Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by Kilo-byte | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Kilo-byte·

Loon has no such capability.

http://www.google.com/loon/faq/#tab=technology

Q: WILL THE BALLOONS HAVE CAMERAS OR CAPTURE ANY IMAGERY OF THE GROUND?

A: No.

View on HN

It does not have it now, because they want to focus on the basics. Once that is done, adding a camera is not a big deal.

But I feel like that would make the media -- followed by average people -- go crazy. Consider the current NSA news combined with "Google puts hundreds of cameras in the sky".

And what happens when "Google puts thousands of cameras on our faces" ?

It's different, since people will actually have to buy and use those cameras, the pushback will probably focus less on Google and more on the wearers.

Well like if you didn't have a camera in your pocket for years. Or like cameras hidden in pens weren't available cheaply for years. Seriously, the time for people to be scared of others recording things is has already passed (mostly unnoticed).

> But I feel like that would make the media -- followed by average people -- go crazy

Yes, that will be a two uncomfortable days of online nerd rage.

A handful of police departments in the US already have constantly floating omni-directional camera drone balloons. The technology is only getting cheaper.

Huh ... don't look now, but Google is already putting hundreds of cameras in the sky, daily. Various aircraft, even some satellites, are devoted to Google imagery. Having a new fleet of balloon-based "craft" providing imagery could easily fit into Google's M.O.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com