Facebook Rumored to Buy Drone Company in Further Attempt to Connect World

Facebook is apparently in talks to acquire a drone company, according to a report.

TechCrunch reported that Facebook is interested in buying Titan Aerospace, a company that promises “a network anywhere,” and that talks are in advanced stages.

One of the firm’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is called the Solara 60, and TechCrunch imagined that Facebook will use UAVs to throw a blanket of coverage over the hardest to reach places in the world. Africa was mentioned, and 11,000 UAVs was the quoted number.

Titan is led by chief executive (CEO) Vern Raburn, and he confirmed to the website that talks are underway. The report speculated that the firm would make a good fit for Facebook and slot nicely into its role in the “Internet for all” outfit Internet.org.

Internet.org was announced by Mark Zuckerberg last year, with the Facebook CEO saying that he wants to get another 5 billion people online.

“For nine years, we’ve been on a mission to connect the world. We now connect more than [1] billion people, but to connect the next [5] billion we must solve a much bigger problem: the vast majority of people don’t have access to the Internet,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

“I’m focused on this because I think it’s one of the greatest challenges of our generation. I’ve attached a rough plan I’ve written outlining the work Facebook is doing to solve this and how our industry can work together to connect the next [5] billion people.”

Facebook’s drone ambition could match that of Google’s project Loon, a balloon-based broadband network that failed to impress Bill Gates.

Something about FB + #drones = really scary. RT @PrivCo: @Facebook Negotiating To Acquire @TitanAerospace http://t.co/8OUQFNP4HZ #justsayin

— Antone Johnson (@antonejohnson) March 4, 2014

Both firms will be hoping that such moves are filed with “Benevolent” and “Altruistic” tags, but the truth is that people remain very skeptical about drones and their possible impact on privacy.

Their use is largely unregulated, and increasingly popular, and might through their ubiquity, lead to oversharing.

This article was originally published on the Inquirer.