Facebook’s new Internet-access drone set to fly by year end

An unmanned aircraft called Aquila was the star of the show as Facebook on Thursday showed how it plans to provide Internet access to hundreds of millions of people in remote parts of the world. The plane should get a test flight later this year; its entire surface is covered with solar panels to enable it to stay up in the air for three months at a time, at an altitude between 60,000 and 90,000 feet. From there, it will use laser-based technology to receive an Internet connection and share it with users in a 50-kilometer radius.

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