Taara, Google's quirky underdog project of the day, seeks to fire internet signals using light beams across long distances above ground, an innovation over fiber optics, radio signal, and satellite reception. Developed by X, Google's go-big-or-go-home research wing, the Taara project has announced that it has downsized its reception/output terminals from the size of a traffic light to a 13mm silicon chip.
X, the moonshot factory (a subtitle only slightly more humble than "X, the everything app"), has been developing Taara for the last seven years as a replacement for fiber optic internet cable. Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Taara's general manager, shared in yesterday's announcement, "Fiber is high-speed connectivity's gold standard, but it's often unsuitable because it's costly, impractical, or geographically impossible." For those unable to dig for fiber, or in dense population centers where Starlink is less effective, Taara hopes to step in.
