It's been almost two months since Hurricane Maria hit the island of Puerto Rico, and the territory is still in the process of recovering. Over half of the island's inhabitants don't have access to electricity, which makes communicating with friends, family, and the wider world nearly impossible. To help solve this problem, Alphabet launched several balloons as part of its Project Loon mobile internet service, bringing internet connectivity to 100,000 people in Puerto Rico.
"In times of crisis, being able to communicate with loved ones, emergency services and critical information is key," said Loon project lead Alastair Westgarth in a statement. "We hope that the connectivity Project Loon has provided over the last few weeks has been helpful."
The balloons were launched from Nevada and navigated over Puerto Rico using machine learning algorithms to predict the direction of air currents. The project was granted an experimental license by the FCC, and Loon partnered with AT&T and T-Mobile to bring both internet and LTE coverage to the island.
Of course, while 100,000 people is a lot, it's a small fraction of the 3.5 million people that live in Puerto Rico, many of whom aren't likely to receive any kind of communications access in the near future. But with more balloons combined with dedicated infrastructure repair, it might be possible to get the island back online relatively soon.
Source: The Verge