Google’s parent-company Alphabet is scrapping a company set up to build giant balloons to beam the internet to rural areas.
Loon was a long-term experimental bet from the tech giant’s “X” business unit.
But it failed to get costs low enough to make it sustainable, its chief executive said in a blog post on Thursday announcing the winding-down.
The balloons were the size of tennis courts and self-navigating.
“While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business,” Loon chief executive Alastair Westgarth wrote.
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