Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has discontinued the helicopter drone project, which was demonstrated at the F8 developer conference in last year May. The company initiated the project with an aim to help people in disaster affected areas by providing temporary cellular signals through power lines.

According to the design concept, telecommunication equipment will be fitted in the helicopter that flies high and tethers the signal to the power lines and fiber optics in areas where the signal is unavailable due to a natural calamity or other disasters.

The spokesperson of Facebook said the company has abandoned the project to focus on millimeter wave, Terragraph, and high altitude platform station (HAPS) programs.

Facebook has provided just the Tether-tenna, an antenna, for the helicopter drone project. Everfly, a small startup, has built the other parts of the project.

Otherlab Team disbands Everfly

Everfly is a spin-off of Otherlab, a research company. The team of Otherlab that worked on helicopter drone project has planned to commercialize the technology. But, it could not mobilize the funds for the project. As a result, the team dispersed last summer.

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Facebook has also abandoned Aquila Drone project in 2017. It was a solar powered drone bigger when compared to the Boeing 737. The concept of the project to beam the Internet to the ground with the help of a laser.

India Tells Facebook to Take Action to Prevent Spreading of Fake News on Its Whatsapp

India has instructed Facebook to prevent the spreading of false news on its more popular messenger Whatsapp. The false news spreading through the Whatsapp has caused a lot of mob beatings and lynchings in India in the past few months.

Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook, has a user base of over 200 million in India. It is now a platform for spreading false videos and news and creating a headache for the government and the people as well.

Facebook Introduces a New Feature To Help Users Rid of Unwanted News

Facebook has introduced a new feature that enables the users to rid of unwanted news feeds. The new update allows the users to mute certain keyword phrases for thirty days from the Facebook feed. However, this feature is currently available to a small fraction of the users.