8 replies to this topic

[Techn9kotine]

Yesterday a few Employees of Google launched Android into space. And by that I mean they attached the Nexus S mobile phone, powered by Google's very own android, to seven different weather ballons, and let them fly.

The phones were equipped with custom gps apps witten specifically for this stunt. They had the high quality cameras running the whole time, and an unedited video to show for it.

The ballons reached a predetermined height of 100,000 feet, before exploding, dripping the phone back too earth.

They tracked the phones position and video live from laptops on the launch site. They even used Google's sky map to track any stars visible from the voyage.

I think it's awesome to see a big company like that can still have fun on a level like that. It goes right along with their typical April fools jokes every year.
Almost makes me want to switch from iPhone, knowing Apple would never do something like this. Keep your sense of humor and fun, Google.

Edit: Found the video:

Edited by Techn9kotine, 23 December 2010 - 10:47 PM.

[yordan]

Err... I don't agree with the topic title. It was not launched into Space literally.
Into space is literally reserved for objects escaping the gravitational attraction of Earth, which is not possible with a balloon.
Nevertheless, it's a nice performance, thanks for sharing this event with us.

[starscream]

It should be replaced with "air" instead of text 'space'. I doubt space will even let that android work because it will get freezed or due to air resistance it'll just get damaged. Just noticed that youtube video time is also increased. Nice find by the way.

[tshirttime]

Come on step it up lets see a civilian space program kinda like virgin mobile. Or send a droid to mars in a tiny spacecraft

[imjjss]

I think it's awesome to see a big company like that can still have fun on a level like that. It goes right along with their typical April fools jokes every year.
Almost makes me want to switch from iPhone, knowing Apple would never do something like this. Keep your sense of humor and fun, Google.

That's the most obviouse strength of google-- they always knows where and how to get our hearts
I'm a big google fan, once parked all my stuffs within google. Unfortunately, some of google's service have been blocked in my region, so that I have to move away from google a lot. I'm waiting for the day when google come back in my space.

[Qrntz]

Well, Google tries to be an all-around monopolist and I generally don't like such companies. I don't mind Google itself though. I'd be happy to have an Android phone but I don't have the money.
I also value Google for their strive to support Open Source. Look - the Google servers are running Linux, Android is built around the Linux kernel itself and they also keep the Google Projects directory - a useful place to show off your work.

[Atomic0]

I wonder what next Google will send up into space, maybe satellites and even manned space vehicles. There probably are endless possibilities what Google could do, considering the billions Google receive in profits.

@Qrntz, I personally wouldn't consider Google to be monopoly even in the search engine market, especially since there are other big search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Yes, Google may have a large search engine market share, but in my opinion Google isn't abusing it.

@starscream, the official Google blog post (http://googlemobile....n-spaaaace.html) says that the Android phones and addition payload were housed in foam coolers, which probably protected from the extreme conditions of the atmosphere / space. Also, considering the altitude reached and the descent time, it doesn't seem like the payload and housings on the weather balloons were not travelling very fast, so air resistance was unlikely to cause heat damage to the electronics and equipment aboad.

[grim reaper1666]

well 100,000ft is pretty close to space and maybe google was trying to actually reache space but the balloons went boom before hand. and around there the atmosphere loses most of its blue so it makes is dirt easy to see into space. the phone could have easily have worked in space because it is small so since it didn't freeze earlier on in the atmosphere it most likely wouldn't freeze further up since alot of electronics generate enough heat to prevent freezing. sure after being in space for a while the batteries would run out and then it would freeze. i do think that the exteror of the phone would have frozen though but not the interior.

[Jonnii]

This is class. Nice find. Will be interesting to see whats coming next. With a time with soo many countries in soo much trouble financially, its nice that people are still doing things like this.