Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

x.company

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 285 posts

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#181

Post by vel0city »

bialpio wrote: post #137
echoangle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Both of those prices are considerably more expensive than what I pay for service in the US. Even the cheaper one is more than 2x more expensive than what I pay per gig, including unlimited calls and texts + roaming to a lot of North America.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#183

Post by Galatians4_16 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #151
echoangle wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This form of navigation is probably only accurate enough for nuclear weapons, you’re not going to get meter-Range CEPs with that. You probably have to select a city you want to hit.

Quantum navigation is likely to be more precise.

Down to the Planck scale?

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#184

Post by bagels »

beardedmoose wrote: post #178
aerostable_slug wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where…

Why is this meme always pasted in to threads about missile guidance?

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#185

Post by dmix »

thebytefairy wrote: post #163
almosthere wrote: post #10

Unfortunately anyone out of Google is not ambitious enough. They can't execute. Tiny steps don't accomplish anything.

.. tiny steps don't accomplish anything? Do you think tech innovations spring out of nowhere? What do you think about Waymo?

Slow R&D is fine for innovation for sure, Waymo mostly completed the R&D part, similar to the stage I presume Taara is at. The difficult part is then scaling it up into a large self-sustaining business. The hard economics realities tend to come about quickly after that and competition starts nipping at your heels.

Google itself replaced many of the early big name search pioneers like Altavista.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#186

Post by bagels »

gonzo wrote: post #138
HPsquared wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Observing distant nuclear fusion, before unleashing it locally.

fission != fusion, but yeah

The fission primary is used to trigger a secondary fusion reaction in modern weapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#187

Post by vel0city »

refulgentis wrote: post #64
cbg0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5G in general (strictly inferior to incumbent, speed isn't faster, latency is higher, not as reliable) I'm guessing this is a US thing? In Europe, 5G is definitely faster while latency is on par with 4G. YMMMV between EU countries though.

You're right, it's definitely better than 4G, my wording was unclear, more in the sense of "Would I make this my home ISP?" than "how did 5G go?" (I would have thought cell providers would have 20-30% of the market now, ah, the follys of youth...)

TBH I think a lot of it is many people still don't understand the product or misunderstand their actual needs/usage. Plenty of "normie" households can easily meet all their needs with a decent 5G fixed wireless install. As we see more cord cutting we'll probably see continued growth in fixed wireless.

FWIW, most other ISP types are treading water in terms of overall subscribers while the only real growth overall in new subscribers is fixed wireless. Your gut probably wasn't wrong that fixed wireless will probably grab 20-30%+, but just timescale-wise off a bit.

https://www.opensignal.com/2024/06/06/5g-fixed-wireless-acce...

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#188

Post by michaelsbradley »

bagels wrote: post #184
beardedmoose wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where…

Why is this meme always pasted in to threads about missile guidance?

Because it’s a classic gag, even if it’s out of place on HN

https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ?feature=shared

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#189

Post by ethbr1 »

femto wrote: post #173
krisoft wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. I’m a bit of two minds about this. Obviously jamming resistant high bandwidth communication enables some scarry possibilities. But the lack of it is what drives and will drive militaries around the world to put more and more autonomy into weapons. It doesn’t matter what kind of treaties we write on paper to prohibit technologies. During a…

> On the other hand if communication is possible that puts a leash on this dynamic I'm a bit more pessimistic than that. I think the driver for autonomy will be that the speed at which things happen on the battlefield. People being attacked with automated weapons might not be able to make response related decisions fast enough. The automation will be in place to enable a rapid response. It will become an arms race in…

The phrase you're looking for is OODA loop, popularized in the 80s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategi...

Post reply on HN