The media focus on rocket launches, moon landings, and Internet satellites has inspired many to look to the stars for the future of mankind. There are still plenty of areas on the Earth that can be explored, but our expansion can only expand upward at this point. But even before we get there, we are already filling our outer skies with dozens if not hundreds of small metal objects known as satellites, and their numbers are only expected to grow as we move forward.
Satellites have various applications, from communication to observation, but none of them so far remain in orbit in perpetuity. We are, thus, facing a two-headed problem of a myriad of these objects cluttering the space around our planet as well as plummeting back down, sometimes with disastrous results. To find out if there are more sustainable options, the world’s first wooden satellite just made its extraterrestrial voyage in the hopes of replacing metal with wood in the future.
Satellites can orbit the Earth for years, but they will eventually be decommissioned and fall back to Earth. Most of their mass will burn up on re-entry, but the burning metal will release dangerous aluminum oxide pollution into the atmosphere. Wood will also burn up, of course, but the effects on the environment will be significantly smaller.
Made from Japanese hinoki or cypress wood, the boxy LingoSat satellite is designed to test the theory of replacing metal satellites with wood-enclosed versions. The sides of the box are held together without screws or glue, using a traditional Japanese craft technique similar to dovetail joints. This method will help minimize the use of metal or potentially toxic materials that would burn in the atmosphere.
The experiment will test how well wood will fare in the harsh environment of space, such as extreme temperature fluctuations, and how well it can shield electronics inside from space radiation. The latter could have useful applications back here on Earth as shielding for semiconductors in data centers. If successful, this design could significantly help solve the problem of space trash and debris falling back down.
The LingoSat wooden satellite launched into space last Tuesday and will be heading to the International Space Station. From there, it will spend six months in orbit at a height of 400km (250 mi) above the Earth. Like any other satellite, it will eventually be decommissioned and fall down but with less fanfare.
Hughes JUPITER 3 satellite launches successfully, promising a new era of connectivity across North and South America. Gigabytes of high-speed internet.
Debuting (rather by surprise) at MWC 2023, the Motorola Defy Satellite Link does for all phones what Apple built into the iPhone 14 – gives them satellite connectivity so you can send texts in areas with little to no network coverage. The palm-sized dongle comes as a collaboration between Motorola and Bullitt, and connects to pretty much any Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, making the potentially life-saving tech accessible to many more people.
Built with a rugged IP68 waterproof and dustproof exterior, the Motorola Defy Satellite Link comes with a portable design that weighs a mere 3 ounces (70 grams) and can strap around your keychain or even onto your backpack using a simple carabiner clip and the strap-loop built onto the Defy itself. The Defy sports three buttons, including a power button and location button on the left, and a larger, more visible SOS button on the right. A USB-C port helps charge the Defy’s 600mAh battery, which lasts for “multiple days,” according to Motorola and Bullitt.
A hallmark of the Motorola Defy Satellite Link is that not only is it device agnostic (supporting both Android and iOS devices), but it can be used by multiple phones together once paired via Bluetooth. The large, orange SOS button on the right side helps instantly call for emergency assistance, tapping into Defy’s partnership with FocusPoint International, an ERaaS (Emergency Response as a Service) company with 24/7 monitored response centers in 120 countries that handle emergency and assistance requests. The location button built on the other side sends your current location to your close contacts, and the Defy even allows you to send text messages via the Bullitt Satellite Messenger app.
The $99 Defy Satellite Link can connect to geostationary satellites 22,300 miles (35,888 km) above the Earth using the 3GPP NTN open standard “direct-to-device” satellite communications technology, although hardware doesn’t factor in the subscription you have to pay to actually use the service. Just the SOS feature starts at $4.99 a month, and there’s also an optional $149 bundle that gets you the Defy dongle with a 1-year subscription that also includes 30 outgoing and incoming messages per month using the Bullitt Satellite Messenger app, available on Android and iOS devices.
Satellite coverage should be live across Europe and North America at launch, followed by Australia and New Zealand, Africa, and Latin America in mid-2023, according to a report by CNBC. It’s unclear when Asia (where Motorola’s parent company Lenovo is based out of) will get satellite coverage to support the Defy Satellite Link.
If there’s one takeaway from this year’s keynote, it’s that Apple wants to make all its devices more useful in practical scenarios. With crash detection, and the unique ability to connect to satellites for SOS calls, the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro are quite literally must-haves.
It’s a simple yet BRILLIANT idea. How do you get people who’ve just spent money on an iPhone 13 to switch over to the latest model? Surely a better camera isn’t a compelling enough reason to spend $999 on a new phone… but, if Tim Cook were to say that the new iPhone can literally save your life, that becomes a stronger reason to make a switch. Moreover, it now leaves Google, Samsung, and the like scrambling, because, for the past decade, the camera seems to have been the single most important piece of hardware and software on a phone. The new iPhone 14 and 14 Pro series aren’t just good iPhones with great cameras, they’re also now the potential difference between an emergency and safety.
Before really talking about the fluff that makes the phone attractive to consumers for daily use, let’s highlight the two features that absolutely change how people perceive iPhones. Debuting both on the iPhone 14 and the Watch Series 8 at exactly the same time, the Cras Detection feature is a culmination of millions of studies on how Apple’s hardware can help detect car crashes and alert emergency services in an instant. The company had perfected fall-detection over the last few years, but ‘Crash Detection’ is an absolutely different ball game. The phone uses a high g-force accelerometer, gyroscope, sensors, microphone inputs, machine learning algorithms, and data from the Watch Series 8 (if the victim is wearing one) to detect multiple types of car crashes, including impacts on the front, side, rear, or eve barrel-rolls across different car types from smaller smart cars to large SUVs. This allows the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro to know exactly when you’ve been in a crash, notifying the authorities and emergency services in an instant. Sure, Android phones have touted car-crash-detection features in the recent past, but the iPhone 14 goes above and beyond with its next feature.
Before last year’s keynote, there was speculation that the iPhone would be getting Low Earth Orbit satellite connectivity, and with the 14 and 14 Pro, it seems like Apple’s ready to roll the feature out – well, at least initially to customers in USA and Canada. The way the phone works is pure hardware ingenuity. Unlike satellite phones that are bulky and come with a massive antenna to help you get cell coverage in areas with no infrastructure or access, the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro simply redesigned their hardware and their antennas to help the phone connect to satellites in different intuitive ways. The phone’s new interface lets you connect to a satellite simply by pointing your phone at it. The interface allows you to detect the direction of the satellite, although the caveat is that you need to be outdoors and preferably in the open with no obstacles like trees or foliage blocking the connection. Once connected, you can send texts (which are now compressed to a third of their original space for faster transmission), your location, and even make voice calls. The iPhone’s new SOS UI also allows you to pre-select the nature of your emergency and your possible surroundings, to aide better search and rescue missions. Your $799 iPhone 14 can now potentially save you from being stranded and possibly being in severe danger.
Now onto the good stuff. The iPhone 14 and 14 Pro come in regular and large sizes with different nomenclatures, strangely. The larger 14 is called the 14 Plus, but the larger 14 Pro is called the 14 Pro Max. The iPhone 14 runs on the A15 Bionic chip (something we suspected, given the chip shortage), while the new iPhone 14 Pro sports the new A16 Bionic chip (with an entire part of the chip dedicated to just the interactions around the Dynamic Island). Surprisingly enough, Apple hasn’t caved in to the EU’s demands for a USB-C iPhone, and didn’t even address it in their keynote in a way that makes me think they’re taking a rather firm stance. Other features in the new phones is their always-on display, and the ability to save battery by decreasing brightness and dramatically reducing the screen’s refresh rate down to as little as 1 Hz for a battery that literally lasts an entire day.
The new phones have better cameras too, although that isn’t really a surprise. They work remarkably well in low-light conditions, with the iPhone 14 Pro sporting what Apple calls a quad-pixel sensor for much better performance. Like the Cinematic Mode from last year’s iPhones, this year Apple unveiled an Action Mode for their cameras, that provide incredibly stable videos that almost feel like they’ve been taken using expensive cinematic rigs. The iPhone 14 Pro also offers a 2X mode that works in a unique way by simply cropping a part of the 1X mode but preserving an incredible amount of detail, thanks to that quad-pixel sensor and the 48-megapixel main camera.
Steve Jobs was famous for disrupting industries. He started with computers, then music, then cellphones, and finally revolutionized the digital marketplace with the app store… Cook continued that legacy by further disrupting watches, and then conveniently reimagining payments, through the newly launched Apple Card. Seems like the iPhone 13 is set to disrupt connectivity as we know it, being one of the first consumer-grade phones to have direct satellite connectivity.
The news comes as a rumor from renowned analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo. While it’s common to make predictions only to have them fall slightly short, Kuo’s analyses and ‘leaks’ have an incredibly high success rate… and the veteran analyst just dropped a big bomb-shell a few hours ago – that the latest iPhone might have the ability to make satellite calls.
In a note to investors, Kuo made claims that the new iPhone would be able to connect directly with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites thanks to a customized Qualcomm X60 baseband chip. Low Earth Orbit satellites recently gained popularity, thanks to Elon Musk’s efforts with his Starlink project – an initiative to flood the lower atmosphere with satellites that would provide internet to all corners of the globe. Operating at a level much closer to earth than traditional satellites, LEOs tend to avoid some of the more common pitfalls of satellite internet, like high latency, and frequent blackouts. Starlink is one of many companies launching these LEO satellites into space, and Kuo hints that the Qualcomm X60 chip in the iPhone 13 may just support some form of satellite connectivity. In layman’s terms, this would translate to better 5G coverage in areas that may not have the 5G towers or infrastructure… or even 3G or 4G connectivity for that matter. Sounds interesting, although my doubt remains… how much more expensive would this connectivity-feature be?
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