Google plans 'wireless balloons' to spread the Internet

Google aims to help wire the world by bringing the Internet to a billion or more new people, including small villages and cities outside of major urban areas in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa -- using special balloons to broadcast the wireless connection.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to team up with local telecommunications firms and equipment providers in the emerging markets to develop the networks, as well as create business models to support them, people familiar with the project said. The networks also could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban centers, the paper reported.

To speed the spread of the Internet in these areas, the company has worked on special blimps, called high-altitude platforms, to broadcast a signal over hundreds of square miles.

Google has also considered helping to create a satellite-based network.

"There's not going to be one technology that will be the silver bullet," meaning that each market will require a unique solution, said one person familiar with Google's plans. Read more >>

India’s inflation accelerates; food costs increase

India’s inflation accelerated as food costs increased, adding pressure on the central bank to extend last year’s fastest round of monetary tightening in Asia.

The benchmark wholesale-price index rose 8.43 percent in December from a year earlier after a 7.48 percent gain in November, according to a commerce ministry statement in New Delhi today. The median forecast of 30 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for an 8.4 percent increase.

“Inflation is worrying and is a potential constraint on the economy’s growth potential,” Robert Prior-Wandesforde, the Singapore-based head of India and Southeast Asia economics at Credit Suisse Group AG, said before the release. “The central bank is likely to step in and hike rates.” Read more...