Project Loon balloon
Image: btwashburn on Flickr

Can you imagine a day without Internet? What if you lived in Puerto Rico and hurricanes had destroyed most of the communication infrastructure on your island?

Google has the solution: a network of balloons travelling on the edge of space! They have been working to use these balloons to provide cellular service and Internet access in the stricken area.

This technology has been used before in disaster areas, but is also quite promising to connect parts of the world to the Internet that are very remote or where no solid infrastructure exists yet.

Update: since the start of this effort, Project Loon has managed to deliver basic internet services to over 100.000 Puerto Ricans.