There goes another plot device for movie. Now they’ll have to rely on the battery being dead.
SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
381–390 of 496 posts
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#382More detail here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/spacex-and-t-mobile-team-up-... "T-Mobile users will be able to use messaging, MMS and certain messaging apps, from remote points across the lower 48 states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and even some remote points in the water. Eventually, the service will work with voice, Sievert said. T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did…
Certain messaging apps... All bets are on centralized and/or proprietary ones that can afford to pay for the privilege. I have been saying from day one that Starlink is well poised to end net neutrality.
Net neutrality is not a good thing in and of itself. It is one value among many.
If you're a firefighter trying to call for assistance from base camp, you don't care about net neutrality. You want your emergency phone call to have priority over everything else. You want the net to be extremely non-neutral.
On the general internet, where bandwidth is plentiful, net neutrality can keep certain pathological things from being a thing. On a specialized network where bandwidth is very scarce, it can be the cause of pathology.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#383Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#384I believe this is SpaceX trying to stay one step ahead of Apple. Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago? https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le... Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead. Of cours…
> Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage. If I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to send an urgent message I wouldn’t want to be worrying about whether the recipient had an Android phone.
If recipient does not have iMessage he will get it as SMS.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#385So what I am learning out of this is: nation states (like the US) probably can already track cell phones from LEO as the tech is there - all you need is enough sats and a very large antenna.
What am I missing here?
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
you can't create "extra powerful antennas" in a cell phone. it's physics, and antenna gain is driven by size.
And then you need to design it in a way that it’s not blocked by somebody’s hand when they hold the phone.
What?! You mean, have an antenna show outside a phone, like in the pre-2010s? In today's world, form is more important than function.
Especially for fashion statements like iphones. (Doubt this? Upthread people are discussing how certain affluent neighbourhoods only have iphones).
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Self-driving cars have proven harder than expected, but given the rest of Musk's tale, I wouldn't bet against him. SpaceX is already launching satellites, and Starlink is already providing service. T-mobile owns the frequencies for it, it's "just" a matter of building the satellites and putting them into space. If the claim were more outlandish, it would be harder to buy, but the technology is eminently doable.
Self driving is one of the hardest, if not the hardest software problems ever to be solved. I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is. Must says a lot of stupid stuff but in reality he has delivered on the vast majority of it, though as he says it's not always in the time frame he expects.
>I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is
Is this the shifting of the narrative?
"People" aren't underestimating the problem. It's widely known to be an extremely difficult problem.
Musk said he'd have it done by now, and actually sold the technology. People have been skeptical of it for the better part of a decade.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Self-driving cars have proven harder than expected, but given the rest of Musk's tale, I wouldn't bet against him. SpaceX is already launching satellites, and Starlink is already providing service. T-mobile owns the frequencies for it, it's "just" a matter of building the satellites and putting them into space. If the claim were more outlandish, it would be harder to buy, but the technology is eminently doable.
Musk has had some failures (FSD, battery replacement, solar roof, satellite laser communication), but also notable successes (supercharger network, landing a rocket). While this particular idea seems theoretically possible, as far as I know there haven't really been proper tests of it yet. So I could imagine it theoretically working, but being really bad (which may honestly be enough). There's probably a reason Apple…
>Musk has had some failures (FSD, battery replacement, solar roof, satellite laser communication), but also notable successes (supercharger network, landing a rocket).
Yeah, of all the projects of Musk's to be skeptical of, this one seems the most plausible and mundane.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what software was present on this random Lyft I took a couple months ago, but I was seated in the front, watching Tesla's infotainment screen the entire ride, which on one side was displaying a sort of wireframe (not the right word, but they weren't realistic drawings) of objects in front of and around the car as we were driving. I was alarmed to see how often pedestrians, and even cars passing while wai…
It's a beta so you shouldn't trust it. I'm just saying, I've driven thousands of miles and 95% of the time no issues. The other 5% I almost always know where it will have issues and manually take over before it even gets into a bad situation. A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes that will be resolved with future updates. I agree the object recognition is a bit jumpy, but it hasn't really affected the…
>I've driven thousands of miles and 95% of the time no issues. The other 5% I almost always know where it will have issues and manually take over before it even gets into a bad situation.
This is not Full Self Driving, or remotely close to it. Having to take over for any tricky situation is antithetical to FSD's purpose. Besides the fact that "thousands of miles" is a microscopic scale of driving. That's a vacation for some people.
>A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes
Ah yes, easy fixes. Just have to catalog all the "bad" situations!
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#390I believe this is SpaceX trying to stay one step ahead of Apple. Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago? https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le... Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead. Of cours…
> Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage. If I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to send an urgent message I wouldn’t want to be worrying about whether the recipient had an Android phone.
it's not really an android phone or an apple phone though - good satellite reception (as opposed to initial middling reception) is going to mean phones with radios meant for satellites and antenna that are designed to look up (and track) and not just sideways.
5 years from now you'll be choosing a particular android or apple phone because its good for satellite, just like you choose a particular one today because it's small, or fast, or has a good camera