{"id":135,"date":"2014-03-04T21:48:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T21:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/?p=135"},"modified":"2014-03-04T21:48:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T21:48:45","slug":"facebook-wants-to-build-11000-drones-to-bring-internet-to-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Wants to Build 11,000 Drones to Bring Internet to Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook Wants to Build 11,000 Drones to Bring Internet to\u00a0Africa<\/h1>\n
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All drones everywhere.<\/div>\n
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BY\u00a0JORDYN TAYLOR<\/a>\u00a03\/04 9:43AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Check<\/p>\n

Check out this atmospheric satellite a.k.a. FACEBOOK DRONE. (Screengrab: YouTube)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bird! It\u2019s a plane! Nope \u2014 it\u2019s a Facebook drone.<\/p>\n

The social media site reportedly wants to use drones to bring Internet connection to the two thirds of the world that still lack connectivity, starting with parts of Africa. The initiative is part of the\u00a0internet.org<\/a>\u00a0project,\u00a0which Facebook backs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To do so,\u00a0Facebook could have bought some individual drones. Instead,\u00a0overachievers that they are,\u00a0they bought a drone\u00a0company<\/em>.\u00a0According to TechCrunch<\/a>, Facebook is shelling out $60 million to acquire\u00a0Titan Aerospace<\/a>, a company that makes \u201catmospheric satellites\u201d \u2014 basically, solar-powered drones capable of staying in the sky for up to five years.<\/p>\n

Facebook is specifically interested in building 11,000 of Titan Aerospace\u2019s\u00a0\u201cSolara 60\u2033 aircraft<\/a>,TechCrunch reported<\/a>. The company\u2019s site indicates the Solara aircraft\u00a0have a bunch of communications abilities<\/a>, which we expect will be useful for Facebook\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0this comprehensive YouTube video<\/a>, the Solara 60 can complete most of the same functions as an orbital satellite, but is cheaper and more versatile. It can also stay at an altitude of 20km for up to five years, without ever having to come back down and refuel. Fancy.<\/p>\n

TechCrunch specified that Titan Aerospace\u2019s products would only be used for the internet.org initiative, which means that if you\u2019re reading this now, a fleet of Facebook drones probably\u00a0won\u2019t<\/em>be coming to a sky near you.<\/p>\n

Check out Titan Aerospace\u2019s Solara 50 and 60 aircraft:<\/p>\n

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FOLLOW\u00a0JORDYN TAYLOR<\/a>\u00a0ON TWITTER<\/a>\u00a0OR VIA\u00a0RSS<\/a>.\u00a0JTAYLOR@OBSERVER.COM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook Wants to Build 11,000 Drones to Bring Internet to\u00a0Africa All drones everywhere. BY\u00a0JORDYN TAYLOR\u00a03\/04 9:43AM Check out this atmospheric satellite a.k.a. FACEBOOK DRONE. (Screengrab: YouTube) It\u2019s a bird! It\u2019s a plane! Nope \u2014 it\u2019s a Facebook drone. The social media site reportedly wants to use drones to bring Internet connection to the two thirds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildow.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}