MOUNTAINVIEW, Calif. � Alphabet, the parent company of Google, continues to work on Project Loon, through its subsidiary known as �X�.�
Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to extend Internet connectivity to people in rural and remote areas worldwide.
Balloons floating through the stratosphere are unpredictable, and anything can happen to them; now X has found a way to make the balloons a little less unpredictable by use of artificial intelligence to help improve the balloons’ navigation algorithms, according to a recent article in C/net. That means they can better control a balloon’s ability to loiter in place instead of drifting off.
Almost 4 billion people still don’t have access to the web, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency. Google and others, such as Facebook, want to change that by providing internet access to the areas that have had poor or no access at all.
Astro Teller, the head of project Loon at X, hopes to launch a pilot test within the next few months, though he doesn’t know yet where it will be, according to the same article.��
