#ballooooooons

How Google plans to use 13 balloons to bring Internet access to every person in Sri Lanka.

Soon, thanks to a new project from Google, you might find yourself accessing the Internet with the help of a ... balloon?

It's called Project Loon and it began on New Zealand's South Island in 2013 as an attempt to bring network connectivity to farmers in isolated areas where physical wires were difficult or too costly to install, or were just too remote for consistent reception.

Here's a look at the earlier phases of the project that used remote-controlled balloons (like weather balloons, not the birthday kind) in place of traditional landlines or satellites to broadcast LTE cellular service (that's the same kind of signal that pings your cellphone and lets you play Farmville on the road).