The only thing jamming the balloons would do is the control center at Google corp would lose signal to that balloon(s). Now they could try to intercept the signal and hijack it and what not but I doubt the encryption will be very easy to crack. I am also sure Google will know that someone is trying to illegally access the balloon's data just by looking at the packets sent and received by the station and how many are missing. Counting packets in a wireless long-distance mesh... No. Packets are dropped all the time in this kind of setup. There is no security on the Internet, if you want it, use TLS. If they secure the control flows, it should be OK. | ||
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iMAniaC
Norway703 Posts
On June 16 2013 03:30 strongandbig wrote: yeah this is a very good point - there's no way this is sustainable if these are helium balloons. Even advanced scientific research is hurting for lack of helium right now. Google's gonna need to think of something other than helium to put in here if they want this to keep going more than a few years, maybe hot air? Or if these balloons are relatively cheap maybe they could fill them with hydrogen instead and just accept that some percentage will explode, that's the best thing I can think of atm. I noticed that the balloons are transparent, so perhaps they function as greenhouses? If so, then the sunlight would heat up whatever gas is inside the balloon and trap the heat, so that the uplift from the hotter air inside the balloon would keep the entire balloon up. The stratosphere doesn't have that much clouds, so balloons shouldn't be trapped inside clouds too often, and perhaps the solar panels will be able to charge some battery which powers a heating devide to keep the air inside them hot if they get lost inside a cloud (or at nighttime, I guess). What I'm trying to say is that it may not be necessary to fill them with helium, perhaps regular air or a mixture of other light gases would suffice. This is all just guesswork on my part, though. Or perhaps Google will announce that they'll set up a base on the moon within the next year to mine He3 for all their balloons  | ||
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Chocolate
United States2350 Posts
On June 16 2013 03:30 strongandbig wrote: yeah this is a very good point - there's no way this is sustainable if these are helium balloons. Even advanced scientific research is hurting for lack of helium right now. Google's gonna need to think of something other than helium to put in here if they want this to keep going more than a few years, maybe hot air? Or if these balloons are relatively cheap maybe they could fill them with hydrogen instead and just accept that some percentage will explode, that's the best thing I can think of atm. If one explodes then the balloon would hit whatever is on the ground near where it explodes at terminal velocity. I don't know how big these balloons are (haven't watched the vids yet) but if a penny dropped from the empire state building can kill someone, you can bet these balloons could. They would obviously require some electrical component capable of handling the internet needs of many people, and that equipment isn't light. With thousands of hydrogen balloons floating in the sky, it could be a nightmare in terms of safety. Even if the odds of hitting a person could be low, there could be substantial damage to buildings. | ||
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Pseudoku
Canada1279 Posts
On June 16 2013 08:50 Chocolate wrote: If one explodes then the balloon would hit whatever is on the ground near where it explodes at terminal velocity. I don't know how big these balloons are (haven't watched the vids yet) but if a penny dropped from the empire state building can kill someone, you can bet these balloons could. They would obviously require some electrical component capable of handling the internet needs of many people, and that equipment isn't light. With thousands of hydrogen balloons floating in the sky, it could be a nightmare in terms of safety. Even if the odds of hitting a person could be low, there could be substantial damage to buildings. Was busted by mythbusters in 2003: Firing a penny at terminal velocity (65 miles per hour (105 km/h)) into concrete and asphalt disks and a ballistics gel head with a human skull failed to result in any penetrations, likely because the speed is too low and a penny's mass too small. Even when fired from a rifle, the penny was unable to penetrate concrete or a ballistic gel dummy's skull. Even modifying a rifle to shoot a penny at supersonic speeds failed to cause a penetration. In comparison, a real 6.5mm bullet split the dummy skull. Visiting the Empire State Building, the likely source of the myth, they realize that updrafts and roofs of lower floors would prevent a thrown penny from reaching street level. | ||
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Flakes
United States3125 Posts
On June 16 2013 08:31 iMAniaC wrote: I noticed that the balloons are transparent, so perhaps they function as greenhouses? If so, then the sunlight would heat up whatever gas is inside the balloon and trap the heat, so that the uplift from the hotter air inside the balloon would keep the entire balloon up. The stratosphere doesn't have that much clouds, so balloons shouldn't be trapped inside clouds too often, and perhaps the solar panels will be able to charge some battery which powers a heating devide to keep the air inside them hot if they get lost inside a cloud (or at nighttime, I guess). What I'm trying to say is that it may not be necessary to fill them with helium, perhaps regular air or a mixture of other light gases would suffice. This is all just guesswork on my part, though. Or perhaps Google will announce that they'll set up a base on the moon within the next year to mine He3 for all their balloons I learned something about helium today Helium-3 is made up of two protons and one neutron and the isotope is rarely found in nature, although it is produced as a decay product of tritium, a component of nuclear weapons. During the cold war, the US, Russia and other countries stockpiled tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and in doing so accumulated vast amounts of helium-3. Initially, this resource was barely tapped - in fact the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its predecessor agencies, which have maintained the US tritium stockpile, used to consider the gas so useless that they vented it into the atmosphere. In the 1980s, however, scientists began to realise the potential of helium-3 as a neutron detector. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2012/January/helium-3-isotopes-shortage-alternatives-neutron-detectors.asp Loon is clearly a byproduct of Google's plans for world domination | ||
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