Category: Elon Musk

By Simon Alvarez

SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Starlink, may be released in a more portable form in the future, as per recent Twitter comments from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. During a recent conversation on the social media platform, Musk acknowledged that the idea of a Starlink “Mini” that’s designed around portability would be a good idea. 

The idea of a Starlink “Mini” was suggested by spaceflight photographer John Kraus, who suggested that a small sub-1-foot dish, self-contained router, and rechargeable battery would be a viable product. The photographer’s suggestions are valid, as portable satellite internet access would most likely be a game-changer for those who are frequently mobile, such as travelers and photographers. 

SpaceX’s current Starlink kit is not that portable at all, thanks to its dish’s large size and the system’s geographical limitations. However, some Starlink users have noted that they were able to successfully use the satellite internet system in areas outside their service address. A Model 3 owner, for example, successfully used Starlink after driving into a national park. This experience, however, is not shared by all of the satellite internet’s users today. 

Continue reading… “Portable Starlink ‘Mini’ gets a nod of acknowledgement from Elon Musk”

For people otherwise stuck with sluggish performance from earlier satellite technologies or DSL, Starlink looks like a promising way to get up to speed.

BY ROB PEGORARO

In less than a year, Elon Musk’s space startup SpaceX has gone from having launched 242 Starlink satellites to exceeding 1,000 as it builds its constellation of satellites dedicated to providing broadband internet access back on Earth, particularly for people who might lack other good options.

Those 1,025 “smallsats” sent to space (962 remain in orbit, as tracked by astronomer Jonathan McDowell) have given rise to something new on the ground: testimony from early Starlink customers about SpaceX’s low-Earth-orbit broadband.

Since the October opening of Starlink’s “Better Than Nothing Beta” to early adopters willing to pay $499 for receiver hardware and $99 per month for the service, reports have been bubbling up in such online forums as Reddit’s r/Starlink.

They generally agree that Starlink’s satellites, around 340 miles up, easily beat the previous options in much of the target rural market: aging DSL connections that might be no faster than 3G wireless speeds, and laggy satellite broadband from geosynchronous orbit, 22,236 miles up.

“I am more than satisfied,” emailed Leigh Phillips, a software developer in Kelowna, British Columbia. He called his speeds—downloads averaging 110 megabits per second (Mbps) and uploads of 20 Mbps, per the dashboard he posted— “good to go” for a household with two working parents, plus moderate gaming and video streaming.

Another r/Starlink regular, a business owner in Duluth, Minnesota, who asked to be identified as Bryan, reported slower connectivity— “upload speeds are pretty consistent (around 7 Mbps) but download speeds seem to swing quite a bit from 40-190 Mbps”—that he called “definitely acceptable” for streaming.

He said his other broadband, CenturyLink DSL, hits 30 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up on good days.

Continue reading… “What Starlink beta testers really think about Elon Musk’s satellite internet”

Ben Gilbert 

• Elon Musk’s Neuralink implanted a chip that enabled a monkey to “play video games using his mind.”
• Musk claimed as much in a wide-ranging interview on Clubhouse on Sunday night.
• Neuralink is focused on human-computer interfaces for artificial intelligence in people.

Elon Musk’s human-computer-interface company, Neuralink, seems to be off to a strong start.

“We’ve already got a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull, and the tiny wires, who can play video games using his mind,” Musk said in an interview on the “Good Time Show” on the app Clubhouse on Sunday night.

“One of the things we’re trying to figure out is can we have the monkeys play mind ‘Pong’ with each other,” he said. “That would be pretty cool.”

Neuralink has been testing neural interfaces on animals for years. In a video released last year, Neuralink demonstrated its work on a pig named Gertrude.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk says Neuralink implanted a chip in a monkey’s brain, and now he ‘can play video games using his mind’”

Starlink is the initiative that the great businessman has among his plans, it consists of providing satellite internet to countries that are part of Latin America.

The Starlink project , developed by Elon Musk , aims to bring satellite internet to Latin America . In fact, on the same day it received a license from the National Communications Agency (Enacom) to start operations in Argentina . This was determined in the legislation already announced in the official gazette in December 2020.

To achieve connectivity and internet access in places where there are none, it is intended to use the network of more than 42 thousand satellites that would orbit around the Earth. This initiative is already in trials and tests in the United States and Canada, where it operates at a monthly price of 99 dollars plus the 499 dollars for installation equipment, but seeks to expand to Latin America, taking its first official steps in Chile and Argentina.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk’s project to bring satellite internet to Latin America”