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From Balloons to Lasers — What is Google Planning for the Internet?

If you look at Alphabet’s Loon project, you will soon see that this is aimed at trying to provide the internet with a series of balloons. This was shut down though last year. The tech that was associated with it has now been spun off into a start-up that ditches the various platforms. They are now using lasers to try and provide the internet to various remote places. 

The company that is inheriting this kind of tech would be Aalyria. CNBC have reported that the Alphabet company does have a minority stake in it but as it stands, they are not going to be a direct subsidiary of the shell company at all. 

Alyria has two focuses and this would be TightBeam, which is a major laser system that uses beams of light to send data to the base station and the endpoint. You also have SpaceTime, and this is a cloud-based software that is meant to help manage all of the changing connections. SpaceTime was originally created so that it could predict how the balloons are moving and how best to keep the connections nice and strong.

The Benefits for Casino Gaming

It is important to know that there are a lot of benefits of this technology, especially for casino gaming sites. A lot of people first compare online casinos, then play, but often experience slow speeds and lagging. This is especially the case on higher-tech games. That being said, TightBeam is able to transmit data in the same way as a fibre optic cable. The light is beamed from one point all the way to the other and it is going through the air rather than a physical connection. This makes it way more flexible, especially when it comes to long distances. The system is 100-1000x faster when compared to other connections and it is also able to offer a very strong connection. If this could be used in the entertainment sector, then it would contribute to a major positive change across the industry.

TightBeam Comes from Sonora

Another thing to take note of is that TightBeam has been spun out of a project that has been done by Google. This is known as Sonora. The company does not seem to talk about this, but at the end of the day, it does have quite a lot of potential. Alphabet also had another Loon project, and it did actually see the light of day. The project was called Taara and this helped to give an internet service to Africa. Lasers helped to connect all of the balloons together. 

The project used those layers, which were otherwise known as being Free Space Optical Communication links together to try and augment any fibre runs that were present. They could even be used in places where it was not possible at all to run cables such as across rivers or even across canyons. At the time, the team said that the system is resilient to any obstructions that could include rain, haze, and even birds. 

They did go on to admit that the climate in Africa was actually way more ideal than the original USA climate as the fog is so consistent in San Francisco and this can influence the quality.

Transmitting through the Air

Of course, it is important to know that Aalyria has its very own way of being able to deal with any disruptions. One of them involves compensating for how dust or rain could easily distort or even scatter the light that is being used to transmit the data. This is a very important consideration if you are actually sending light through the air and not through the glass strands that you can find in a fibre optic cable. 

The company looks to be wanting to take on SpaceX when you look at the services that they have to offer. They have high hopes that this kind of laser tech is going to provide a lot of services to planes and even ships.

StarLink is going to begin providing WiFi for airlines and even cruise ships. There is going to be a lot of support for internet users too, which as mentioned above, is going to rocket the potential of the casino industry. A lot of people like to gamble on the go so it would not be surprising to see this really come to light. Only time will tell though and all we can do is wait to see what the future holds.

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