Friday's technology stories
Zuckerberg for president. Or emperor.
Vanity Fair puts in print what we all talked about as far as Mark Zuckerberg's political aspirations after:
- Facebook allowed him to take a leave for government service without losing control of the company
- In an interview he dialed back his atheism to profess a belief in some sort of God
- He hired Obama's former campaign manager to help with his philantropic efforts
- Pledged in 2017 to visit all 50 states ("I wonder how many of those states are swing states?" VF asks)
All of that leads to this inevitable conclusion:
Increasingly, a number of influential people in Silicon Valley seem to think that Mark Zuckerberg will likely run for president of the United States one day. And some people, including myself, believe that he could indeed win. "He wants to be emperor" is a phrase that has become common among people who have known him over the years.
It's worth reading the full article for all the adulatory quotes. No need to hurry, though. The piece says he's not running until 2024.
Hot in Silicon Valley: Alphabet shuts down Internet drones
Google's parent company won't beam Internet access from drones
Alphabet has shut down Titan, a project whose aim was to beam internet access from solar-powered drones, tech news site 9to5Google first reported on Wednesday. The move happened quietly last year.
Alphabet's Titan won’t fly
As 9to5Google first reported, today Google's Alphabet Inc.'s X research lab announced it had shut down Titan sometime in 2016, scratching efforts to stream internet from the sky. Alphabet canceled the project due to insurmountable technological and economic hurdles.
Why this matters: This fits with trends at Alphabet (formerly Google) to rein in moonshot projects and their high costs. Waymo, Alphabet's renamed Self-Driving Car Project, spun off from the parent company to monetize its technology in late 2016. And last year Alphabet halted Google Fiber's future plans, and reorganized employees in Project Wing. Alphabet also lostseveral executives in the last year.
What we're watching: Other X projects. Project Loon, pictured above, a scheme to beam internet from high-altitude balloons (sounds familiar) and Project Wing, which would use drones for deliveries.