Tag Archives: SpaceX Starship

Weekly output: Android 14, Qualcomm and “5G NR-Light,” SpaceX COO, 1Password, Mark Vena podcast

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All of my writing this week appeared over two days, and I wrote most to all of three of them on a single day–a pace that may have contributed to a couple of dumb mistakes in one of them.

2/8/2023: Google Releases First Android 14 Developer Preview, PCMag

Google gave me an advance on the announcement of the first developer-preview release of the next major version of Android. I took care to remind readers that their own Android phones might see Android 14 some time after it lands on Google’s Pixel phones–or might not ever see it.

Screenshot of story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini 62/8/2023: Qualcomm starts connecting the dots on 5G NR-Light, Light Reading

I got another advance briefing for Qualcomm’s news of an upcoming lower-power, cheaper and smaller X35 modem intended for connected gadgets that don’t need full 5G speeds. But Qualcomm was weirdly stingy on details about this hardware, such as any hard numbers for its size or power consumption.

2/8/2023: SpaceX COO Teases Starship 33-Engine Test Fire on Thursday, PCMag

I spent Wednesday and Thursday at the Commercial Space Transportation Conference, where SpaceX chief operating officer and president Gwynne Shotwell shared some news about that company’s giant Starship rocket during an onstage interview. I rushed to write that up but in the process I identified Shotwell’s onstage interlocutor as former congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama, not the Mike Rogers of Michigan who did the honors. And between writing the first paragraph and the third one, I somehow decided that Starship had 31 engines in its first stage, not the correct 33.

2/9/2023: 1Password to Offer Passkey-Only, No-Password Logins, PCMag

The PR people at 1Password gave me an exclusive on their news of an upcoming move to offer subscribers the option of authentication via the new passkeys standard–with no master password needed for this password-manager service.

2/10/2023: S03 E45 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

My contribution to this week’s edition of my industry-analyst friend’s podcast was to discuss Washington’s escalating conflict with large tech companies, as seen in such developments as the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google and President Biden’s (brief) calls for digital-privacy regulations in the State of the Union address.

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Weekly output: Starlink, spectrum coordination, flight delays (x2), T-Mobile and Verizon 5G home broadband, Mark Vena podcast

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About one year later than I’d planned, I’m flying to Las Vegas Tuesday to cover the Black Hat information-security conference. Two big factors in my deciding to go ahead with that trip this year: My kid is now vaccinated and boosted, while I had Covid barely seven weeks ago.

8/2/2022: SpaceX’s Starlink has soared, but a course correction may be on the horizon, Fast Company

More weeks ago than I’d like to admit, one of my editors asked if I could do a more in-depth look at the progress of SpaceX’s Starlink low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation. A day after this piece ran, Reddit’s ever-informative r/starlink served up new evidence of capacity issues at this service: a new rate plan in France that cuts the monthly rate in half but imposes a 250 GB threshold for possible speed deprioritization.

8/2/2022: 2 Key Federal Telecom Agencies Promise to Play Nice With Wireless Spectrum, PCMag

Two federal offices about two miles apart in D.C. pledged to work better together in spectrum planning. That might seem like an obvious thing to do, but the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration last updated this memorandum of understanding in 2003.

Story as seen in Chrome on a Pixel 5a phone, showing its lead illustration: a photo of people waiting on line at an airport.8/3/2022: Don’t Get Stranded: How to Watch for Flight Delays and Get Around Them, PCMag

A discussion on PCMag’s Slack workspace about coping with travel hiccups led to me asking if I could write this story, and not just because I’d like to recoup my added travel costs from my unplanned extra night in Toronto in June.

8/3/2022: How Verizon ‘fixed wireless’ and T-Mobile home broadband is converting cable customers, USA Today

After a reality-check interview with an analyst who reminded me that fiber scales so much better to meet demand than fixed wireless can, this column on the progress of T-Mobile and Verizon’s 5G-based home broadband got a bit less enthusiastic about its potential.

8/4/2022: S02 E32 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

My main contribution to this discussion was talking about my Starlink story, but if you watch the video of the podcast you can also see me scowl at a Lightning cable.

8/5/2022: DOT Moves to Strengthen Rules on Refunds for Flight Changes, Cancellations, PCMag

Speaking of travel delays, I returned to the subject to cover a set of proposed Department of Transportation rules that would clarify what counts as a significant schedule change and a cancelled flight–and require either non-expiring trip credits or straight-up refunds for travel canceled because of a future pandemic.