Dive Brief:
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Alphabet’s moonshot tech division, announced its internet balloon project, Project Loon, has new machine learning-aided navigation algorithms that will help speed balloon-based internet access to new areas much more quickly.
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With the technology, the balloons can cluster together and provide concentrated internet delivery to areas in need, Business Insider reports. Basically, the balloons can now idle in place.
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Project Loon would deliver internet services to rural areas from high-altitude balloons in weeks rather than months, Alphabet said.
Dive Insight:
Machine learning has all kinds of new applications. Google parent Alphabet hopes to use it to help deliver balloon-based internet access to rural areas more quickly.
Google and several other companies have been investing in new ways to distribute internet services. In addition to Google, OneWeb, Facebook, SpaceX and other companies have also come up with various plans to beam the internet through technologies like low-orbiting satellites or high-flying drones.
Many rural nations include huge underdeveloped areas where hard-wire delivery systems like landlines and towers don't exist. Supplying internet via drones, satellites or balloons could help solve that problem.
