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Facebook's laser drones v Google's net-beaming balloons

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Media captionFacebook's drones will share the stratosphere with Google's balloons

The sky is going to become a busier place if Facebook and Google get their way.

The tech firms are investing in rival efforts to beam the internet down to the ground from flying objects in the stratosphere - twice as high as aeroplanes normally fly.
Facebook aims to build a network of laser-beaming drones that will tightly circle known black-spots.
Google also has a drone project about which it's tight-lipped.
But the company is more open about an attempt to send "strings" of giant balloons circumnavigating the globe to provide persistent data links to the parts of the planet they pass.
The schemes may both seem far-fetched.

Google is launching giant helium balloons with data transceivers hanging below

But the brains behind both companies' efforts told the BBC they are convinced they have a real shot at connecting the 57% of the world's population still offline.

Carbon covered

Of the two projects, Facebook's plan is arguably at an earlier stage.

"It has not flown yet, that's the next milestone," the social network's engineering chief Jay Parikh acknowledges.
But he says he hopes the first drone will be airborne before the year's end.
"Don't tell Mark I said that," he hurriedly adds, referring to Facebook's chief executive.
"I'm trying to manage Mark's expectations."
The aircraft is called Aquila 1 and was recently built in Somerset, England before being shipped to a secret test site.
The drone is wider than a Boeing 737 jet but looks quite different, since there's no need to carry passengers or a pilot.

 

The first Aquila drone was designed and built over a 14-month period

The sleek giant structure is made of a thin layer of foam covered in carbon fibre, with four propellers attached.
"The whole structure is 142ft (43m) wide but weighs less than a Toyota Prius," Mr Parikh explains.
"The structure and stiffness of the plane is all in the carbon fibre of the wing and that supports everything, the [internet-providing] payload, the batteries, and the solar panels on top."
The aim is to build a fleet of the drones with radio transmitters fitted underneath to beam data across a 100 mile (160km) diameter zone below.
Terminals on the ground would use the signals to provide the internet to people's computers.

Facebook wants the drones to stay aloft for three months at a time.
That alone would be an impressive feat - the current record is about a fortnight.
But the really tricky bit involves creating a sky-high network with several drones acting as intermediary connection points, so that a fast connection sent from a city can be distributed outwards to the final aircraft in the chain as far as 300km (186 miles) away.
To help keep data speeds high, Facebook aims to beam lasers between the aircraft across significant distances.

 

Facebook aims to send data between its drones using lasers across distances of up to 11km

"The analogy that we have come up with is this: If I took a US dime [18mm in diameter] and I walked 11 miles away from you, and then you had a laser in your hand, you would have to hit that dime," says Mr Parikh.
"And by the way, these are not stationary targets - these are moving.
"So, we have to do this and keep this pointed and connected while the one point and the other point are moving.
"It's pretty freaking hard."
The firm has already trialled the tech in its California labs, but making it work 27km above ground will not be easy.

 

Facebook aims to extend the internet by sending data between a fleet of drones

Hole hunting

Project Loon's balloons have been taking to the skies since June 2013.
"We've flown almost 1,000 balloons at this point," Mike Cassidy, vice-president of Project Loon, tells the BBC.
"We've flown almost 20 million kilometres around the world.
"One of our balloons went around the world 19 times."

The balloons travel with the winds, usually along an easterly or westerly latitude.
Google keeps each one on course by pumping helium in and out of a bag fastened inside the balloon's outer plastic envelope. This causes it to rise or fall, letting it find winds that will take it in the desired direction.
Rather than try to keep each balloon over one spot, Google's goal is to create a circular sequence. So, as one goes out of range of antennas on the ground, another takes its place, providing a continuous internet connection.
Initially, the firm struggled to keep its balloons aloft for much more than a week. But it now regularly keeps them aloft for 150 days.
"Even a millimetre-sized hole in a balloon will bring it down in a few days," explains Mr Cassidy.
"So, you need to study every phase of the process from manufacturing to packaging to shipping to launch.
"We just slowly found the holes by failure analysis."

 

Google studies balloons after they return to earth to see what effect ultraviolet rays and the cold had on their plastic skin

Laser beams v radio waves

Rather than use lasers, Google relies solely on radio frequencies to transmit its data.
Equipment hanging below each aircraft connects to a base station in range below and then sends out the resulting data link to other antennas it can reach, which in turn link up to people's individual computing devices.
At present, Loon balloons can cover a circular area spanning 80km (50 miles) in diameter.
The balloons can also transmit signals to each other to extend the internet when there is no base station nearby.
The firm says it has already linked up two balloons more than 100km apart and transferred data at about 500 megabits per second.
But that's a fraction of the tens or even hundreds of gigabits per second rates Facebook believes its lasers are capable of.

 

The Loon superpressure balloons are made out of tightly sealed plastic filled with helium

"Radio technology is generally a more developed technology than freespace optical communication," Google's Mr Cassidy said, explaining his approach.
"It's been around longer, the components are typically less expensive.
"But we'll definitely look at all technologies that provide good performance."

High stakes

As both schemes advance and more equipment takes to the skies, the risk of an accident increases.
Even if Aquila weighs less than a car you still wouldn't want one hurtling towards you or a passenger jet at speed.
Mr Parikh, however, is quick to stress there is no imminent risk.
"This thing is not yet certified to fly over people's heads," he says.

 

Facebook's drones are covered in a thin layer of carbon fibre which causes the wings to be stiff

"We will have to do thousands or tens of thousands of fight hours, induce failures, see how these things manage the stress, the [cold] temperature, all of that."
But Google's balloons are already active.
Indeed, the firm hopes to start providing connections to early adopters in Indonesia and Sri Lanka soon.
"We put transponders on all our balloons, which is not required," says Mr Cassidy, "so, just like an aeroplane, air traffic control can always see where the balloons are."
But he acknowledges, things do not always go according to plan.
"We have had some balloons come down at a time earlier than we expected," he discloses.
"But in all those cases we did steer them to an area that was safer to land [and] contact air traffic control to co-ordinate the descent."

Hard to reach

Assuming life-threatening collisions can be avoided, one expert agreed both projects had potential, not least because they should prove much cheaper than sending up more satellites or other existing alternatives.

 

Google's co-founder Sergey Brin said recently Loon balloons would be tested by four of Indonesia's telecoms companies

"They are talking about co-operating with existing communications service providers, which convinces me they won't be Wild West kinds of projects," says William Hahn from the tech consultancy Gartner.
"We are seeing more options in a number of different areas as well: we have lower Earth-orbit satellites than we used to have and the cost of optical fibre is coming down.
"But there are still some very large populations that are hard to reach and hard to serve, and at least in the mid-term I think these new schemes could be part of the solution."

AI-directed deployment

That just leaves the problem - how do you work out where best to deploy all this gear?
No-one is suggesting the drones or balloons could provide blanket access.
But at present, even the best internet coverage maps break down when you zoom in close enough.

 

This map, made by Facebook, shows parts of the world it believes lack even 2G mobile data

Facebook believes its artificial intelligence division could have the solution.
"The team has just developed deep expertise at image recognition," reveals Facebook's Mr Parikh.
"We've adapted that technology to be able to take in high-resolution satellite imagery and then be able to process it understanding what human dwellings look like.
"So, here's a building, here's a home, here's a teepee, here's a train, here's a car - whatever it is, we are now able to come up with a way of better understanding where these people are."
The social network has not made its data public yet.

Google bought drone company Titan Aerospace in 2014 to help its internet connectivity efforts, but has said little about its progress

And like much else involved with the two connectivity projects, a lot has to be taken on trust at this point.
But both Google and Facebook have a big financial incentive to get more people online and a willingness to keep spending until they achieve it.
"Our philosophy is to do lots and lots of testing," concludes Google's Mr Cassidy.
"If your choice is to sit around for a year or two planning and design and then do one big test, then the test may or may not work.
"We like rapidly iterating, and I think from an engineering perspective that's the fastest way to get to a working system."
Mr Parikh will provide more details about Facebook's drone at a meeting later this Wednesday, and will feature on Friday's edition of Tech Tent on BBC World Service

 

 

 

Google rejects EU's search abuse complaint

Google has rejected the EU's objections to how it displays shopping links in its search results as "wrong as a matter of fact, law and economics".

Europe's competition commissioner accused the firm of abusing its dominance in search in April.
Her intervention followed complaints from price comparison services that they were being unfairly disadvantaged by the prominence of Google's own ads.
The US firm has now filed its formal response.
Google says its shopping service - which appears as a box of images and links displayed at the top or right-hand side of other results - benefits customers and businesses without unlawfully distorting the market.

And it rejects the EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager's suggestion that it should show ads sourced and ranked by other companies within the facility.
Its defence rests on three arguments:

• Fact: Google says that the amount of traffic it has directed to the relevant "aggregator websites" has risen by 227% over the past decade, rather than fallen. Moreover, a study it carried out covering four EU nations indicated that dozens of new price comparison services had begun operation, which it believes indicates that it has not choked off competition
• Law: The search giant denies it has a duty to direct traffic to its rivals. It says its search engine should not be likened to the supply of electricity or gas, since there are many other ways to access the internet
• Economics: Google believes the EU has failed to appreciate the dynamism of a market where consumers frequently search for goods via the likes of Amazon, eBay and social networks including Pinterest

'Artificially boosted ads'

Google accounts for more than 90% of EU-based web searches.

Four months ago, the 28-nation bloc's competition commissioner issued a "statement of objections" against the company, beginning a process that could ultimately lead to a large fine and compulsory measures to make it change its behaviour.
"I'm concerned that Google has artificially boosted its presence in the comparison shopping market with the result that consumers may not necessarily see what's most relevant for them, or that competitors may not get the commercial opportunity that their innovative services deserve," declared Ms Vestager.
A spokesman for Ms Vestager confirmed she had received Google's reply.
"We will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and do not want to prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," Ricardo Cardoso told the BBC.

Image caption Margrethe Vestager had originally given Google 10 weeks to respond, but it took longer

FairSearch Europe, a lobby group that represents Microsoft and Expedia, among others, was one of the complainants against Google. It said it saw nothing in the search firm's defence that would change its mind.
"The Commission has properly defined the market into which Google has leveraged its overwhelming dominance in search, namely the shopping (price) comparison market," said its spokesman Thomas Vinje.
"Google has decimated competition in that market by preferencing its own product comparison service in its search results, and consumers have been harmed - and paid higher prices - because Google has cornered the shopping comparison market."
But, in a blog post, Google's lawyer Kent Walker denies his firm is behaving in an anti-competitive manner.
 

Image caption If users search for "price comparison" they will get Google's own ads before links to rival services

"Showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they're looking for," he said.
"We show these ad groups where we've always shown ads - to the right and at the top of organic results - and we use specialised algorithms to maximize their relevance for users.
"Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That's not 'favouring' - that's giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful."

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 unveiled

Source: BBC
Date: 14-08-2015 Time: 08:08:51:pm

The Galaxy S6 Edge+ can be used with a case that doubles as a physical Qwerty keyboard to aid typing

Samsung has announced two new large high-end Android handsets: the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5.
Both phones have 5.7in (14.5cm) screens and are going on sale earlier in the year than their previous generations.
The launches follow five successive falls in Samsung Electronics' quarterly profits.
Analysts say the popularity of mid-range phones from Chinese rivals, and Apple's shift to bigger iPhones, have dented demand for Samsung's devices.

The Galaxy S6 Edge+ shares the curved glass screen of its smaller sibling
However, the firm remains the world leader in terms of overall smartphone shipments.
The announcements were made at a press conference in New York.

Manufacturer	April-June smartphone shipments	Year-on-year change
Samsung	73.2 million	-2.3%
Apple	47.5 million	+34.9%
Huawei	29.9 million	+48.1%
Xiaomi	17.9 million	+29.4%
Lenovo (incl Motorola)	16.2 million	+11.6%
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker

The company also revealed that its smart wallet service, Samsung Pay - which allows the phones to trigger payment card transactions - would go live in South Korea on 20 August.
That service will be extended to the US on 28 September and then to the UK and Spain at an unspecified date.

No Note for Europe

Like previous versions of the Note, the new version comes with a stylus - which Samsung says makes it suitable for productivity tasks. But the phone now has metal edges and a glass back to give it a more "premium" feel.

Samsung has opted not to launch the stylus-controlled Galaxy Note 5 in Europe - at least for now
In a change of strategy, the South Korean firm has no plans at present to release the Note 5 in Europe - a decision it says is purely for marketing reasons.
One company-watcher said that could be a mistake.
"The Note would have been a good fit for Europe's enterprise market, and if Samsung expects the S6 Edge+ to attract the same business users I don't believe it will succeed," commented Francisco Jeronimo from market research firm IDC.
Unlike last year, there is no "edge" edition of the Note.

Samsung held a launch event in New York rather than wait for Germany's Ifa tech show in September
Instead, the Galaxy S6 Edge+ is targeted at those who want a "phablet"-sized handset with curved sides.
The "plus" in its name refers to the fact that its screen is both 0.6in (1.5cm) larger than the earlier edition and more scratch-resistant.
It now has an extra gigabyte of memory, taking it up to 4GB of RAM to aid multi-tasking, but uses the same in-house Exynos processor as before.
This marks a change from the S5 Plus, which was the same size but contained a faster processor than the original S5.

The Galaxy Note 5 can be used with a case that doubles as a physical Qwerty keyboard to aid typing
The two new phones also introduce a couple of new features:

• A button in their camera apps activates a "live broadcast" mode, which streams 1080p high definition video to YouTube and sends invitations to selected acquaintances.
• They support the ultra-high quality audio (UHQA) format. A new hardware component means there should be "less sound distortion" when files saved in the codec are played. Users can also use bundled software to "upscale" existing MP3s.

Ahead of Apple

The decision to host a standalone press conference for the handsets marks a change of strategy for Samsung.
All the previous versions of the Note were unveiled at Germany's annual Ifa tech show, which is still three weeks away. The S5 Plus was announced last October in a low-key press release.
One of the benefits of announcing the new models together at this point is that it should give Samsung about a month's lead on Apple - reports suggest the US firm will update its own smartphones on 9 September.

Both phones can record video in the 4K ultra-high definition resolution
Samsung acknowledged its schedule had been influenced by its rival's diary.
"Of course, we're not alone in the market and we take the whole [sector] into consideration to find the best opportunity," Jean-Daniel Ayme, vice president of Samsung Electronic's European telecom operations told the BBC.
"It's fair to say that we're in a market which has competition, and we welcome that - it's a maturing market all around the world and we thrive in developing new opportunities, new devices that will grow the business."
One tech industry analyst addressed the point more directly.
"Mid-August is an unusual time for a launch - it's a quiet month when half of Europe is on holiday," said Ian Fogg from IHS Technology.

Samsung's home nation of South Korea will be the first to get its smart wallet service
"One reason Samsung may have done this was to get the announcements out ahead of all the other smartphone makers - both those at Ifa and Apple afterwards.
"The other rationale is that it needs to get these new models into the market quickly because it's under competitive pressure, and has accelerated its launch plans."
Samsung's launch, however, has coincided with Xiaomi's surprise unveiling of a new phablet - the Redmi Note 2 - earlier in the day at a Beijing event.
Mr Fogg added that he too believed the decision not to launch the Note 5 in Europe was "surprising and "disappointing".

Xiaomi's Redmi Note 2 is several times cheaper than Samsung's Galaxy Note 5

"One of Samsung's challenges is that although both products will not be available globally, the announcement will be communicated globally," he said.
"One of the risks is that consumers will learn of both products, not be able to buy one of them in certain geographies and then defer their purchase."
The new phones go on sale on 21 August.

Intel: Putting Innovation Back in the Hands of the Innovators

Intel is moving to empower makers of all types with its tools, and with funding for things like the America's Greatest Makers TV show. There is a realization that Intel was created by some of the greatest makers who ever lived, and that there's a revolution pushing innovation into homes and garages all over the world. At its heart, IDF this year was all about that. Makers rule!!

By Rob Enderle
Aug 24, 2015 9:52 AM PT

We are living in an amazing time, but many of us seem to take it for granted. We have private spaceships (although they blow up more often than I'd like). Self-driving cars are on the road, even though we can't buy them yet, and there are plans for a 12-mile-high inflatable building.

Granted, a number of us are kind of convinced it will end up looking like a giant version of the inflatable fan blown stick man that you often see outside of car dealerships. It kind of sounds like one of those ideas folks come up with when they've been partying too much.
The Intel Developer Forum kind of reminded me of a mini-World's Fair this year, with three floors of ongoing entertainment and demonstrations. It was actually a ton of fun; it started with the new CEO giving a killer keynote and ended with my friend Genevieve Bell -- Intel's secret weapon futurist -- talking about how makers are helping treat Ebola.
Following are some of the highlights and a look into our future.

Intel TV

Intel TV isn't like Apple TV -- I'm talking about an Intel TV show. Yep, Intel is funding a reality show contest with a prize of, wait for it, one million dollars. It sounds a little like American Idol, but it will be focused on makers. America's Greatest Makers should do for geeks what American Idol did for a few artists: put them on the map.
It probably will have a little bit of Shark Tank in the judging, but we'll see kids and adults from all over competing over who can build the coolest -- and likely the most marketable -- gadget. Were the decision up to me, I'd just focus on cool, forward-looking and entertaining. That would be a ton more fun, and the more practical inventions already have crowdfunding as a more reliable way to get lots of cash.
It will be interesting to see how Intel develops an invention taxonomy, though, because if the products get too diverse or too practical, the show might become confusing or boring.

3D Printers Everywhere

Almost everywhere at IDF you looked, there were 3D-printed objects scanned with Intel's RealSense camera, which is moving from tablets to laptops. They ranged from robotic spiders that followed commands (and did kind of look like they wanted to rebel after being made to dance to music for hours) to a huge mother spider about the size of a small pony (clearly these folks didn't watch Stargate), to robotic scarabs (they didn't watch The Mummy either), to a pair of cool robotic owls (I don't have a problem with Harry Potter).
The owls responded to tweets the inventor was concerned about -- in this instance IDF and shark attacks. At this show, I would have picked killer robotic spiders or flesh-eating robotic scarabs, but that's just me. If I were to get a vote, I'd vote for robotic puppies or kittens next year.
In any case, this just showcased what you could do with a few actuator lights and a controller. There were dancing armies of spiders and scarabs, and no one was bitten or eaten during the entire event -- though Brian Krzanich did say, several times, that these robots wouldn't end the world. Come to think of it, that didn't mean Intel didn't have upgraded models that weren't being mentioned.
There was one station where you could get scanned and then printed in a block of laser-etched clear plastic. That was pretty amazing, and at several times during the event, the wait was more than three-hours long.

Collaboration Cancer Cloud

One of the most important announcements at the show was the formation of the Collaboration Cancer Cloud with the Oregon Health and Science University.
Cancer scares the hell out of me, because one out of two men and one out of three women will get it, and a lot of us won't survive the experience. Right now there are cures that aren't getting to people, because the cancer research centers' massive databases aren't connected or broadly searchable. The people who most need these massive storehouses of knowledge can't access them.
The Collaboration Cancer Cloud, which will launch next year, initially will connect three of these large cancer centers. It is designed to connect all of them eventually. When it's complete, we should be able to bring to bear the full power of our collective knowledge in this area, and far more of us will survive -- maybe never even get -- cancer.

Gaming Machines to Die For

Both Intel and Microsoft seemed to abandon the PC gaming market when the Xbox launched, and I personally thought it was a huge mistake -- epic, actually. Well, the good news is both companies are reinvesting in it, and I saw the result of Intel's renewed focus at IDF.
Intel showed off some amazing gaming rigs. One that was custom-built in Sacramento looked like a sculpture, and I got to talk to the guy who commissioned it. The labor cost alone was US$5,000 -- and that was without any of the parts. Water-cooled using a Fiat radiator, it's one of the most amazing machines I've ever seen.

There was an F1 driving simulator that I really wanted -- the only problem was that puppy cost $84,000 (no, I didn't add a zero -- eighty four thousand dollars). That's more than the price of a Jaguar V6S F-Type. But man, was it realistic.

It actually required that you use the same force to steer the car that a real F1 requires, and if you got your arms locked up it likely would break them if you hit a virtual wall -- but man, was it cool! It had three huge 4K screens with actuators at all four corners and high-end interfaces. I was nearly drooling when I left the booth. My wife still won't let me buy one, even after I suggested we could combine birthday and Christmas gifts.

Intel Unite

One of the interesting little technologies at the show was Intel Unite -- a little microcomputer that would connect to your laptop wirelessly, so that multiple people could collaborate during a presentation.
Schools apparently are going crazy for this thing, because it costs less and is easier to put in than an extended HDMI cable. At IDF, there always are a few little things like this that most folks miss.

Smart Everything

There were smart glasses and goggles, smartwatches and smart wristbands, smart BMX bicycles and smart exercise machines, smart sensors and smart home controls. It really got to the point where everyplace I turned it seemed that Intel was showcasing yet one more device that would capture data, could adapt itself to individual use, and could improve one or more things we do for work, entertainment and exercise.
Folks were viewing, riding, playing with, and talking to most every type of thing I could think of, and it was a little daunting. The more stuff I saw, the smaller my virtual bank account got. It was kind of like wandering through a giant adult technology toy store. I really loved it.

Wrapping Up: A View of the Future

Genevieve Bell wrapped up the event nicely. Intel is moving to empower makers of all types with its tools, and with funding for things like the America's Greatest Makers TV show.
There is a realization that Intel was created by some of the greatest makers who ever lived, and that there's a revolution pushing innovation into homes and garages all over the world. Intel wants to be part of that movement and, at its heart, IDF this year was all about that. Makers rule!!

I joke around a lot, but one thing I don't find funny at all is bullies and bullying. This can be kid to kid, adult to kid, or even adult to adult, and I think we need to do everything we can to protect the victims and stamp this out.
Stop Attack, a new app launched last week, instantly turns your phone into a device that will record a bully's deeds. You can use it to capture the action instantly, to protect yourself or someone else, and possibly bring the bully to justice.
For a fee of $1 a year, your phone sends what it records to a secure cloud repository, so that even if the attacker takes or breaks your phone, at least part of the attack is in a permanent record.

The app is simple to set up and very quick to execute: Just tap on an icon, and suddenly what your smartphone sees and hears is captured for posterity and for law enforcement -- even if it is the police you are capturing. A few years back I was attacked, and I wished for an app like this. As a result, the Stop Attack smartphone app is my product of the week.

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Rob Enderle is a TechNewsWorld columnist and the principal analyst for the Enderle Group, a consultancy that focuses on personal technology products and trends. You can connect with him on Google+.

Source: Technewsworld.com