Facebook quietly kills its Aquila autonomous internet drone program
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/27/facebook_kills_aquila/
Facebook has canned its plans to bring high-speed internet via a solar-powered drone beaming lasers to the ground, according to an announcement on Tuesday.
The social media behemoth hellbent on ‘global connectivity’ wanted to launch a “high altitude platform station (HAPS) system," nicknamed Aquila, into the stratosphere. Facebook envisaged hundreds of these electric-engines powered drones floating in the skies drawing energy from solar panels and firing laser-guided internet access to remote corners of the world so locals could get a daily diet of memes and messages.