Facebook Inc Chief Executive recruited Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Qualcomm Inc and four additional companies to participate in Internet.org, Mark Zuckerberg's new project. Internet. org set to be unveiled Wednesday, aims to give Internet access to 5 billion people.
"The goal of Internet.org is to make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today," said Zuckerberg.
Ericcson, Media Tel Inc, Nokia and Opera Software ASA, have also been recruited to take part in Internet.org. The partnership of the market's biggest players will work together to develop smartphones that will deploy access to the Internet for communities who are underserved, said Facebook in a report by Reuters.
Google Inc had earlier launched its own version of the project last June.Their pilot program called Project Loon was sent off last month in New Zealand's South Island. Google released a number of solar-powered balloons as an experiment. The balloons travel the wind at about 12.5 miles above ground or double the distance of where airplanes fly.
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