Google Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy Titan Aerospace, a
startup maker of high-altitude drones, as the Internet search giant
adds more aerial technology to collect images and get more of the
world's population online.
Google didn't disclose a purchase price for Titan, of Moriarty,
N.M., whose solar-powered drones are intended to fly for years.
Earlier this year, Facebook had been in talks to buy Titan. But
Facebook later said it was buying Ascenta, a U.K.-based aerospace
company that has also been working on solar-powered unmanned aerial
vehicles, for $20 million.
Titan and its roughly 20 employees will stay in New Mexico and
the company will continue to be run by Chief Executive Vern Raburn,
a technology-industry veteran who previously headed Symantec Corp.
and Microsoft Corp.'s consumer-products division.
Google said the Titan team will work closely with Google's
Project Loon, which is building large, high-altitude balloons that
send Internet signals to areas of the world that are currently not
online. Titan may also work with Makani, another early-stage Google
project that is developing an airborne wind turbine that it hopes
will generate energy more efficiently.
Areas of focus for these teams will include advanced material
design for lightweight flying vehicles and algorithms for wind
prediction and flight planning.
Titan says its drones will be able to collect real-time,
high-resolution images of the earth, carry other atmospheric
sensors and support voice and data services. That type of
technology could also help other Google businesses, including its
Maps division.
"It's still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help
bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other
problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like
deforestation," a Google spokesman said in a statement.
Titan is developing two dragonfly-shaped drones, both of which
use batteries charged by wing-mounted solar panels to remain aloft
at night. The smaller model, called the Solara 50, has a wingspan
of 164 feet, slightly larger than a Boeing 767.
On its website, Titan claims that its drones can help deliver
Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second using specialty
communications equipment. That would be significantly faster than
broadband speeds available in most developed countries.
The company says it expects "initial commercial operations" in
2015.
As the developing world goes online, Google and Facebook are
battling to be the first point of contact. The search giant has its
Android mobile operating system, which last year captured 79%
world-wide market share of smartphones shipped, according to
Strategy Analytics.
Facebook hopes to boost its user base in poorer countries with
two projects, including a version of its service tuned for cheap,
feature phones called "Facebook for Every Phone." Another product,
Facebook Zero, was launched in 2010 and is a stripped down mobile
website launched in concert with mobile operators who don't charge
data fees when the service is used.
Facebook's recent announcement that it plans to buy WhatsApp for
$19 billion also gives it a new weapon to attract users in the
developing world. The WhatsApp messaging app is particularly
popular in countries such as India where telecom carriers still
routinely charge for standard text messages.
Rolfe Winkler contributed to this article.
Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com and Reed
Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires