back to article Google's SWOLLEN WINDBAGS circle PLANET, dispensing INTERWEBS

With a name like Project Loon, you would expect Google's scheme to be a bit bonkers, but the Chocolate Factory's madcap plan to bring internet connectivity to remote areas using balloons appears to have paid off after one of the devices circumnavigated the globe in just 22 days. Project Loon is the name for Mountain View's …

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  1. SteveK

    How does that work then?

    Your request was received, we'll be back with the server's response in 22 days if your browser's not timed out by then.

  2. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Joke

    North Korea welcomes the Google overflights.

    "We needed more targets to practice on, but our budget was depleted for this year. Thank you Google for providing us with free targets for us to shoot at."

    General Sun-Yip Kim, North Korean Democratic Defense Force.

  3. Ivan Headache
    Joke

    And how much wifi info did it slurp on the way round?

    Or did it have a bunch of GoPros attached to the bottom?

    1. Euripides Pants
      Coat

      Re: And how much wifi info did it slurp on the way round?

      I wouldn't want even one GoPro attached to my bottom....

  4. ItsNotMe
    Coat

    "It did a lap around the world in 22 days,..."

    Thought it took 80 days. Have I missed something?

    Mine's the one draped over the wicker basket.

    1. Euripides Pants
      Boffin

      Re: "It did a lap around the world in 22 days,..."

      That was back in the olden days. Modern days last longer which is why things get done faster.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: "It did a lap around the world in 22 days,..."

      Thought it took 80 days. Have I missed something?

      As faithful readers of William Pène du Bois know, the introduction of the balloon cut the old record in half. Google seem to have achieved another order-of-magnitude1 reduction.

      1Binary order of magnitude, natch. This is an IT site.

  5. jonathanb Silver badge

    Can someone explain: what benefits does this offer over satellite internet, given that it presumably needs to connect to a satellite for its upstream connection.

    1. ratfox

      I understand the balloons are supposed to communicate peer-to-peer, not use satellites. If you have enough balloons, you have complete coverage.

  6. SuccessCase

    Read the headline and I was convinced this was going to be an article about Eric Schmidt using the tether feature of his phone.

  7. i like crisps
    Trollface

    UP, UP AND AWAYYY.....

    ....if only that would happen to Google....don't like Google

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inside job!

    It's Playmonaut at the controls isn't it? I knew he was still alive!

  10. Ole Juul

    Loonie

    Article missed reference to dollars.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Google's SWOLLEN WINDBAGS"

    Dear god help me. I got to that part of the headline and all I could think of was bigwigs from Google standing in a wind tunnel naked....it's funny but sickening at the same time. Someone get me some bleach please?

  12. DocJames

    Fit like?

    Loon is Doric (Aberdonian dialect) for boy.

    See also quine or quiney for girl.

  13. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    Literary loons

    I'll see your Coleridge, and raise you Shakespeare. (Though I confess I might like Coleridge's better too. Depends on the occasion, I suppose.)

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