Revealed: Google's plan to float BLIMP NETWORK over Africa, Asia Google is poised to flood Africa with uncontrolled connectivity via TV White Space frequencies, according the Wall Street Journal, though other wireless technologies will contribute to the mix. The report, citing the usual "people familiar", doesn't say how much Mountain View will be investing in the project, only that it will …
We get food to some of these -places?
I know being able to serve adverts and give them face-book is a noble aim, but really?
Sad that the human race is able to get its sales infrastructure into areas far easier than aid and basic infrastructure for people (roads, clean water)
The biggest problem around the continent there being education and communication, not food or roads, perhaps it's not a bad idea. Then again, it's not just information which sets us free. A lot of other things need to be in place for information to function. Perhaps will function like alcohol to native Americans, to drag in another stereotype.
Starvation in africa isn't caused by a lack of food. The majority of the continent is so fertile that you can find something to eat all year round without really trying.
The problem is surviving the disease and war endemic to vast swathes of the continent long enough to eat your lunch. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa until it was torn apart by an authoritarian madman. The most fertile piece of ground on earth reduced to starvation.
Even in the north of the continent food grows quite easily. The perpetual ethiopian famine was caused by the wars with eritrea and somalia. It's hard to grow food to survive when infantry battalions keep yomping over your field and dropping landmines everywhere. There would be little starvation in africa were it not for the dictators and warlords that we prop up with all that feel-good foreign aid we keep sending.
Africa is big. Really big. Sudan alone is about the size of the EU. Sometimes water and food aren't the biggest problem, the problem is contact with the rest of the world, which in some places is only reliably (or safely) traversed by plane. People need connectivity, whether it's just to get the local market prices, learn something, talk to friends and family or particularly to call a doctor.
This will help with that by providing them with decent communications systems we can provide them with weather reports, drought warnings, which could increase crops yields.
Cattle farmers can get access to veterinary services, learn how to look after their cattle better, arrange cattle trades over a wider area.
One a wider note these services would be use to better communicate problems with corrupt local officials, report bandits, problems with roads. Better communications allows for better education.
Open up communication and you can change lives.
- Community workers suddenly have reliable communication to head office for advice and training
- Teachers can receive training and access resources
- Students can expand their knowledge
- Farmers can research prices, access weather forecasts
The list is endless and it really does work.
Of course the Warlords in the area will just sit back and allow Google to put up a large number of blimps that are also just perfect for mounting cameras on, the better to have 24/7 visibility of what is going on below, and won't take to attempting to shoot them down, with SAMs if needed (since the blimps will be out of small-arms range), or by attacking the ground-based tethers needed to keep them in place.
Which is a crying shame, as that is exactly the sort of thing that might help the locals break the cycle of poverty they are in.
It may startle you to learn that not all of Africa is a poverty stricken desert filled with the starving and oppressed serfs of the local warmongering kleptocrat.
If nothing else, have a think about exactly how much value Google could extract from such a place... "precious little", to put it politely. Regardless of how altruistic Google might be, they're not total idiots and will have done at least the bare minimum of due diligence with regards to the state of the local economy and political stability, because they probably don't want their shiny new kit to be blown up or left unused.
How exactly will the warlords stop it, if they untethered and high enough that even those warlords that get ahold of shoulder launched SAMs can't reach them?
I think a bigger concern is that the warlords might get more out of this development than those they're oppressing. This would greatly improve their ability to oversee and communicate with their soldiers. One guy working for them sees a convoy loaded with food driving by, alerts HQ, and HQ alerts the nearest unit to deploy a roadblock and take the food. That would be an unfortunate improvement over the haphazard way this is accomplished now (which is mostly randomly set up roadblocks being in the right place at the right time)
How hard would it be to use a Lifter (ionocraft) based system with flexible solar cells to supplement lift?
Land it once in a while to do routine maintenance and cleaning etc, and voila.
Adding internal storage to each blimp would also be a good idea, 1TB of Flash doesen't weigh a lot these days and would go a long way towards reducing latency for frequently used pages such as Wikipedia and BBC News.
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