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Google buys drone maker Titan Aerospace

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G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
Via WSJ:

Google Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy Titan Aerospace, a startup maker of high-altitude drones, as the Internet search giant adds more aerial technology to collect images and get more of the world's population online.

Google didn't disclose a purchase price for Titan, of Moriarty, N.M., whose solar-powered drones are intended to fly for years.

Earlier this year, Facebook Inc. had been in talks to buy Titan. But Facebook later said it was buying Ascenta, a U.K.-based aerospace company that has also been working on solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles, for $20 million.

Titan and its roughly 20 employees will stay in New Mexico and the company will continue to be run by Chief Executive Vern Raburn, a technology-industry veteran who previously headed Symantec Corp. and Microsoft Corp.'s consumer-products division.

Google said the Titan team will work closely with Google's Project Loon, which is building large, high-altitude balloons that send Internet signals to areas of the world that are currently not online. Titan may also work with Makani, another early-stage Google project that is developing an airborne wind turbine that it hopes will generate energy more efficiently.

Areas of focus for these teams will include advanced material design for lightweight flying vehicles and algorithms for wind prediction and flight planning.

Titan says its drones will be able to collect real-time, high-resolution images of the earth, carry other atmospheric sensors and support voice and data services. That type of technology could also help other Google businesses, including its Maps division.

"It's still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation," a Google spokesman said in a statement.

Titan is developing two dragonfly-shaped drones, both of which use batteries charged by wing-mounted solar panels to remain aloft at night. The smaller model, called the Solara 50, has a wingspan of 164 feet, slightly larger than a Boeing 767.

On its website, Titan claims that its drones can help deliver Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second using specialty communications equipment. That would be significantly faster than broadband speeds available in most developed countries.

The company says it expects "initial commercial operations" in 2015.

As the developing world goes online, Google and Facebook are battling to be the first point of contact. The search giant has its Android mobile operating system, which last year captured 79% world-wide market share of smartphones shipped, according to Strategy Analytics.

Facebook hopes to boost its user base in poorer countries with two projects, including a version of its service tuned for cheap, feature phones called "Facebook for Every Phone." Another product, Facebook Zero, was launched in 2010 and is a stripped down mobile website launched in concert with mobile operators who don't charge data fees when the service is used.

Facebook's plans to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion also gives it a new weapon to attract users in the developing world. The WhatsApp messaging app is particularly popular in countries such as India where telecom carriers still routinely charge for standard text messages.
Click to expand...
 
I

ISOM

Member
Someone should really compile all these dates when google is buying up these tech companies so we have a something to look back on when skynet takes over.
 
N

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
JBourne said:
At what point does Google become Skynet?
Click to expand...

2026, with their launch of google nerve, the first fiber optic internet service provider that also has the ability to comprehend your own searches relative to those near you for added functionality.

Eventually some 14 year old boy doing his homework assignment about the Manhattan project decided to search "how 2 make nuke" mean while down the street a crazed man is searching horrible horrible things, at this point google nerve becomes self aware and realizes that man is its own greatest nemesis and begins systematic extermination of the human race.
 
CassidyIzABeast

CassidyIzABeast

Member
8632715_8.jpg
Click to expand...
soon.
 
I

ItIsOkBro

Member
The drones will be used to activate and monitor project Google Glass - wearers of Glass have their cognitive abilities overriden to create an unstoppable Google army.
 
G

Game-Biz

Member
maniac-kun said:
Well surveilance is everywhere. Yet it dosnt bring us protection at all.
Click to expand...
Because there's not enough. We need to first get everyone wearing google glasses, and then give police the right to view the devices as we're wearing them any time they want. Only then will we be safe.
 
M

maniac-kun

Member
Game-Biz said:
Because there's not enough. We need to first get everyone wearing google glasses, and then give police the right to view the devices as we're wearing them any time they want. Only then will we be safe.
Click to expand...

We all know since Snowden that every device has secret backdoors. In the past this was a conspiracy but now its a fact. They already do that.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Google owns Titan Aerospace, Boston Dynamics and makes computer-controlled cars.

I think it's fairly easy to realize that Skynet has taken over Google.
 
Z

Ziltoidia 9

Member
How long before they figure out how to project ads onto the sky with these things. Will the gov start having to licenses out space for that?
 
M

Makai

Member
I'm more scared of Google than my government. Their core business model is a domestic spying program. Why do they have such a glowing reputation? I mean, poor Obama offers free programs in exchange for surveillance and nobody cuts him any slack :,(

And now they manufacture aerial drones?
 
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