
A rendering of a Facebook drone, which will weigh less than a small car and have the wingspan of 156 inches is the centerpiece of Facebook’s plans to connect with the five billion or so people it has yet to reach. Facebook hopes to use about 1,000 drones to connect people to the web. They believe their solar-powered craft can eventually be aloft up to three months at a time, beaming high-speed data from 60,000 to 90,000 feet to some of the world’s remotest regions via laser. Test flights are to begin this summer, though full commercial deployment may take years.