Category: Internet

Aviation, communication, Internet, new technology, Science & Technology News

By 2024, 5G could be beamed to your phone using huge, hydrogen-powered aircraft

 

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A Stratospheric Platforms antenna, inside a testing chamber

In the near future, your phone may take its 5G signal from the sky instead of a nearby mast on the ground. It’s an innovative way to solve the problem of increasing connectivity without relying on thousands of terrestrial cell towers. The concept is known as a High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS), and it essentially takes the cell tower from the ground and puts it in the sky.

The latest HAPS project to be unveiled is from Stratospheric Platforms and Cambridge Consultants. Today, the pair revealed the core of its efforts, a special antenna and unmanned aircraft, which it has been working on confidentially for the last four years.

Continue reading… “By 2024, 5G could be beamed to your phone using huge, hydrogen-powered aircraft”

Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News, Space, SpaceX

SpaceX Starlink : User terms of service declare Mars as ‘free planet’

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SpaceX has released its terms of service to beta testers, and it makes a strong statement about Mars’ future government.

STARLINK’S BETA TEST IS REQUIRING PARTICIPANTS TO RECOGNIZE MARS AS A “FREE PLANET.”

It’s an unusual bit of fine print, and the implications go far beyond securing good internet on Earth.

SpaceX’s internet connectivity constellation Starlink, which began forming in May 2019, has started inviting interested fans to the “Better Than Nothing” beta test. While the final version aims to offer gigabit download speeds at low latency to anyone with a view of the sky, the beta is offering more like 50 to 150 megabits per second – hence the humble-brag test name.

But the Starlink terms of service, as spotted by Twitter account “WholeMarsBlog” and confirmed by Reddit moderator “Smoke-away,” require users to agree that “no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.”

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Batteries, Internet, new technology, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

We are approaching the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history

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We are approaching the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history

 In the next 10 years, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors—information, energy, food, transportation, and materials—that underpin our global economy. We need to make sure the disruption benefits everyone.

Suppose we told you that solutions to the world’s most intractable problems are possible in the next decade. Poverty. Inequality. Climate change. You’d probably say impossible, preposterous, unthinkable. We’ve heard that about our predictions before. But we have been proven right.

Now, we are predicting the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history and with it, a moment civilization has never encountered before. In the next 10 years, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors—information, energy, food, transportation, and materials—that underpin our global economy, and with them every major industry in the world today. Costs will fall by 10 times or more, while production processes become an order of magnitude (10x) more efficient, using 90% fewer natural resources and producing 10 times to 100 times less waste.

Continue reading… “We are approaching the fastest, deepest, most consequential technological disruption in history”

Coding, communication, Engineering, Internet, Science & Technology News

The quantum internet will blow your mind. Here’s what it will look like

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The next generation of the Internet will rely on revolutionary new tech — allowing for unhackable networks and information that travels faster than the speed of light.

Call it the quantum Garden of Eden. Fifty or so miles east of New York City, on the campus of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Eden Figueroa is one of the world’s pioneering gardeners planting the seeds of a quantum internet. Capable of sending enormous amounts of data over vast distances, it would work not just faster than the current internet but faster than the speed of light — instantaneously, in fact, like the teleportation of Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk in Star Trek.

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Bitcoin, Blockchain, cutting edge, Internet, Science & Technology News

No internet, no problem. Venezuela gets bitcoin satellite node

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Venezuela deployed its first Bitcoin satellite node.

It allows for a node on the ground to receive Bitcoin transaction details from a Blockstream satellite without internet.

Venezuela has poor internet connectivity.

Venezuela has its first Bitcoin satellite node capable of processing transactions without an internet connection.

The Venezuelan “space node” was set up in the country by Anibal Garrido and the Anibal Cripto team. It uses technology from Blockstream, which contracts satellites—in this case, EUTELSAT-113 – to broadcast data between points via offline connections. That’s huge in a country where internet infrastructure is lacking.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Internet, Microsoft, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

Microsoft’s underwater server experiment resurfaces after two years

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Turns out, dunking data centers is a great idea

Back in 2018, Microsoft sunk an entire data center to the bottom of the Scottish sea, plunging 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes of storage 117 feet deep in the ocean. Today, the company has reported that its latest experiment was a success, revealing findings that show that the idea of an underwater data center is actually a pretty good one.

On the surface, throwing an entire data center to the bottom of the ocean may seem strange, but Microsoft’s Project Natick team hypothesized that placing would result in more reliable and energy-efficient data centers.

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Analysis, Historical Perspectives, Internet, Science & Technology News

Dozens of scientific journals have vanished from the internet, and no one preserved them

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Most open-access journals lack the technical means and plans to preserve their articles, despite a mandate from some funders that they do so.

Eighty-four online-only, open-access (OA) journals in the sciences, and nearly 100 more in the social sciences and humanities, have disappeared from the internet over the past 2 decades as publishers stopped maintaining them, potentially depriving scholars of useful research findings, a study has found.

An additional 900 journals published only online also may be at risk of vanishing because they are inactive, says a preprint posted on 3 September on the arXiv server. The number of OA journals tripled from 2009 to 2019, and on average the vanished titles operated for nearly 10 years before going dark, which “might imply that a large number … is yet to vanish,” the authors write.

The study didn’t identify examples of prominent journals or articles that were lost, nor collect data on the journals’ impact factors and citation rates to the articles. About half of the journals were published by research institutions or scholarly societies; none of the societies are large players in the natural sciences. None of the now-dark journals was produced by a large commercial publisher.

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AI, cutting edge, Google, Internet, Science & Technology News

Physna aims to be Google of 3D search with geometry-based AI

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Physna, a midwestern U.S. startup founded in 2015, is trying to do for physical object (3D model) search what Google did for text and image search. Using geometric deep-learning technology and proprietary algorithms, Physna is able to understand, map and compare 3D models and index them based on their geometry. While it has been possible to search for 3D models using text, images, tags and more, this is the first time that searching for physical objects based on their fundamental geometry, their physical ‘DNA’ (hence the name PHYSNA according to its founder Paul Powers), has been made possible and available, with the launch of Thangs.com.

“We live in a 3D world, but digital technology is two-dimensional,” said Paul Powers, CEO of Physna. “Over 70% of the economy is centered around physical goods, but less than 1% of software is capable of handling 3D data. Physna was founded on the principle that computers should be taught to “think” in 3D, and accurately describe the real, 3D world around us. By enabling 3D models to be treated and analyzed like other code, Physna’s technology bridges the gap between the physical world and digital world of software. By democratizing the ability to design, interact with and analyze 3D models of the world around them, more people will have the ability to create and drive innovation in product design, 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, healthcare and beyond.”

By identifying specific geometry ‘clusters’, the proprietary algorithms characterize and categorize 3D models in a unique way – and directly use this to search for other models that may be similar, different, or exact matches. With this approach of decomposing and linking 3D models by their geometry, Physna is able to capture 10,000 times more data points than a traditional scanned model, by codifying 3D model data for use in software applications. It essentially provides a platform for 3D designers and engineers similar to what software engineers have.

Continue reading… “Physna aims to be Google of 3D search with geometry-based AI”

China, drones, Internet, Science & Technology News

Sky Drone & China Mobile partner to create 5G drone network

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Sky Drone and China Mobile HK have partnered to explore the advantages 5G can have on drone networks by signing a memorandum of understanding earlier this week.

China Mobile HK (CMHK) has already set up up a 5G innovation center that is supporting industries transferring from 4G to 5G as smoothly as possible. The company’s regional laboratory is working with Sky Drones to help with the transfer within the world of drones.

Sky Drones produces 4G/LTE systems that allow drones to always have a connection while in the air. Keeping drones connected while flying long missions is important to ensure the drones stay safe and keep out of the way of other aircraft. The always-connected status of the drone also means data can constantly be sent to the cloud as it’s recorded, allowing for faster turnaround times and removing the chance of the drones going down with the data.

Sky Drones currently has three products, the FPV 3 which is a low latency HD video and control system that uses 4G/LTE networks to always remain connected to the ground station. The Link 3 is a 4K Ultra-HD video transmitter that can be used with any camera that has an HDMI connector with no range limits. Sky Drone also makes a 4G/LTE upgrade kit for the Yuneec H520 drone that turns it into an always-connected drone.

The two companies together have been promoting the use of 5G to government agencies and companies that are using drones autonomously in the following industries:, infrastructure monitoring, surveillance, cargo, and delivery. The Hong Kong government heavily subsidizes 5G developments creating a higher demand for the new tech to be produced and implemented as fast as possible.

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Elon Musk, Internet, Science & Technology News, SpaceX

Elons Musk’s Space X’s road to the fastest internet from orbit: Here’s what latest stats say

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SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been dreaming of creating a constellation of broadband satellites surrounding the Earth. He vowed to provide the fastest broadband internet service to anyone in the world, and he seems to be on his way to fulfilling his promise.

With the new data from Speedtest.net, Starlink users can expect download speeds from 11 megabits per second (Mbps) to 60 Mbps while upload speeds range between 5 Mbps and 18 Mbps. Starlink is currently at 80% to the required satellites to achieve “moderate” capability, but its recent performance is impressive.

SANTA BARBARA, CA – OCTOBER 07: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying the SAOCOM 1A and ITASAT 1 satellites, as seen during a long exposure on October 7, 2018 near Santa Barbara, California. After launching the satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully returned to land on solid ground near the launch site rather than at sea. The satellites will become part of a six-satellite constellation that will work in tandem with an Italian constellation known as COSMO-SkyMed.

Although the results show just 6% of the 1 Gbps that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires for the $16 billion funding competition under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), it is still much faster internet than many rural service providers.

Continue reading… “Elons Musk’s Space X’s road to the fastest internet from orbit: Here’s what latest stats say”

communication, facebook, Internet, Science & Technology News

Inside Facebook’s new power grab

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Mark Zuckerberg is not a man used to failure. He has built a $600-billion empire, buying up or crushing most would-be competitors and brushing regulators aside. When, in 2015, he personally headed up an effort – first called internet.org, then “Free Basics” – to help 3.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have access to the internet get connected, he might have expected praise for what he framed as philanthropy. The service would offer free unlimited access to a selection of hand-picked websites to people in India and countries across Asia, South America and Africa – getting more people online while, incidentally, making Facebook the controllers of the front page of the internet for these new users.

The praise did not come. Facebook was accused of “digital colonialism”, and of creating “poor internet for poor people”. There were even street protests against Free Basics in India, the country Zuckerberg had visited to promote the initiative. As political pressure mounted, in 2016 Free Basics was effectively outlawed by Indian regulators. The debacle was for a time described as “Facebook’s biggest setback”. If you only look at the headlines, Free Basics – and Facebook’s mission to connect the world – all but disappeared after that. But the reality of what happened next is very different.

“The project kept expanding – albeit much more discreetly,” explains Dr Toussaint Nothias, director of research at the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab. “At the end of 2015, Facebook reported that Free Basics was available in 30 countries. Today, they say it’s available in ‘more than 55 countries’. In Africa [alone], I found that it’s available in 29 countries.”

Working far more quietly than before, Facebook has spearheaded efforts across the globe to connect people to the internet – working on technology, software, business models and more. The company refined Free Basics to give it less control over which sites users could access, and in May 2020 launched a successor, Discover, which allows users a daily allowance of data they can use to access any website.

Continue reading… “Inside Facebook’s new power grab”