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 >>

World Unemployment to Hit Record High in 2013

World unemployment could top record levels this year and continue rising until 2017, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Tuesday in its annual employment report. 2009 currently stands as the worst recorded year for world unemployment, with 198 million people across the globe without work.

In its 2013 Global Employment Trends report, the ILO forecasts unemployment numbers will rise by 5.1 million in 2013 to reach 202 million, topping 2009's record. The report also predicts unemployment will rise further in 2014 to reach 205 million.

"Unemployment remains as dire as it was during the crisis in 2009," Ekkehard Ernst, chief of the employment trends unit at the ILO, which wrote the report, told CNBC.

While the crisis may have originated in the developed world, the report noted that 75 percent of 2012's newly unemployed came from outside it, with East Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa being the worst affected.

Ernst attributed this to the "spillover effect" of weak growth in advanced economies, and in particular, the recession in Europe.

"The main transmission mechanism of global spillovers has been through international trade, but regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean have also suffered from increased volatility of international capital flows," the report said. Read more >>