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Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

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Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#221

Post by looofooo0 »

gherkinnn wrote: post #219
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'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…

At the same time, fibre-optic drones have being successfully fielded by Russia and now increasingly by Ukraine. Immune to jamming with a minimum range of 10km. There is no way these technologies won't be at least trialled for mil use, not when electronic warfare is employed to this degree. https://thedefensepost.com/2025/01/08/ukraine-fiber-optic-dr...

There is also some very recent advances to laser communication, which explains the increased interest: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-023-01201-7

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#222

Post by robin_reala »

gloosx wrote: post #202
pclmulqdq wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the line between "drone" and "missile" seems to have gotten pretty blurry with the Ukraine war featuring FPV drones holding a hand grenade that are effectively a human-piloted missile. Some modern missiles can fly around to identify targets, but they can't return home. They can blow up harmlessly if nothing is a target, though. They can also dodge and weave the way FPV pilots…

Missle is a projectile, propelled by rocket motor. Drone is an aircraft vehicle, capable of transporting explosives or whatever. There is a fat line between drone and a missile, there are different in everything: control, speed, trajectory, weight, flying principles. I don't know how you can say they are even close. Just because both fly and do boom? Then you can say there is a thin line between cow launched from cat…

Cruise missiles are missiles without rockets.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#223

Post by pyinstallwoes »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'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…

Given any tech, assume the military already has it. In fact, assume any tech that is public is approved by military for public use.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#225

Post by DecentShoes »

standardUser wrote: post #6
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

It’ll go down at the first sign of rain. We’ve been there with microwave internet.

The implication being that you know more about this technology than then people building it and funding it.

That happens all the time. A random person on the internet predicted the iPhone 4 antennagate problem before it got released. Everyone on the planet who plays videogames knew the Xbox One announcement was suicide and we were right.

Plus there's the possibility they're well aware of this problem but are going full steam ahead anyway.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#226

Post by baq »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'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…

Why afraid? It's obvious it'll be used, nothing to be afraid, more like expect it to. Mount a base station on an AWACS and you've got the whole theatre covered. Clouds are an issue, obviously.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#227

Post by echoangle »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #156
echoangle wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, very interesting. So CEP is estimated to be around 100m. Better than I thought but I wouldn’t call it hitting a specific house yet.

What do you consider the primary benefit of pinpointing a particular house in nuclear war?

That’s why I said the guidance is only really usable for nuclear weapons. I wasn’t saying the guidance is bad, I was saying it’s not accurate to a few meters.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43393504

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#228

Post by proaralyst »

krisoft wrote: post #119
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'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…

> 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…

Ukraine's drones are already partly automated because of the jamming environment: they can visually lock the drone onto a target from up to 10km away.[0][1] They're also using drones that trail a fibre optic over several kilometres to avoid jamming.[2]

[0] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/03/12/... [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/ukraines-future-vision-and-cur... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/11/07/ukrain...

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#229

Post by selfmodruntime »

krisoft wrote: post #119
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'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…

> 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…

> Obviously jamming resistant high bandwidth communication enables some scarry possibilities

They are not obvious to me. Care to explain?

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#230

Post by bloggie »

kazinator wrote: post #69

Is line of sight light spectrum subject to any permissions/licensing like radio/microwave? If not, that is significant.

It is not, like the THz band, which is why it’s very interesting for telecommunications. There is more bandwidth available in a tinier part of the spectrum. It’s like comparing the ipv4 address space to the ipv6 address space. And no license required.
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