This is great. My WiFi is provided by a microwave link - it’s good but expensive.
Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
131–140 of 285 posts
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#132I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…
Laser light can be dispersed or bent by atmosphere and whatever is suspended in it, like smoke or drizzle. Also, it needs precise targeting.
I can assume that laser links work wonderfully in outer space.
On land or sea, I can imagine using tactical smoke generators to disrupt laser links and visual navigation, giving an advantage to to systems that use e.g. microwaves for "vision", and radio channels for communication.
Also, why are you afraid of this development?
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#133I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…
Wait until military people put the receiver on their chest.
Then all the military dramas will flip from "sniper acquired target" to "communication with friendlies reestablished"
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#134I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…
Wait until military people put the receiver on their chest. Then all the military dramas will flip from "sniper acquired target" to "communication with friendlies reestablished"
Sounds like a nice way to do IFF. Optical transponder. Only responds on a valid challenge received.
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming The most powerful weapons on earth already are immune to jamming. ICBMs use celestial navigation (pictures of the stars) to course-correct, which is a form of navigation you cannot jam.
To risk being pedantic, US SLBMs (Tridents) indeed use stellar updates for their inertial guidance system. Our ICBMs have no update mechanism at all. Once they're out of the silo, they're completely on their own.
ICBMs would be more confident in their starting position and orientation. SLBMs would necessarily have more uncertainty in the initial conditions.
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming The most powerful weapons on earth already are immune to jamming. ICBMs use celestial navigation (pictures of the stars) to course-correct, which is a form of navigation you cannot jam.
that is so romantic. Rockets looking at the stars one last time before obliterating $cityname
Observing distant nuclear fusion, before unleashing it locally.
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
basically every european country? they've all had much larger datacaps than north america for years preceding 5g and most are quite densely inhabited.
I’m from Germany and I don’t know a single person with unlimited mobile data. That’s very rare here.
And yet probably everyone you know in EU has a cheaper Internet per GB that folks in the US. I have 2 SIM cards, one provider charges me $10/GB, while the other has a 2-GB packet for $6.
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#138Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#139Is line of sight light spectrum subject to any permissions/licensing like radio/microwave? If not, that is significant.
how do you license ... light?
Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expect drones will become fire-and-forget in two to three years. They won't be jammable because the pilot is in the drone.
Fire-and-forget drones already exist. They are called missiles.
Missiles generally go from point A and then blow up point b. Are there any missiles that leave base, fly around for a bit trying to identify targets, and if they can't identify any targets then return home?