Facebook's helicopter drone project got grounded: Report
San Francisco, July 10 : Facebook discontinued last year a small helicopter drone project that could temporarily replace cellular services in emergency situations, The Verge reported.
The project was discontinued a few months after being shown off at the F8 developer conference in May of 2017, said the report on Monday.
"Tether-tenna was a proof of concept project we were evaluating when we discussed it at F8 in early 2017," a spokesperson for Facebook was quoted as saying.
The idea was to send a helicopter equipped with telecommunications equipment hundreds of metres up in the air to be able to tether to fiber and power lines in places where wireless capacity was compromised due to disaster or other factors.
"It wasn't something we pursued further as we chose to focus our efforts on continued development and advancement of our Terragraph, millimeter-wave, and HAPS (high altitude platform station) programmes," the Facebook spokesperson added.
The Tether-tenna is, however, not the only aerial Internet project that Facebook has abandoned in recent times.
In June this year, Facebook announced it decided to abandon its plan to develop high-flying solar-powered drones called Aquila that was aimed to deliver Internet to nearly four billion people in remote parts of the world.
A high altitude platform station (HAPS) system, Aquila's mission, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, was to connect the world and help people who do not have online access all the opportunities of the Internet.
Facebook began Aquila project in 2014. In 2017, the solar-powered drone successfully completed the second full-scale test flight.
Tether-tenna was a much smaller scale idea compared to Aquila.
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Opposition will question govt at all-party meet about Trump's claims on brokering ceasefire: Kharge
Kalaburagi (PTI): Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said that the opposition will question the government at the all-party meeting, regarding US President Donald Trump's claims that his administration helped broker a "ceasefire" between India and Pakistan.
The Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said he will urge the government to call an all-party meeting soon, to discuss the latest developments in border tension between India and Pakistan, including "ceasefire".
Speaking to reporters here, he said, "Trump is saying things to claim credit. These people (PM and central government) are saying no. It is a sensitive matter. When an all-party meeting is called, we will discuss — what’s the matter, what happened and what were the telephone talks— and ask all these things”.
In response to a question whether PM Modi gave in to Trump's mediation, he said "It won’t be right for me to speak about it now. We have our party meeting today. I’m going for that. I will ask (centre) to call an all-party meeting, let’s see what they will do."
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on Saturday to end the military conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
Indian government sources have been maintaining that the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan reached an understanding to stop all firings and military actions, and no third party was involved.
There was no reference to trade in talks between top leaders of India and the US during the India-Pakistan military conflict, government sources said on Monday after American President Donald Trump claimed that he pressured New Delhi and Islamabad to stop hostilities by threatening to cut trade with both countries.
The source-based clarification came after Trump on Monday said he forced the two countries to stop the hostilities by using the trade card.
Kharge and his party have already demanded that the central government convene a special session of Parliament to discuss the Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor, and the latest developments in cross-border firing, including the recently announced "ceasefire".
