Facebook Is Testing a Solar-Powered Internet-Beaming Drone
Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing a 900 lb. drone the size of Boeing 737 moving in slow circles 11 miles above you. As part of Facebook’s plan to provide Internet access to the 4 billion people who currently lack it, that could soon be the reality for the 10 percent of Earth’s population that lives far from cell towers or fiber optic lines.
Researchers at Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, a division of Facebook’s Internet.org, announced yesterday that the first such drone has been completed as a step toward building a larger fleet. The craft hasn’t been flown yet, but Facebook has been testing versions one-tenth the size over the U.K. and plans on beginning flight tests of the full-size craft before the end of this year.
Related: 12 Weird Uses for Drones
The drone, termed Aquila (Latin for “Eagle), is a solar-powered V-shaped carbon fiber craft that will carry equipment such as solar panels and communications gear that can beam down wireless Internet connectivity. Lacking wheels or the ability to climb, the drone will be launched using helium balloons and will be able to fly for 90 days at a time.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in the project has been the team developing a way to increase the data capacity of the lasers involved. The new system allows a ground-based laser to transmit information to a dome on the underside of the plane at 10 GB per second, about 10 times faster than previously thought possible.
Facebook’s mission isn’t without controversy. Worldwide, critics have been questioning many of Internet.org’s practices on privacy, fairness and security grounds. Those opponents fear that users of Internet.org might be monitored through state-run telecoms, in some cases allowing countries to spy on and repress their citizens. In addition, first-time users of the Internet might confuse Facebook for the entire Internet and only receive news and information from the one site.
The flack Internet.org is receiving isn’t the only problem Facebook has to deal with. Rival Google also has a project in the works to bring wireless Internet to rural communities. Their program, called “Project Loon,” involves high-altitude helium balloons that have transmitters attached to them. Although the project hasn’t been launched yet, it’s in more advanced stages than Aquila.
Watch the video from Facebook’s Connectivity Lab:
Coming Soon: Deductible Relief Day!
You may be familiar with the concept of Tax Freedom Day – the date on which you have earned enough to pay all of your taxes for the year. Focusing on a different kind of financial burden, analysts at the Kaiser Family Foundation have created Deductible Relief Day – the date on which people in employer-sponsored insurance plans have spent enough on health care to meet the average annual deductible.
Average deductibles have more than tripled over the last decade, forcing people to spend more out of pocket each year. As a result, Deductible Relief Day is “getting later and later in the year,” Kaiser’s Larry Levitt said in a tweet Thursday.
Chart of the Day: Families Still Struggling
Ten years into what will soon be the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, 40% of families say they are still struggling, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. “Nearly 4 in 10 nonelderly adults reported that in 2018, their families experienced material hardship—defined as trouble paying or being unable to pay for housing, utilities, food, or medical care at some point during the year—which was not significantly different from the share reporting these difficulties for the previous year,” the report says. “Among adults in families with incomes below twice the federal poverty level (FPL), over 60 percent reported at least one type of material hardship in 2018.”
Chart of the Day: Pragmatism on a Public Option
A recent Morning Consult poll 3,073 U.S. adults who say they support Medicare for All shows that they are just as likely to back a public option that would allow Americans to buy into Medicare or Medicaid without eliminating private health insurance. “The data suggests that, in spite of the fervor for expanding health coverage, a majority of Medicare for All supporters, like all Americans, are leaning into their pragmatism in response to the current political climate — one which has left many skeptical that Capitol Hill can jolt into action on an ambitious proposal like Medicare for All quickly enough to wrangle the soaring costs of health care,” Morning Consult said.
Chart of the Day: The Explosive Growth of the EITC
The Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income workers, was established in 1975, with nominal claims of about $1.2 billion ($5.6 billion in 2016 dollars) in its first year. According to the Tax Policy Center, by 2016 “the total was $66.7 billion, almost 12 times larger in real terms.”
Chart of the Day: The Big Picture on Health Care Costs
“The health care services that rack up the highest out-of-pocket costs for patients aren't the same ones that cost the most to the health care system overall,” says Axios’s Caitlin Owens. That may distort our view of how the system works and how best to fix it. For example, Americans spend more out-of-pocket on dental services ($53 billion) than they do on hospital care ($34 billion), but the latter is a much larger part of national health care spending as a whole.
