Google Blimps for Disaster Response
A blimp is a floating airship that does not have any internal supporting framework or keel. The airship is typically filled with helium and is navigated using steerable fans. Google is apparently planning to launch a fleet of Blimps to extend Internet/wifi access across Africa and Asia. Some believe that “these high-flying networks would spend their days floating over areas outside of major cities where Internet access is either scarce or simply nonexistent.” Small-scale prototypes are reportedly being piloted in South Africa “where a base station is broadcasting signals to wireless access boxes in high schools over several kilometres.” The US military has been using similar technology for years.
Google notes that the technology is “well-suited to provide low cost connectivity to rural communities with poor telecommunications infrastructure, and for expanding coverage of wireless broadband in densely populated urban areas.” Might Google Blimps also be used by Google’s Crisis Response Team in the future? Indeed, Google Blimps could be used to provide Internet access to disaster-affected communities. The blimps could also be used to capture very high-resolution aerial imagery for damage assessment purposes. Simply adding a digital camera to said blimps would do the trick. In fact, they could simply take the fourth-generation cameras used for Google Street View and mount them on the blimps to create Google Sky View. As always, however, these innovations are fraught with privacy and data protection issues. Also, the use of UAVs and balloons for disaster response has been discussed for years already.
Phi Beta Iota: Google is evil. Think of it as virtual imperialism and predatory capitalisn taken to new heights of digital flim flam. Local communjities should be doing everything they can to create their own Autonomous Internet and their own Open Source Everything (OSE) Liberation Technology. These are capabilities that must be wholly developed, controlled, and overseen by the public, not by corporations with a global information take-over plan that includes shredding privacy and “owning” data while showing you what they are paid to show you, not what you actually need to see.
See Also:
2012 Reality Sandwich: The Battle for the Soul of the Republic
2009 Arnold Google: The Digital Gutenberg
1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (Full Text Online for Google Translate))
Graphic: Google Evil Equated to China
Josh Kilbourn: “we are this far from a turnkey totalitarian state”
Journal: Google digital evil or digital child?
Journal: Google, the Cloud, Microsoft, & World Brain
Journal: Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon band together to oppose Google Books settlement
Michel Bauwens: Cloud Computing as Virtual Prison
Mini-Mi: Why is Google Evil? One Blogger’s View
Reform Coalition: “True Cost” Economics & Genuine Progress + True Cost RECAP
Rickard Falkvinge: “Terms of Service” Are Evil
Robert Steele: McKinsey on Big Data & Internet of Things – Four Missing Perspectives
What Google Needs to Do–Besides No Evil….
Worth a Look: Google Does Data Not Thinking
Yoda: Google Evil – Threat to National & Individual Security
Yoda: Google Glass — Dark Side of the Force? + Big Data RECAP
Yoda: James Corbett on Google Evil
Yoda: South Korea Slams Google Evil in Privacy Violations
