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Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

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Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#281

Post by rstuart4133 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #262
stevenwoo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second Variety, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety I've commented this before but it is closer to Terminator than the Harlan Ellison story IMO.

Yeah, that was the one. Really burned itself into my mind. The movie was OK, but you can only get shocked once.

Haven't read the book, but I did see "Screamers". Wikipedia says: "Future Imperfect: Philip K. Dick at the Movies, writes that the film is more faithful than most other adaptations".

I can't comment on whether that's true, but the movie still haunts me. Odd, since as Wikipedia says "it received a mixed critical reception and failed at the box office". There was nothing mixed about my reception of it.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#282

Post by culi »

fsh wrote: post #40
culi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the market they're going for though. They're more of a competitor to Starlink There's also obvious applications to places where weather is more predictable. There's plenty of areas and small towns in the Great Basin region that have basically no internet. This would be a quick and easy way to set those places up with internet with more reliability than something like starlink

The problem with selling inferior technologies is that sooner or later people are going to stop using them (even in the Grad Basin region). Not exactly a recipe for success.

What are you labelling inferior here? Both Taara and Starlink?

Yes, both of those are inferior to wired infrastructure but they clearly have their usecases. If you were to start a mining project that lasts a few months or even a few years but is expected to eventually be finished and packed up, Taara seems like exactly what you need.

It can also outcompete Starlink because it won't require us to constantly replace decaying satellites. Also means less space debris pollution which is increasingly becoming a huge concern

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#283

Post by mrguyorama »

temp0826 wrote: post #251
dwighttk wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang what does a drone carriable several kilometer fiber spool look like?

I was pretty shocked to find out that wire-guided missiles were(/are?) a thing. This seems easier than that.

Wire guided is still the primary means of guiding torpedos from submarines, because it gives you an unjammable, un-interceptible, consistent communication interface, and in torpedoes the wire spools out for tens of kilometers.

If you want something really cool, look up old fashioned TV guidance. We built weapons that guided based a TV signal, and edge detection in that signal. In 1958.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#284

Post by ahazred8ta »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #235
selfmodruntime wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously jamming resistant high bandwidth communication enables some scarry possibilities They are not obvious to me. Care to explain?

"People with blue and yellow patches are the enemy. I won't be able to communicate with you after you leave the forward base, but you need to navigate about 1 mile southwest then kill the people you find with a blue and yellow patch for as long as you can." Then the quadcopter/Atlas/Spot/a Terminator/a tank driven by AI starts rolling across the landscape, while humans flagged as suspicious by Google because we lack…

Obligatory xkcd: click on all the photos that show places you would run for shelter during a robot uprising https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2228:_Machine_Lea...
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