Alphabet’s Project Loon may deliver internet to Puerto Rico with Wi-Fi balloons

Project Loon, the initiative of Alphabet’s X lab to deliver internet using air balloons, is

looking into deploying Wi-Fi balloons to help alleviate the crisis in Puerto Rico, the company confirmed. “The Project Loon team at X is exploring if it’s possible to bring emergency connectivity to Puerto Rico,” the X lab’s official Twitter account wrote this afternoon. X, formerly Google X, is the “moonshot” division of Google-owner Alphabet, responsible for the Wing drone delivery project and the self-driving car unit that became Waymo, among other forward-looking tech-adjacent initiatives. Puerto Rico, home to nearly 3.5 million people, remains largely devastated by Hurricane Maria, the Category 4 storm that has claimed 24 lives in Puerto Rico alone and has left almost the entirety of the US territory without electricity and almost half of all residents without potable water.                                                                                                      https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16388104/alphabet-x-project-loon-puerto-rico-air-balloon-internet-connectivity