Connectivity, Communications & Cloud News - Page 5
US airlines panic, warn 5G networks could disrupt flights
We've been walking into the world of 5G for a few years now, but it's only just now -- days before 2022 begins -- that major US air carriers begin freaking out that 5G wireless services are going to wreck havoc on the travel industry.
United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said during a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee said that US telco giants AT&T and Verizon need to delay their plans to use C-Band spectrum for 5G wireless services. Kirby said during the hearing that 5G wireless services would delay, divert, or cancel around 4% of daily flights in the US -- impacting hundreds of thousands of passengers per year, every year.
Kirby said: "It would be a catastrophic failure of government. Coming Jan. 5 -- unless something changes -- we will not be able to use radio altimeters at 40-something of the largest airports in the country. It is a certainty. This is not a debate".
Continue reading: US airlines panic, warn 5G networks could disrupt flights (full post)
PCIe 6.0 specification teased: ushers in 32GB/sec SSDs of the future
Seriously, we're so close to the launch of the PCIe 5.0 standard that will launch with Intel's next-gen Alder Lake platform -- and we're hearing more concrete details about the new PCIe 6.0 standard.
PCI-SIG has announced that the next-gen PCIe 6.0 standard is close to being finalized, with the new standard offering up to 128GB/sec of bandwidth -- double that of PCIe 5.0, and quadruple PCIe 4.0 and its 32GB/sec of bandwidth that we're just using now.
PCIe 6.0 has now reached the Final Draft version (version 0.9) allows members of PCI-SIG to review the new standards for not just patents, but IP. There are no changes allowed by PCI Express, so PCIe 6.0 has effectively 'gone gold'. PCIe 6.0 has some wicked speeds that it will be capable of, especially in the beast PCIe 6.0 x16 port with up to 128GB/sec of bandwidth -- double that of PCIe 5.0 x16 which is crazy.
Continue reading: PCIe 6.0 specification teased: ushers in 32GB/sec SSDs of the future (full post)
USB Type-C 2.1 specs teased: 240W power delivery, up from 100W
The official USB Type-C 2.1 specifications have been published, where it is indeed true: USB Type-C 2.1 will deliver a huge 240W of power over a tiny USB-C cable.
In order to pump 240W through that small USB-C cable you're going to need a new USB-C EPR (Extended Power Range) cable, the new EPR specification bumps up the maximum voltage to 48V. This bump to 48V is what is required to push 240W of power at 5A.
USB-C Type 2.1 devices and cables will be backward compatible, and vica versa, with USB Type-C 2.0 ports. Nothing has changed with the port at all, but there are standards on the midplate being stronger, and mandates for pins for A4-A9 and B4-B9 (power, power delivery, and legacy USB 2.0 support) must not short in order to ground during connecting mating.
Continue reading: USB Type-C 2.1 specs teased: 240W power delivery, up from 100W (full post)
Alphabet beams 700TB of fiber-like Internet wirelessly with lasers
Alphabet has been running projects offering next-generation internet services for many years now, with its latest Project Taara blasting 700TB of data across the Congo River in a really new way.
Project Taara is a new technology that offers fiber optic cable-type speeds, without the cables -- with the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) technology developed for Alphabet's Project Loon, in its new Project Taara. Where Project Loon used stratospheric helium balloons to blast wireless internet to everyone, Project Taara uses the wireless optical link technology to connect services across the Congo River.
Alphabet has its own moonshot lab called X where it well -- shoots for the moon -- with projects like this. FSOC is capable of pumping a 20Gbps+ link between two points if it has clear line of sight. The way it works is through using light to transmit high-speed data between two points. 20Gbps+ is on offer using just light to transmit information at incredibly fast speeds through the air, as a very narrow, invisible beam.
Continue reading: Alphabet beams 700TB of fiber-like Internet wirelessly with lasers (full post)
Starlink major outage, 18 states in the US + global users affected
Elon Musk only just announced SpaceX had shipped out 100,000 Starlink terminals barely 24 hours ago, and now there are multiple states across the US and globally, that are experiencing outages.
Starlink users are reporting their satellite internet connections are down on Reddit and Twitter, with Reddit user "godch01" saying that his Starlink connection wouldn't work for 8 minutes and then it was alright. Most reports on Reddit state that services were down for around 90 minutes, with users reporting in from the US, Canada, the UK and Germany.
Another Reddit user "ID_John" who said his service went down, and then his Starlink terminal performed a software update out of nowhere and once it was finished, his Starlink service was operational. It could've been SpaceX making some tweaks as users are beta testers, which makes sense if the Starlink terminal software update being pumped out to a few users fixed their issues.
Continue reading: Starlink major outage, 18 states in the US + global users affected (full post)
Your smartphone probably has better CPU cores than Starlink dishes
Inside of Starlink's user terminals is a quad-core CPU powered by ARM's Cortex-A53 cores, thanks to a new teardown by researchers working at Belgium's KU Leven University.
It's not the first teardown of a Starlink terminal, but this teardown is different as we have greater detail on the firmware and software inside of the SpaceX tech. Inside, SpaceX is using a processor that packs 4GB of embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) memory that loads up the firmware after bootup.
The researchers accessed the eMMC independently from the processor, finding a chip called a "secure element" that is also inside of the Apple iPhone, and part of the security infrastructure for the iPhone that has code required for secure biometric validation.
Continue reading: Your smartphone probably has better CPU cores than Starlink dishes (full post)
Pegasus Project: Israeli spyware used in nefarious ways worldwide
Another day, another story where the world that people believe to be so innocent, isn't.
Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has experienced a gigantic, world-changing leak. The Guardian along with 16 other media organizations have run an investigation, showing that NSO's hacking software knock as "Pegasus", crafted to be used against terrorists and criminals -- just like all that "good" "hacking software" -- has been used against the good guys.
But first... what is Pegasus? Pegasus is malware that was made by NSO Group that can infect virtually any iPhone or Android smartphone and once installed, can let the operator pull out messages, photos, emails, record and monitor calls and even secretly activate microphones on the phone.
Continue reading: Pegasus Project: Israeli spyware used in nefarious ways worldwide (full post)
Elon Musk says Starlink will soon offer gamers pings of 20ms or lower
If you're out in the middle of nowhere or stuck with really crappy internet access... then this will be music to your ears.
Elon Musk has said that Starlink's satellite-based internet will offer gamers some very, very competitive connectivity with latencies that will be under 20ms. This is enough for competitive gamers, with Musk saying that Starlink engineers and SpaceX's production and launch teams have been working around the clock to get Starlink latencies under 20ms.
Musk explains: "Glad it's working! The sheer amount of work done by SpaceX engineering, production & launch teams is amazing. Ping should improve dramatically in coming months. We're aiming for <20ms. Basically, you should be able to play competitive FPS games through Starlink".
Continue reading: Elon Musk says Starlink will soon offer gamers pings of 20ms or lower (full post)
Starlink imposter website: sells fake dishes for $249, pay in Bitcoin
SpaceX's ambitious Starlink internet service is accepting pre-orders right now, with users in beta testing right now -- users in Iran are getting duped by a fake Starlink website.
A fake Starlink website has been set up and is accepting pre-orders for internet service, taking payments of $249 and accepting Bitcoin which makes it easier for whoever, or the team that set up the website -- to hide the money that they've taken.
The website isn't far off the official Starlink website, with "www.starlinkiran.com" virtually identical to the official website by SpaceX. There's the same background images, translated text in Persian, and for the most part people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two sites.
Continue reading: Starlink imposter website: sells fake dishes for $249, pay in Bitcoin (full post)
Elon Musk says Starlink will offer internet globally by August
SpaceX will have its ambitious Starlink satellite internet service available globally in August 2021, just over a month from now -- globally, apart from the North and South Poles.
The news comes from Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who said during the recent virtual Mobile World Congress 2021 that Starlink is "operational now in about 12 countries, and more are being added every month". Musk added: "We are on our way to having a few hundred thousand users, possibly over 500,000 users within 12 months".
Elon has to of course comment on the simultaneous active users on Starlink exceeding the "strategically important" threshold of 69,420 on June 25, 2021. In some follow up tweets, Musk added that all 72 orbital planes activate in August, "plus many other improvements" that will be "enabling global coverage, except for polar regions, which will take another 6 months".
Continue reading: Elon Musk says Starlink will offer internet globally by August (full post)