What is Digg?199 Comments
- bazacko, on 02/21/2008, -3/+169"...the balloons are filled with hydrogen, which is much cheaper than helium."
I can see it now: "Error: Destination unreachable. Your internet may have exploded." - levitron, on 02/21/2008, -2/+97And the award for today's most grammatically confusing Digg title goes to....
- fluidfoundation, on 02/21/2008, -3/+53I can see it now. "It wasn't an alien craft. It was a Wifi Hotspot."
- goldentofu, on 02/21/2008, -4/+51If you thought that undersea cable cutting was problematic, just wait until people start taking aim at these balloons. Granted, they do float at the edge of space, but someone will find a way.
- Scyth3, on 02/21/2008, -2/+46Screw the $100 return reward...I'm ebaying that thing! It's worth $1200
- RuffRidr, on 02/21/2008, -1/+39From the article, these balloons are 20 miles up into the stratosphere. That's some shotgun Skeeter would have if he could shoot them down.
- nlke182, on 02/21/2008, -3/+34Yeah hicks with guns shoot everything that move. You dont even want to know how many hang gliders, hot air balloons, kites, blimps, or airplanes are shot down over the US each year. The number is so high they don't even bother putting out statistics on it.
- inactive, on 02/21/2008, -3/+29Holy *****, it's all coming true...
http://xkcd.com/239/ - Octaman, on 02/21/2008, -2/+26Let me guess... they're launching this service on April fools' day?
- Tiak, on 02/21/2008, -1/+22...These aren't directly comparable to undersea cables in that they aren't a centralized 1-path network... It is infinitely easier to drive a truck into a cellphone tower than it is to destroy a man-sized object 26 miles above the ground.
- abbasatpsu, on 02/21/2008, -0/+20who is the idiot who wrote the incomprehensible headline
- allenobendorf, on 02/21/2008, -1/+21The Hindengoog.
- bbqribs, on 02/21/2008, -0/+19Nobody would turn them in! They're GOOGLE items! We all know that geeks would covet them quietly...
... or we'd see a dozen "Take Apart" articles, followed by the "I installed LINUX on a Google WiFi balloon" articles. - rynosauce, on 02/21/2008, -0/+18The balloons only stay up for 24 hours and then gracefully come back down, so they are deployed quite often. The company claims that if you find one of the transponders and return it safely you will receive a $100 reward.
- Dipster, on 02/21/2008, -2/+20Googleberg
- digjam, on 02/21/2008, -0/+16Its a bird ..Its a plane...noooo wait..its a ***** wifi hotspot!
- TheOther1, on 02/21/2008, -1/+17Sure. Maybe the Navy should have just asked "Skeeter" to shoot down USA 193 and saved us a bunch of cash.
- Awspire, on 02/21/2008, -2/+18Those "hicks" are out managing the farms which provide the food for you to survive. What the hell do you contribute to society? Stock shelves at Home Depot?
- CedEx, on 02/21/2008, -0/+14"It is infinitely easier to drive a truck into a cellphone tower than it is to destroy a man-sized object 26 miles above the ground."
That, suspiciously sounds like a challenge. - sockpuppets, on 02/21/2008, -1/+15I live next to Google. They serve free wifi here, there's a node every block or two attached to a light pole. It's questionably reliable, doesn't work indoors. It doesn't seem like they've made alot of effort to improve it since they rolled it out. But, free is free- it's good enough to check email, etc, as long as you're willing to go outside or sit near a window to use it.
- Archer007, on 02/21/2008, -0/+13I would mod it.
- dizilbdog, on 02/21/2008, -0/+13Don't knock it if any company can do something to make our Cell Networks better it's Google. How awesome would it be to have Wimax set up across the country in like two weeks!!!!!
- RuffRidr, on 02/21/2008, -1/+13Good idea. The balloons are 20 miles up into the stratosphere.
- Aidenf77, on 02/21/2008, -1/+13Reading the title, I immediately rejected the idea as impractical. But after watching the video, I saw that this is actually working. The only reservations that I would have is the fact that the balloons have limited service windows and have to be constantly replenished. It's kind of like a disposable "one use" cell tower that has to be replaced with the next one, and the next one, and the next one, just to sustain service. Sounds about as reliable as my 14.4k modem connection was growing up, before all of my sisters had cell phones.
- johnalan, on 02/21/2008, -0/+12I don't think that relaunching balloons every day is a sustainable or practical way to provide internet connectivity to rural areas in all fairness.
- infinity777, on 02/21/2008, -0/+10It seems like they could just package the electronics in a remote controled airplane and guide it back to earth. Or even automate it with the GPS so it just returns home on its own to be launched again.
- bagelpirate, on 02/21/2008, -1/+11I can't imagine a balloon and a wireless antenna would cost that much, especially to google.
- lewhich, on 02/21/2008, -2/+11Thats what I call thinking outside the box ... Comcast/Verizon pay attention and stop winning about bittorent.
- joelav22, on 02/21/2008, -0/+8No it won't. Ever heard of latency?
- JasonCox, on 02/21/2008, -1/+8My laptop cant event see the wireless network in the building next to my office- how the hell am I suposed to get a connection to the balloon 20 miles up there- assuming my signal gets through all the AAA that Bubba and Jim-Bob are putting up trying to take the balloon down...
- KibibyteBrain, on 02/21/2008, -1/+8Wow, I could see high school aged kids saying screw it to McDonalds and just hunting those down. Just find a dozen or so a week and you are making quite a bit...
- sexybobo, on 02/21/2008, -0/+7the article said $1500 for the antenna $50 of the launch and they pay $100 for the recovery. So with other cost it would probably be $2000 per balloon if they didn't recover the transceiver so as long as google can get 6000 people to pay $10 a month for access per balloon they will come out a head. and since each balloon covers thousands of square miles it might not be that hard.
Or if they sell use of the balloons to companies and have 2 transceivers 1 for the company that bought the balloon and 1 for google. - l800LEMMINGS, on 02/21/2008, -1/+8i see at&t taking archery lessons soon
- yeahbuddy, on 02/21/2008, -0/+6So the transceivers fall to the earth and the company pays people $100 for discovering them.
What if the thing falls on my car while I'm driving 80 mph down the freeway? Seriously, if these things fall anywhere, anytime, doesn't that seem very dangerous to anyone else??
Also, what if aircraft hit these balloons while they are floating up in the air? Are these dumb questions? - NathanielJ, on 02/21/2008, -0/+6It's one extra 'r', random capitalization, one missed 'o', a '[PIC]' in the headline even when the one tiny picture included in the article isn't the focus, and a missing '/' after the 'w'.
- borez, on 02/21/2008, -0/+5Note: Not to be filled with hydrazine.
- bthug7, on 02/21/2008, -0/+5True, but these balloons are specifically made for low use areas. So if one of these babies goes down early, it's not like 50,000 people will be internet/cellphone less.
- nlke182, on 02/21/2008, -2/+7I read it on GunsAreEvil.com
- shaka999, on 02/21/2008, -1/+6Ever thought of running an external antenna?
- robindwilliams, on 02/21/2008, -1/+6I think you mean 'whining'. The double n changes pronunciation and meaning. Mind you, you failed to use an apostrophe in your first word, so what more could I expect...
- IphtashuFitz, on 02/21/2008, -0/+4Try RTFM.
They hire volunteers to go out and hunt them down. They apparently are fairly easy to track thanks to GPS. They offer the volunteers $100 for each one recovered. - pyroben92, on 02/21/2008, -2/+6Couldn't satellites do a better job?
- Glowbird, on 02/21/2008, -2/+6If only the coffeeshop could be in the balloon basket. "I'm working remotely today..."
- sexybobo, on 02/21/2008, -1/+5the balloons are much much smaller don't have people on them and they would burn up so quickly you wouldn't have to worry about fireballs hitting houses.
- shaka999, on 02/21/2008, -0/+4I was thinking the same thing. At a minimum they could add some control to the balloons. Hot air balloons can somewhat control where they are going my adjusting altitude to catch prevailing winds.
- IllBeBack, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4And you failed to end your question with a question mark, instead using an ellipsis. So, you may want to go ahead and jump down off of your high horse, chief.
- pearlygate, on 02/21/2008, -0/+4this is the first thing that came up to my mind when I read the headline. dugg!!
- hadak, on 02/21/2008, -2/+6Your punctuation is abhorred.
- IphtashuFitz, on 02/21/2008, -0/+4And here's a current coverage map. Again, pretty impressive: http://www.spacedata.net/commercial_coverage.html
- dacheetah, on 02/21/2008, -0/+3Also, despite the HUGE fireball, and the fact that dozens of people were VERY high in the air when the only thing keeping them up there exploded, almost two third of those on board survived. A little balloon like this isn't going to present any real danger.
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