Facebook Secretly Explored Building Bird-Size Drones To Ferry Data To People With Bad Internet Connections (businessinsider.com) 88
Facebook recently explored building bird-size drones loaded with data to help improve people's internet connections. From a report: The Menlo Park, California-headquartered technology giant worked on a far-out project, called Catalina, in recent years that aimed to build tiny fixed-wing aircraft capable of ferrying media to communities to augment slow internet connections like 2G, Business Insider has learned. The efforts illustrate how Facebook has been exploring out-of-the-box concepts in its attempts to connect people around the world to the internet for the first time and grow Facebook's user base. And it shows that even amid Facebook's public retreat in June from building 747-size "Aquila" drones to provide internet connectivity to emerging markets, the company was also considering other, even less conventional aerial methods of providing connectivity solutions. Development of Catalina began in late 2017 or earlier, a source said, and work on it continued past June. Also in the story: Facebook has pursued some additional low-tech connectivity efforts. "Street Feet" was an internal effort that paid people in emerging markets to physically approach random people on the street and persuade them to sign up for Facebook.
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Re:What's the business plan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not all people who have bad internet connection are poor. It is just that they are not absurdly rich to get ISP's to get wires to their home. Some farmers who actually make a good living, may be miles away from the Internet Infrastructure, however will benefit getting information on weather, commodity prices, veterinarian results, bank account data, new on any new regulations, and communication with others.
There is a difference between East Coast rural, then mid-west rural. East Coast farms may have a few thousand acres, still small enough to be in rage of Cell Data, But in the mid-west a ranch are measured in square miles. Not profitable to put up Cell Towers to additional ISP wires (Cable/Fiber)
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I submit that those folks would be excellent candidates for satellite-based internet access. All
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
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It's not that hard to get data for a mile or two with a fixed parabolic antenna aimed at the cell tower.
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
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Not all people who have bad internet connection are poor.
In the early days of Usenet, a tape was sent to Australia everyday on a flight from the west cost of the US.
Sneakernet: Usage examples [wikipedia.org]
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> How would Facebook monetize these poor people?
Poor people can be extraordinarily profitable if you have the resources, infrastructure, and warped moral compass required to aggressively exploit them. Poor people generally have few options and no bargaining power, so the fact that you're willing to do business with them puts you in an extraordinarily powerful position to dictate "take it or leave it" terms.
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:1)
Is these sort of stupid comments that make me sick.
Poor people have huge potential to produce goods and services and be productive. They just need help getting organized. Look at China, or India. 50 years ago, they were suffering recurring famine. Now, they are wholly productive because some "sick person" invested in their productivity. That's not a bad thing.
In a free economy, both people benefit by the whole pie expanding. The investor/entrepreneur/industry benefits, the consumers of those goods and servi
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Nothing you wrote disagrees with the post you called "stupid" and allegedly made you sick (I really don't think so). Whining that someone dare to acknowledge that poor people have less choice and so anyone targeting them are in a powerful position, especially as consumer protection laws are generally weak in these areas?
Childish and naive.
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Not all poors are stupid, only most. The dumb ones can be super profitable. Look at the 'Rent to own' industry.
There is nothing unethical/immoral about running an RTO or Lottery. Everybody involved is engaging in purely voluntary contracts. It's not your fault they are bad at math.
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It's also not my fault you can't make a coherent argument.
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
Exploiting the weak or stupid for profit is indeed immoral.
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How will they ever become not stupid or strong?
Tell your state government the lottery is immoral, go ahead. RTO is no different.
A fool and their money were lucky to get together in the first place. It is an immoral act to let a sucker keep his money.
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
Yes, the state lottery is immoral. It's a disgrace to the people and an indictment of our rulers' wickedness.
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Facebook has been funding service providers in developing countries for some time now.
One example is MPT, a mobile network in Myanmar. MPT provides zero-rated Facebook access, ensuring that Myanmar's populace will choose Facebook over any less-scummy competitors—and Facebook provides so many services at this point that there's little reason to ever leave the site, especially when doing so will cost you. Facebook is the primary—if not only—source for messaging, digital marketplaces, news, a
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
Re: What's the business plan? (Score:2)
How would Facebook monetize these poor people?
Hmm, there's a tough one...
When sneaker-net just won't do (Score:1)
Further evidence that people with lots of money and no common sense are a problem.
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Re: When sneaker-net just won't do (Score:2)
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Sadly, I would have to guess if you used this saying around anyone much under the age of 50yrs, their first response would be...
"What's a station wagon?"
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"What's a station wagon?" ;)
Station wagons were effectively banned by the CAFE standards [wikipedia.org] passed by congress in the late 1970s. People with a need for cargo space switched to less efficient and more polluting SUVs, trucks, or vans.
Yes, this was stupid and counter-productive, and yes, this is a great example of unintended consequences from poorly thought out regulation.
Re: When sneaker-net just won't do (Score:2)
"What's a station wagon?"
My '15 Suburban is a body-on-frame station wagon with more ground clearance than any highway vehicle ought to have... but Eibach is supposed to be working on a lowering kit. :)
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Some areas are tough for Sneaker-Net. And with Drones we can have dozens of communication transfers a day vs. 1 or 2 with Sneaker-Net.
Obligatory Scene 22 (Score:2)
http://montypython.50webs.com/... [50webs.com]
IP over Avian Carrier 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
Has April 1st (Score:2)
come early to Slashdot?
RFC 1149 IP Datagrams over Avian Carrier (Score:2, Informative)
RFC 1149 -- https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149
A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
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Or they might be going for RFC 2549, Datagrams over Avian Carrier with QoS tools.
Media = Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
And by media, they mean advertisements.
Not sure (Score:2)
What's the end goal here? I could see this for something like a compressed version of Wikipedia and similar websites, but FaceBook?
"Your message to your uncle was sent via RFC 1149. You can expect a reply no earlier than two weeks from now."
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I understand that, but Facebook is probably the furthest thing from a static website.
What would be their product to reach those people to push advertising on them, since it can't be Facebook?
Is it Monday already? (Score:2)
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April 1st is Monday. I think /. 8 bit server is suffering from the Y2K bug.
Yeah, my first thought was, "wait is this an April Fools joke?"
As incompetent as Facebook are, I wouldn't be surprised if this were released too early.
Too soon? (Score:2)
A couple days early for these stories, no?
Is this cheaper then pigions. (Score:2)
Why don't we have carrier pigeons with USB sicks? Are drones that much more reliable and affordable to maintain?
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Why don't we have carrier pigeons with USB sicks? Are drones that much more reliable and affordable to maintain?
A carrier pigeon might panic if it see's a cat and swallow the USB stick. What we need is Golden Eagles trained to act like carrier pigeons.
What was the RFC for the carrier pigeon protocol? (Score:2)
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Bird-size (Score:3)
Are we talking hummingbird or albatross ?
Or swallow?
slow != low bandwidth (Score:2)
A station wagon full of magtapes still have the largest bandwidth
What's a magtape? (Score:2)
Never heard of that species of bird before!
Headline needs some interpreting, I think: (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook Secretly Explored Building Bird-Size Drones To Ferry Personal Data From People With Bad Internet Connections
Amirite?
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I think in the case of Facebook the real headline should read: Facebook Secretly Explored Building Bird-Size Drones To Ferry Personal Data From People With Bad Internet Connections
. Amirite?
No, I think you're wrong in an instructive way.
What plausible mechanism can you imagine by which these drones would carry data away from people? Occam's razor strongly suggests that what you describe wouldn't happen in this case. Which suggests you should re-evaluate your knee jerk.
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Street feet (Score:3)
Facebook has pursued some additional low-tech connectivity efforts. "Street Feet" was an internal effort that paid people in emerging markets to physically approach random people on the street and persuade them to sign up for Facebook.
This would have totally backfired. There was a start-up where I live, like 10 years ago. They had a series of what appeared to be small moving trucks that had been modified to show scrolling advertisements on all sides. Needless to say it was eventually banned by a city ordnance, but before that happened, people would cut the trucks off, brake-check them and just generally give them shit on the road. I imagine that if Facebook hired people to advertise to the general public like that, probably the same, or worse, would happen to them.
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In the USA those would have never been legal. Unless the ads didn't have any blue or red elements.
No red lights on non emergency vehicles except the brake lights, no blue lights on non-emergency vehicles.
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Get a life drinkypoo.
For ref Drinkypoo was agreeing with one of his alts that Steel tariffs would double the price of cars. My position was they would add maybe $50/car. He's just deluded.
Re: Street feet (Score:2)
He's just deluded.
It's not inconceivable that that's his job.
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It's in America. There were no lights on the sides, just a 3-sides, rolling sections that would display a different advert each, so there could be 12 different adverts per truck. I found this [youtube.com] video that shows what I'm talking about, although it only shows it from the rear.
If facebook wants to enlarge its base (Score:2)
they need to stop being so awful. Anyone still using facebook after all the crap they've been recently found to be doing is intellectually challenged.
Facebook userbase was intellectually challenged (Score:2)
before the discovery of their recent doings?
would rather talk about..... (Score:2)
many if not most companies have an R&D division/aspect in which they explore future possibilities; the fact that it isn't announced to the public in detail is not the same as it being done 'in secret'
clickbait journalism requires falsehood and misdirection.... the very opposite of the journalist's creedo
".... oooooo, let's call it "secret" so it appears full of controversy and we'll get the views to justify the ads...." of course t
"Secretly" (Score:2)
one packet per each drone flight! (Score:2)
First drone delivers "REQ".
Returns back with "ACK1".
Files again with "ACK2".
And - voila! Connection established!
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First send drone that only does REQ. The drone that returns only does ACK1. Then send send drone that only does ACK2.
Data is encoded by drones that represent the hex values #0 to #F.