Working with government to bring internet, energy projects to India: Google
13 Feb 2015
Google said it was working with the Indian government to provide balloon-beamed internet and its kite-powered wind energy to the country.
Google's Project Loon as it the balloon-beamed internet is called, aims to bring affordable internet using high-altitude balloons to around 5 billion people globally, who currently had no access.
According to Mohammad Gawdat, VP of business innovation at Google X, a semi-secret facility of the company that worked to bring about major technology advances, by 2016, Google could start to launch a commercial format that allowed it to have coverage on every square inch of planet earth. He added, the company was working very closely with telecom providers and governments across the world including India to see how the innovation could be brought to India.
The balloons ascend 20km above the earth's surface, in the stratosphere and the project used software algorithms to determine where the balloon needed to go depending on the direction of the wind. The project started as a pilot around two years back with the launch of 30 balloons from New Zealand's South Island that beamed internet to a small group of users.
Meanwhile, Business Standard reported Gawdat had co-founded over 15 businesses and served on the board of several startups. He added all who got a thrill from watching sci-fi movies would be happy to know that several of the technologies that they liked were already becoming a reality. He added that the pace of technology innovation was taken for granted, with innovations happening on a daily basis.
"We do not realise how fast our world is going, we do not realise the opportunity of innovation we can do. Everything that we see in the sci-fi movies has already happened today, but we tend to ignore it," he said while addressing the conference at the 23rd Nasscom Leadership Forum.
He said teleportation, as depicted in Star Wars was already happening. "3D Printing may not be what teleportation was, but it can create an item today by scanning in 3D and printing it. We are printing chocolate and other things. We are also printing organs. I think we need to start thinking that what is possible goes beyond our limited imagination," he said.
