Page 4 - Loon Project News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Since the 1990s, male loons monitored in Wisconsin and Minnesota have dropped from an average weight of nearly 4.6 kilograms to about 4.4.

Image sourced from MIT Technology Review Alphabet is shutting down its balloon-powered mobile Internet service, Loon. The project’s main objective was to bring abundant, affordable Internet access to unconnected communities around the world. “When we unveiled Loon in June 2013, we meant everything in its name. It was a way-out-there and risky venture,” says Astro Teller, X lead. “Sadly, despite the team’s groundbreaking technical achievements over the last 9 years — doing many things previously thought impossible — the road to commercial viability has proven much longer and risk...

Alphabet Inc is shutting down Loon after concluding the business, which offers balloons as an alternative to cell towers, is not commercially viable, Google’s parent company said on Thursday. Founded in 2011, Loon aimed to bring connectivity to areas of the world where building cell towers is too expensive or treacherous using balloons the length of tennis courts and solar-powered networking gear. But the wireless carriers which Loon saw as buyers questioned the technical and political viability of the idea. “While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t ...