“This is an impressive project from our team
developing solar-powered planes for beaming down Internet connectivity and our
AI research team, [sic]”
Facebook
co-founder Mark Zuckerberg post on their use of AI to scan millions of satellite
images to determine who has Internet access
Facebook is trying to connect the 10% of the world’s
population that has no Internet access.
Facebook is looking into ways to more efficiently
deploy their drones to deliver Internet to more people as noted in “Facebook
to beam Internet using drones”, published March 15, 2016 By Niranjan R, Internet Business Times.
For this reason, Facebook's Connectivity Lab in
collaboration with Facebook's data science division, infrastructure unit, and
machine learning and artificial intelligence groups, has begun to analyze
satellite imagery for 20 countries as noted in “Facebook
is using AI to make detailed maps of where people live”, published February
22, 2016 By Nick Statt, The Verge.
This data, some 350TB of data or 51.6 billion images
of satellite data, covers some 21.6 million square kilometers of places on
Earth with no Internet Access. The 20 nation’s part of this exercise was as
follows:
1. Algeria
2. Burkina
Faso
3. Cameroon
4. Egypt
5. Ethiopia
6. Ghana
7. India
8. Ivory
Coast
9. Kenya
10. Madagascar
11. Mexico
12. Mozambique
13. Nigeria
14. South
Africa
15. Sri
Lanka
16. Tanzania
17. Turkey
18. Uganda
19. Ukraine
20. Uzbekistan
So why exactly is Facebook doing this?
Facebook
AI scanning Satellite images - How to scan satellite images of remote areas to
help the Unconnected
It's all a part of their Internet.org initiative
that uses drones, satellites, and lasers to deliver Internet to rural areas and
developing countries. According to Facebook, this is more than just about
getting more people to use Facebook, as the data can be used to help assess the
risk for Natural Disaster: “We believe this data has many more impactful
applications, such as socio-economic research and risk assessment for natural
disasters”.
This method, which is assumed to be the least
error-prone way of finding out who has Internet and who doesn’t, will be
combined with data from Columbia University's Center for International Earth
Science Information Network to create a more accurate population data set later
in 2016.
This data is collated by an AI (Artificial
Intelligence) program into a map showing areas where Internet access is lacking
and helps Facebook determine whether Wi-Fi or Cellular Technologies can help to
bridge the digital divide for this disconnected 10%. Once physical structures
on the maps are added, Facebook can add census data, redistribute population
data sets evenly across each location, to determine how many people lived in
each building.
Google has similar ambitions as well using low orbit
satellites to connect the last 10 percent of the Earth to their Google Services
as explained in my blog article
entitled “Google
and O3B Network Limited partner on Satellite Broadband Project – How to set up
a Satellite Broadband Network”.
In so doing, it would help to power their Global
Drone delivery ambitions as explained in my blog article
entitled “How
@Google X Labs Project Wing uses Global Satellite Network for Drone Delivery”.
Hopefully, this effort will eventually result in
free Internet to everyone on the planet, as Facebook stands to benefit
immensely if they can cut out the telecom Providers and deliver Internet and
Facebook directly to people who have no access.
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