Mark Zuckerberg is putting together a lab where a team of Facebook engineers will build flying drones, satellites, and infrared lasers capable of beaming internet connections to people down here on earth.

Revealed this afternoon by the Facebook CEO and founder, it’s known as the Facebook Connectivity Lab. According to Zuckerberg, the lab’s engineering staff already spans “many of the world’s leading experts in aerospace and communications technology,” including researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA’s Ames Research Center, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. And the company is now adding engineers from a British company called Ascenta, an outfit that helped create the world’s longest solar-powered unmanned aircraft.

All this may seem like a stretch for a social networking company. But it’s a necessary part of Zuckerberg’s efforts to bring the net to the vast parts of the world that still don’t have it — an effort known as Internet.org that makes an awful lot of sense for a company whose continued expansion depends on the continued expansion of the net. And though the general public may not realize it, Facebook has a long history with building new hardware that can advance its cause. The company declined to comment on the lab, but it confirms that the lab will be run by Yael Maguire, the former MIT Media Lab researcher who played a big role in the Open Compute Project, Facebook’s effort to build a more efficient breed of computer servers and data centers for driving its web and mobile services.

Hinted at in earlier press reports, Facebook’s flying-internet efforts mirror a similar project that’s underway at Google. Known as Project Loon, it seeks to provide internet access to the hinterlands through high-altitude balloons. Like Facebook, Google stands to benefit in big ways if the net expands. The original services built by these two web giants are now used by enormous swaths of the online population, and eventually, the companies must push into an entirely new audience. As public companies, they’re under enormous pressure to continue the growth of their businesses — in perpetuity. In addition to Loon, Google is looking to expand the reach of high-speed internet landlines through a service called Google Fiber.

According to post on the website by Internet.org — a consortium that also includes such tech outfits as Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia, and Qualcomm — the new Facebook lab is exploring the possibility of using solar-powered high-altitude planes to provide internet access in suburban areas. These could “stay aloft for months, be quickly deployed and deliver reliable internet connections,” the site says. Then, for more remote areas, the lab is looking towards low-orbiting satellites. In both cases, it aims to beam internet access to the people using what’s called free-space optical communication, or FSO. Basically, this is a way of transmitting data through infrared lasers.

Facebook’s announcement comes two days after the company acquired a startup called Oculus, saying it would use the startup’s gaming headset as a way of moving its social network into the world of virtual reality. Compared to that, the Connectivity Lab is a rather straightforward business move. On Tuesday, while discussing the Oculus buy, Zuckerberg painted both projects as platforms that represent not the near future of Facebook, but the distant future.

Sources please.

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/facebook-drones/ Here you go.

Except Google, Lockheed Martin and one other company (doesn't spring to mind right now) are already doing this more effectively with blimps instead of drones.

This is pretty cool, its good that they are trying to get internet acrossed places that dont usually have it. Internet is good for talking to family and whatnot. I think its a good cause to pour money into.

Facebook is not a website anymore x3

my cousin made a Facebook at the age of 7! whats so great about it? i don't really like Facebook that much.

>>7 Me neither, its good for family contact and whatnot, however I don't really see any point in status updates or friends. Just my opinion.

i think facebook wants to dominate the world...

>>9 Certainly seems like it, does it not? They have AR tech now, drones, have your information at their fingertips... Am I gonna be playing Farmville in 3D or something, like... why would they need that?

>>10 Money

Guys, let's be serious. Facebook may seem big but in all reality they are pretty small fry. They seem extremely important because a lot of what they do is probably extremely relevant in a lot of our lives, but do they actually produce anything? They just bought a VR system and mangled it's reputation, but that's about it. There are quite a few more companies you're going to want to worry about in terms of world domination before you reach Facebook.

>>11 They have want Google wants, badly.
That makes them a big player.

>>12 Not big enough to ever be in line with Google.

Speaking of Google, rumor on the Net has it that Google has medical facilities. So if I were to sustain a tiny nick to my femoral artery, I'd be fixed up by a Google Doc? How is that supposed to work? Why the hell would a search engine need any form of medical facilities in their name at all aside from maybe health of on-site employees?

And why is Zuckerberg so jealous of a search engine? He's gettin' money too, dunno what his problem is...

>>14 Google isn't just a search engine. It has investments in and has made advancements to most of the major fields (health, space, computer tech, internet (/social media now, thanks to G+), automotive, etc.). I believe it's having ties to 7 (?) major industries and a net profit each year of at least 11 (?) billion that officially recognizes a company as an industrial superpower. They're literally everywhere.

Facebook has been trying to join them in the rankings by spreading their interests and power out over different industries and following varied goals. In the end, I think it's just a matter of competition between employees. Google has already contracted a lot of the really great people in the tech industry, which is leaving Facebook with a lot of the 'newer recruits', if you will. I personally think that's the only thing keeping them from joining Google as a superpower within the next decade, but if they're still around in a couple decades, they may join or even surpass Google (if Zuckerberg chooses to go that far).