GAME of DRONES

 I wrote in this column earlier that in the 1990s I represented a company that manufactured Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or what are now called Drones. I said that aside from their military uses, Drones also had some civilian uses.

One of them was using them as low altitude satellites acting as transmitters for telecommunications and broadcasts.

Today, this Game of Drones became more exciting with the involvement of some Social Media giants.

These Drones are now intended to extend Internet to remote areas.  With Google’s acquisition of Titan Aerospace, it has correspondingly gained the capability as a developer of jet-sized drones intended to fly nonstop for years.

Titan says it could help people by “providing internet connections in remote areas or helping monitor environmental damage like oil spills and deforestation.”

According to the The Wall Street Journal  Google says the technology could also be used to collect images.

The WSJ says Titan would work closely with its Project Loon, “which is building large, high-altitude balloons that send Internet signals to areas of the world that are currently not online,” according to a Google statement. “Titan also may work with Makani, another early-stage Google project that is developing an airborne wind turbine that it hopes will generate electricity efficiently.”

In another development involving the Game of Drones for the Cyber Throne, Facebook has also agreed to buy the U.K.-based Ascenta.

In its announcement Ascenta declared, “Today we are delighted to announce that our team will be joining Facebook. This is a special partnership built on a shared vision. We are joining the team inside Facebook, which is focused on bringing Internet connectivity to the world’s developing countries through new technologies like high altitude long endurance vehicles. Facebook has demonstrated a serious commitment to this effort, and we are more excited than ever about the potential for our technology and our future impact in the world.”

Meanwhile, according to WIRED, DARPA is turning aging surveillance drones Into Wi-Fi hotspots. A fleet of surveillance drones once deployed in the skies over Iraq is being repurposed to provide aerial Wi-Fi in far-flung corners of the world. 

RQ-7 Shadow drones that the Army flew in Iraq for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions are now becoming wireless hubs for connectivity in remote conflict zones where challenging communication environments can mean the difference between being ambushed and getting reinforcements.

WIRED further reported that “Darpa’s Mobile Hotspots program retrofits retired Shadow drones with pods that will be able to transfer one gigabyte per second of data — the equivalent of 4G smartphone connectivity — so that soldiers in remote areas will have the same access to tactical operation centers and mission data that others in more central theaters have.”