Hoping to test out its Wi-Fi-providing unmanned aircraft by next year
The Facebook drones are on their way, and we’re not talking about bored friends who send out Candy Crush Saga invites. The company shared a few more details about its plan to use drones to provide free Wi-Fi to the two-thirds of the world’s population that lack Internet access. First, don’t call them “drones,” Yael Maguire, engineering director of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, said Monday at the Social Good Summit in New York City. Instead he refers to them as “planes,” seeing as they will be “roughly the size” of airplanes “like a 747,” although much, much lighter.