CHINA TOPIX

12/22/2024 08:22:37 pm

Make CT Your Homepage

Facebook Gives Details about Internet-Connected Drones

Watch out for drones, Facebook users, as plans about internet-connected drones have been elaborated.

According to Yael Maguire, the engineering director at Facebook's Connectivity lab, they would like to use drones in order to further develop their platform that is being used worldwide.

Like Us on Facebook

Sources say that they are banking on these drones in order to get the remaining 15% of the world's population who are not yet connected on the internet. 

Basically, Facebook would want to beam signals to countries they are aiming to reach. He noted that some parts of India, Latin America, Africa and Asia are not yet connected online. 

These were revealed during the 2014 Social Good Summit last Monday as they initially talked about the potential plan back in May.

Yael said that in order for them to fly the "planes," as they would like to call the drones, they have to fly above the airspace that is estimated to be 60,000-90,000 feet high. Planes do not fly as high as that but they will be experimenting with that.

However, the height and the altitude are not the only problems they see. They noted that their planes should also be solar powered since there will be no fuel to allow any machine to fly up in the air for a very long time.

Another factor would be the weather since they want it to be powered by solar panels, the countries they want to reach are on different parts of the world and it depends when the sun hits them.

He also talked about the size of their planes saying that it should be big and light at the same time. He noted that they are already working on a model back in the lab, comparing the size to four Priuses. But it would only be as heavy as the four tires of a Prius.

Yael added that they plan to launch their planes by 2015, but for it to be functional, he said that it would probably take them another three to five years to perfect the project. 

Real Time Analytics