Google buys drone maker Titan Aerospace

Google has acquired Titan Aerospace, a company originally sought by Facebook as a means to bring internet to remote parts of the globe. Titan Aerospace makes drones which can stay aloft for extended periods of time. The drones which fly well above the altitude where commercial aircraft fly and below where satellites orbit, can beam an internet signal from space.

The drones' primary function will be to help send Internet to places without a current connection at speeds as high as 1 gigabit per second, which - matching the speeds of fiber-delivered Internet -- utranks many developed countries. The US averages only 7.2 megabits per second as of 2014, according to the most recent Akamai "State of the Internet" report.

"Titan Aerospace and Google share a profound optimism about the potential for technology to improve the world," Google 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 still early days for the technology we're developing," in particular "atmospheric satellites," Titan said on its Web site. "There are a lot of ways that we think we could help people, whether it's providing Internet connections in remote areas or helping monitor environmental damage like oil spills and deforestation."

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