Two years ago, Google spent half a billion dollars on a satellite imaging company called Skybox Imaging. It's been off the radar since then, until just very recently.
In fact, it's no longer called Skybox. The subsidiary has now rebranded as Terra Bella, and it's got a fancy new website to boot.
As a Google entity (surprisingly not under Alphabet where Google itself is listed), the satellite imaging company says it's expanding its vision beyond "boxes in the sky."
"As Google revolutionized search for the online world, we have set our eyes on pioneering the search for patterns of change in the physical world. In order to focus firmly on the future, we're pursuing that vision under a new name – Terra Bella," it states on a company blog post.
Terra Bella's new mission is to take the raw data it has accumulated throughout the years and use Google's vast resources in computing power and machine learning to make sense of it all.
The goal is to eventually use all of that data to "address global economic, environmental, and humanitarian challenges," according to Terra Bella's homepage. Of course, Google loves data and will get as much of it as it can get, and will also use this data to beef up its own mapping services just like Google Maps.
Terra Bella also says it will still continue to develop satellites to launch into space. According to its blog post, the company already has "more than a dozen satellites under development." As to when these will actually be brought up into space is unclear – in a few years, at best.
Beyond the aforementioned endeavors, it's still quite uncertain just what Terra Bella will in fact accomplish with Google's backing. Its eventual launch of even more satellites does fit along Google's plans of using satellites to connect even more people in the world to the Internet.
Besides using high-altitude balloons from it's Project Loon initiative, Google has also invested in another space company, SpaceX, to launch and use its own satellites to get more humans online no matter where they might be on the planet.
All these combined could give the search giant the upper hand against competitors like Facebook in owning even more channels to get to the Internet.
Photo : Eli Duke | Flickr
