Gates Takes Shot at Google Implying Project Loon is Loony for Starving Third-World Countries
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would suggest that Bill Gates isn't a pretty intelligent guy. But, he's also Microsoft at his core, and that company doesn't exactly "get along" with the likes of Samsung, Apple, and Google. Lately, Gates has taken a particularly harsh tone in regard to Google's Project Loon -- a wild initiative that puts Internet distribution up in the clouds. The goal was to provide Internet to rural and under-served areas via floating balloons, but Gates is suggesting that it simply will not help the poor.
According to Gates: "When you're dying of malaria... I'm not sure how [the Loon balloons will] help you. When a kid gets diarrhea, there's no website that relieves that."
He's right, in a sense. Just putting Internet in the sky won't provide funding for computers, and it won't build schools. But he's also very short-sighted. How can you say that someone in a poor area with a disease wouldn't benefit from having access to WebMD? How could you suggest that having the Internet would be totally useless when it comes to searching for medical advice? Internet certainly won't solve everything, but it's a good start. Plus, any doctors and educators that may want to lay down roots in poor areas would benefit tremendously from having Internet in hospitals and schools.
Perhaps it's being taken out of context a bit, but it sounds a lot like sour grapes from here.
According to Gates: "When you're dying of malaria... I'm not sure how [the Loon balloons will] help you. When a kid gets diarrhea, there's no website that relieves that."
He's right, in a sense. Just putting Internet in the sky won't provide funding for computers, and it won't build schools. But he's also very short-sighted. How can you say that someone in a poor area with a disease wouldn't benefit from having access to WebMD? How could you suggest that having the Internet would be totally useless when it comes to searching for medical advice? Internet certainly won't solve everything, but it's a good start. Plus, any doctors and educators that may want to lay down roots in poor areas would benefit tremendously from having Internet in hospitals and schools.
Perhaps it's being taken out of context a bit, but it sounds a lot like sour grapes from here.
