Google has bought Titan Aerospace, following in Facebook’s footsteps in acquiring a dronemaker to help it bring the internet to far-flung corners of the developing world.
The technology company said it had bought Titan, a New Mexico-based start-up specialising in solar-powered drones, to work closely with its Project Loon, which is building high-altitude balloons to send internet signals to earth.
Facebook was reported to have considered buying Titan, which has about 20 employees, but instead acquired a team of dronemakers from Ascenta, in rural Somerset in the UK, earlier this month for about $20m, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Google spokesman would not disclose the price of the Titan acquisition.
“Titan Aerospace and Google share a profound optimism about the potential for technology to improve the world,” the spokesman 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.”
Google and Facebook are racing to buy the next crucial platform in technology, with Google having bought smart homes technology maker Nest earlier this year and robotics company Boston Dynamics at the end of 2013.
Facebook has spent about $17bn on WhatsApp, a messaging app it bought mainly in stock, and $2bn on virtual reality headset maker Oculus Rift so far this year.
Both companies are trying to spread the internet to those who do not have access to it, partly through altruism but also to help expand their already very large user bases.
The pair have each concluded that creating conventional infrastructure such as wires buried in the ground will be too slow in developing countries, and so are looking at alternatives from above.
Titan Aerospace is run by Vern Raburn, who used to lead security company Symantec and Microsoft’s consumer products division. It is developing two drones which both rely on solar panels on their wings to keep airborne. The drones could be used for everything from monitoring forest fires to shooting videos of the world from above, the company says on its website.
Amazon was the first of the major internet companies to experiment with drones, announcing at the end of last year that it was developing unmanned aerial drones with the aim of delivering goods to consumers by drones within five years. But sceptics dismissed it as a publicity stunt at the start of the holiday season.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
No comments:
Post a Comment