Google has today acquired Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based drone company that makes high-flying solar powered drones the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Titan Aerospace and Google share a profound optimism about the potential for technology to improve the world,” a Google spokesperson said. “It’s still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation. It’s why we’re so excited to welcome Titan Aerospace to the Google family.”
Titan will work closely with Project Loon, a Google project which uses a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, that provides Internet access to the earth below. The obsession to connect the next billion users to the internet puts Google in an arms race with Facebook which had earlier wanted to purchase the same company and Microsoft which is experimenting with TV Whitespace in Kenya.
Image: Titan Aerospace