Author: azeeadmin

Satellite imaging and analytics company Planet is taking the wraps off its new manufacturing space in San Francisco. Founded by ex-NASA employees, Planet is leveraging some of the $183 million in funding it’s amassed to expand. In the basement of a nondescript office building in the middle of Harrison Street in San Francisco, Planet is hard at work building low-orbit satellites that take images of our changing planet, and now the aerospace imaging company has more room to do so, claiming that the new facility is the most prolific satellite manufacturing spot in the world. 

Inside the new 27,000-square-foot manufacturing site are satellite-building stations where Planet engineers piece together “doves,” as the machines are called internally. The new site is six times the size of their old factory, and with that new space Planet claims its engineers will produce up to 40 satellites/week. Fluorescent panels illuminate the industrial work stations, and the small satellites sit plugged into their “dove nests.”

The way Planet builds satellites is different from how NASA or Lockheed Martin does. Planet operates off the idea that instead of building large, cumbersome machines that sit in space taking images with outdated technology and old sensors, many smaller satellites with a one to three-year lifespan can get the job done faster and provide better images of the Earth’s surface. With the new site, Planet will bring all aspects of spacecraft production — from R&D to manufacturing to testing — under one roof.

So what exactly do these satellites do? Each satellite can take two images per second, and Planet’s systems then work to classify images as water, coral, rivers, roads, infrastructure and forests. 

Planet’s philosophy is that “you can’t fix what you can’t see.” Partners in the defense, humanities and agriculture sectors are using data from Planet’s satellite fleet for projects like classifying deforestation in Brazil and detecting urban change in Tanzania. The satellites derive images from lesser traveled parts of the planet. The imaging systems have gathered data on the destruction of roads in Syria, and even recently detected the sudden appearance of a chemical lab in North Korea. One partner is using Planet data to measure coral reef destruction in Australia. 

In the past, Planet has worked with launch partners like SpaceX. However, this first fleet of satellites manufactured in the new facility will be shipped out to India for launch on the PSLV rocket next month. In four years, Planet has launched 298 satellites, 150 of which are currently in orbit collecting over 300 million square kilometers of imagery daily. 

Bon anniversaire, Let’s Encrypt!

The free-to-use nonprofit was founded in 2014 in part by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is backed by Akamai, Google, Facebook, Mozilla and more. Three years ago Friday, it issued its first certificate.

Since then, the numbers have exploded. To date, more than 380 million certificates have been issued on 129 million unique domains. That also makes it the largest certificate issuer in the world, by far.

Now, 75 percent of all Firefox traffic is HTTPS, according to public Firefox data — in part thanks to Let’s Encrypt. That’s a massive increase from when it was founded, where only 38 percent of website page loads were served over an HTTPS encrypted connection.

“Change at that speed and scale is incredible,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Let’s Encrypt isn’t solely responsible for this change, but we certainly catalyzed it.”

HTTPS is what keeps the pipes of the web secure. Every time your browser lights up in green or flashes a padlock, it’s a TLS certificate encrypting the connection between your computer and the website, ensuring nobody can intercept and steal your data or modify the website.

But for years, the certificate market was broken, expensive and difficult to navigate. In an effort to “encrypt the web,” the EFF and others banded together to bring free TLS certificates to the masses.

That means bloggers, single-page websites and startups alike can get an easy-to-install certificate for free — even news sites like TechCrunch rely on Let’s Encrypt for a secure connection. Security experts and encryption advocates Scott Helme and Troy Hunt last month found that more than half of the top million websites by traffic are on HTTPS.

And as it’s grown, the certificate issuer has become trusted by the major players — including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle and more.

A fully encrypted web is still a ways off. But with close to a million Let’s Encrypt certificates issued each day, it looks more within reach than ever.

California plans to launch a satellite to monitor pollution in the state and contribute to climate science, Governor Jerry Brown announced today. The state is partnering with satellite imagery purveyor Planet to create a custom craft to “pinpoint – and stop – destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before.”

Governor Brown made the announcement in the closing remarks of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, echoing a pledge made two years ago to scientists at the American Geophysical Union’s 2016 meeting.

“With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we’re launching our own damn satellite,” Brown said today.

Planet, which has launched hundreds of satellites in the last few years in order to provide near-real-time imagery of practically anywhere on Earth, will develop and operate the satellite. The plan is to equip it with sensors that can detect pollutants at their point sources, be they artificial or natural. That kind of direct observation enables direct action.

Technical details of the satellite are to be announced as the project solidifies. We can probably expect something like a 6U CubeSat loaded with instruments focused on detecting certain gases and particulates. An orbit with the satellite passing across the whole state along its north/south axis seems most likely; a single craft sitting in one place probably wouldn’t offer adequate coverage. That said, multiple satellites are also a stated possibility.

“These satellite technologies are part of a new era of environmental innovation that is supercharging our ability to solve problems,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “They won’t cut emissions by themselves, but they will make invisible pollution visible and generate the transparent, actionable, data we need to protect our health, our environment and our economies.”

The EDF is launching its own satellite to that end (MethaneSAT), but will also be collaborating with California in the creation of a shared Climate Data Partnership to make sure the data from these platforms is widely accessible.

More partners are expected to join up now that the endeavor is public, though none were named in the press release or in response to my questions on the topic to Planet. The funding, too, is something of an open question.

The effort is still a ways off from launch — these things take time — but Planet has certainly proven capable of designing and launching on a relatively short timeframe. In fact, it just opened up a brand new facility in San Francisco dedicated to pumping out new satellites.

California plans to launch a satellite to monitor pollution in the state and contribute to climate science, Governor Jerry Brown announced today. The state is partnering with satellite imagery purveyor Planet to create a custom craft to “pinpoint – and stop – destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before.”

Governor Brown made the announcement in the closing remarks of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, echoing a pledge made two years ago to scientists at the American Geophysical Union’s 2016 meeting.

“With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we’re launching our own damn satellite,” Brown said today.

Planet, which has launched hundreds of satellites in the last few years in order to provide near-real-time imagery of practically anywhere on Earth, will develop and operate the satellite. The plan is to equip it with sensors that can detect pollutants at their point sources, be they artificial or natural. That kind of direct observation enables direct action.

Technical details of the satellite are to be announced as the project solidifies. We can probably expect something like a 6U CubeSat loaded with instruments focused on detecting certain gases and particulates. An orbit with the satellite passing across the whole state along its north/south axis seems most likely; a single craft sitting in one place probably wouldn’t offer adequate coverage. That said, multiple satellites are also a stated possibility.

“These satellite technologies are part of a new era of environmental innovation that is supercharging our ability to solve problems,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “They won’t cut emissions by themselves, but they will make invisible pollution visible and generate the transparent, actionable, data we need to protect our health, our environment and our economies.”

The EDF is launching its own satellite to that end (MethaneSAT), but will also be collaborating with California in the creation of a shared Climate Data Partnership to make sure the data from these platforms is widely accessible.

More partners are expected to join up now that the endeavor is public, though none were named in the press release or in response to my questions on the topic to Planet. The funding, too, is something of an open question.

The effort is still a ways off from launch — these things take time — but Planet has certainly proven capable of designing and launching on a relatively short timeframe. In fact, it just opened up a brand new facility in San Francisco dedicated to pumping out new satellites.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has provoked a biting senatorial response from California after calling the “nanny state’s” new net neutrality legislation “radical,” “anti-consumer,” “illegal” and “burdensome.” Senator Scott Wiener (D-CA), in response, said Pai has “abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open internet” and that the FCC lacks the authority to intervene.

The political flame war was kicked off this morning in Pai’s remarks at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free market think tank. You can read them in full here, but I’ve quoted the relevant part below:

Of course, those who demand greater government control of the Internet haven’t given up. Their latest tactic is pushing state governments to regulate the Internet. The most egregious example of this comes from California. Last month, the California state legislature passed a radical, anti-consumer Internet regulation bill that would impose restrictions even more burdensome than those adopted by the FCC in 2015.

If this law is signed by the Governor, what would it do? Among other things, it would prevent Californian consumers from buying many free-data plans. These plans allow consumers to stream video, music, and the like exempt from any data limits. They have proven enormously popular in the marketplace, especially among lower-income Americans. But nanny-state California legislators apparently want to ban their constituents from having this choice. They have met the enemy, and it is free data.

The broader problem is that California’s micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country. After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn’t recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states.

Among other reasons, this is why efforts like California’s are illegal.

The bogeyman of banning zero rating plans has been raised again and again, but everyone should understand now that the whole thing is a sham — just another ploy by telecoms to parcel out data the way they choose.

The legal question is far from decided, but Pai has been crowing about a recent court ruling for a week or so now, despite the fact that it has very little to do with net neutrality. Ars Technica went into detail on this ruling; the takeaway is that while it is possible that the FCC could preempt state law on information services in some cases, it’s not clear at all that it has any authority whatsoever to do so with broadband services. Ironically, that’s because Pai’s FCC drastically reduced the FCC’s jurisdiction with its reclassification of broadband in Restoring Internet Freedom.

At any rate, more consequential legal challenges and questions are still in the works, so Pai’s jubilation is somewhat premature.

“The Internet should be run by engineers, entrepreneurs, and technologists, not lawyers, bureaucrats, and politicians,” he concluded. Odd then that those very engineers, entrepreneurs and technologists almost unanimously oppose his policy, while he — literally seconds earlier — justified that policy via the world of lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians.

Senator Wiener was quick to issue a correction to the Chairman’s remarks. In an official statement, he explained that “Unlike Pai’s FCC, California isn’t run by the big telecom and cable companies.” The statement continued:

SB 822 is necessary and legal because Chairman Pai abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open internet. Since the FCC says it no longer has any authority to protect an open internet, it’s also the case that the FCC lacks the legal power to preempt states from protecting their residents and economy.

When Verizon was caught throttling the data connection of a wildfire fighting crew in California, Chairman Pai said nothing and did nothing. That silence says far more than his words today.

SB 822 is supported by a broad coalition of consumer groups, groups advocating for low income people, small and mid-size technology companies, labor unions, and President Obama’s FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler. I’ll take that support over Ajit Pai any day of the week.

The law in question has been approved by the state legislature, but has yet to be signed by Governor Jerry Brown, who has another two weeks to consider it.

Twitch is today announcing changes to its security procedures for its TwitchCon event taking place in San Jose, California on Saturday, October 27th. The update follows news of the tragic shooting at an esports event in Jacksonville, Florida last month where three people died, including the shooter, and 11 were injured. Twitch said it would review its procedures as a result, and would soon have more information about what it’s doing to keep attendees safe.

Today, the company shared those plans.

According to Twitch, it’s working with San Jose’s local law enforcement, convention staff, and additional security services on the event.

The conference will include bag searches and screenings at designated entrance points, and attendees will be limited to carrying just one bag.

The bag can be no larger than 12” x 15” x 6”, the company says.

Backpacks, luggage, large bags and bulky clothing will not be allowed. In addition, backpacks acquired at the show – even those that are Twitch-branded – will not be eligible for re-entry. There will be an on-site bag check available, but the company suggests that larger bags are just left at home as space will be limited.

It says small fanny packs or clear bags will help attendees move through the security checkpoints faster.

Meanwhile, exhibitors will only be able to hand carry their products and display materials in oversized bags and rollers before 8 AM on show days – that way there won’t be a way for people to bring in large bags when the event is underway.

Press will also have to wear their press badges, and crew that needs to carry their large camera equipments will needed to be approved.

Of course, the event has a no weapons policy as well, and anyone in violation will be removed without refund.

Badges must be worn at all times, and an ID or passport needs to be on hand, as well.

At first glance, the updated procedures don’t seem remarkably different from Twitch’s earlier policies.

The company’s security plan before Jacksonville had also included bag searches, walkthrough or hand-held scanners, the use of uniformed guards, ID checks, and the wearing of badges.

The biggest on-record change appears to be the backpack ban.

However, we understand the reference to Twitch’s closer work with law enforcement services and the “additional security services” is a reference to other changes that may not have been fully detailed. (We’d guess this is likely because Twitch doesn’t want to provide too much information to anyone trying to workaround its security procedures.)

The annual TwitchCon event brings together the Twitch community to play games, watch live esports, participate in hackathons and cosplay contests, attend sessions, and hear from the company about what’s next for the live game-streaming service.

Last fall, for example, Twitch unveiled a new set of tools at TwitchCon that would allow creators to make money from their online channels.

However, the events in Jacksonville have had many of TwitchCon’s regular attendees concerned about event safety.

After all, the video game competition, taking place at the GLHF Game Bar in Jacksonville, Florida, had been live-streamed on Twitch when the shooting happened. Would a copycat try to get into Twitch’s conference?, some have wondered.

According to reports, the Florida shooter had been upset about losing two games of Madden earlier in the tournament, even refusing to shake hands with the winner after one game. Despite a history of mental illness, the shooter had been able to legally acquire his weapons. It wasn’t clear how he got them into the Jacksonville bar.

Sadly, mass shootings in the U.S. have now taken place at schools, movie theaters, churches, concerts, workplaces – even at YouTube –  and elsewhere. But they had not yet before occurred at an esports event.

The tragic event brought attention on the esports industry as a whole, which still sits somewhere outside of mainstream attention, despite Twitch having over 2 million broadcasters and 15 million viewers who tune in daily to watch.

 

Shortly after the tragedy, Twitch said it would make changes.

“Security at TwitchCon is our top priority and is something we take very seriously at all our events,” the company told TechCrunch in August. “We regularly review and iterate on our policies and approach in order to provide a safe and positive experience for staff, attendees, and exhibitors. In the wake of yesterday’s tragedy we will be re-reviewing our plans and updating them accordingly,” a spokesperson had said at the time.

The updated plans for TwitchCon are detailed on Twitch’s blog and its FAQ.

Image credit: Twitch

 

The UK government says that access to satellites and space surveillance programs will suffer in the event of a “no deal” departure from the European Union .

Britain has less than six months to go before the country leaves the 28 member state bloc, after a little over half the country voted to withdraw membership from the European Union in a 2016 referendum. So far, the Brexit process has been a hot mess of political infighting and uncertainty, bureaucracy and backstabbing — amid threats of coups and leadership challenges. And the government isn’t even close to scoring a deal to keep trade ties open, immigration flowing, and airplanes taking off.

Now, the government has further said that services reliant on EU membership — like access to space programs — will be affected.

The reassuring news is that car and phone GPS maps won’t suddenly stop working.

But the government said that the UK will “no longer play any part” of the European’s GPS efforts, shutting out businesses, academics and researchers who will be shut out of future contracts, and “may face difficulty carrying out and completing existing contracts.”

“There should be no noticeable impact if the UK were to leave the EU with no agreement in place,” but the UK is investing £92 million ($120m) to fund its own UK-based GPS system. The notice also said that the UK’s military and intelligence agencies will no longer have access to the EU’s Public Regulated Service, a hardened GPS system that enhances protections against spoofing and jamming. But that system isn’t expected to go into place until 2020, so the government isn’t immediately concerned.

The UK will also no longer be part of the Copernicus program, a EU-based earth observation initiative that’s a critical asset to national security as it contributes to maritime surveillance, border control and understanding climate change. Although the program’s data is free and open, the UK government says that users will no longer have high-bandwidth access to data from the satellites and additional data, but admits that it’s “seeking to clarify” the terms.

Although this is the “worst case scenario” in case of no final agreement on the divorce settlement from Europe, with just months to go and a distance to reach, it’s looking like a “no deal” is increasingly likely.

Electric vehicles still make up just a fraction of the cars, trucks and SUVs on the road today. But that’s changing: the number of electric and plug-in hybrid cars on the world’s roads exceeded 3 million in 2017. By 2025, there are expected to be 20 million electric vehicles in just North America and Europe.

And that means the world is going to need a lot more chargers.

ChargePoint, the California startup that provides infrastructure for electric vehicles, said Friday it will expand its network of chargers nearly 50-fold over the next seven years. The company, which has more than 53,000 chargers in operation today, has committed to a global network of 2.5 million charging spots by 2025.

The majority of these new EV chargers will be evenly split between Europe and North America, with smaller percentages in Australia and New Zealand, the company said Friday at the Global Climate Action Summit.

ChargePoint has raised more than $292 million since its founding in 2007. It’s used the funds to add chargers to it network, including an expansion last year into Europe. The company secured a $82 million funding round, led by automaker Daimler in May 2017. A month later the company announced another $43 million in funding from German engineering giant Siemens to bolster its European expansion.

The network expansion comes at an auspicious time for automakers, a number of which are planning to roll out electric vehicles in the next several years. Tesla has its own network of chargers that it calls superchargers. The automaker has invested heavily to build out the network, which is now 1,342 stations with 11,013 superchargers globally.

Only Tesla vehicles can use that network, which aims to promote long-distance travel. Other automakers that are beginning to sell EVs will rely heavily on third-party EV providers like ChargePoint. It’s estimated that at least 40 new electric vehicles models will be introduced in the next five years. Jaguar will start delivering its first EV, the i-Pace crossover, to customers in the U.S. this fall. Audi plans to introduce its first electric vehicle, the etron, on Monday.

In the off-chance you haven’t already had your fill of phone news for the week, Google just offered up a few friendly reminders that it’s got its own handset coming out in the not so distant future.

The company’s event isn’t happening until early next month, but Google’s started with the teasers. Here’s a site with a big number 3, while over here a “coming soon” placeholder shows off the rough outline of what one assumes is the new phone.

It’s pretty bare bones at the moment, but a click of the “G” logo unleashes a slow, steady stream of confetti. As Android Police handily notes, the phone’s silhouette is shown in three colors — black, white and a kind of mint green.

The former have already been leaked like crazy all over the internet. The pale green, on the other hand, could be a surprise — well, a “surprise,” I suppose. Companies love to whet the tech press’s collective palate with a hint or two.Though we’ve been burned in the past.

Remember when the popsicle wallpaper appeared to be a nod to the upcoming Android P name? The truth of the matter was a bit more dull. That said, there’s no shortage of Pixel 3 information out in the world right now. We’ve already seen about as much of the upcoming handset as we have Apple’s new devices.

Whatever the case, all will be revealed on October 9. 

I only wanted one thing out of 2018’s iPhone event: a new iPhone SE. In failing to provide it Apple seems to have quietly put the model out to pasture — and for this I curse them eternally. Because it was the best phone the company ever made.

If you were one of the many who passed over the SE back in 2015, when it made its debut, that’s understandable. The iPhone 6S was the latest and greatest, and of course fixed a few of the problems Apple had kindly introduced with the entirely new design of the 6. But for me the SE was a perfect match.

See, I’ve always loved the iPhone design that began with the 4. That storied phone is perhaps best remembered for being left in a bar ahead of release and leaked by Gizmodo — which is too bad, because for once the product was worthy of the lavish unveiling Apple now bestows on every device it puts out.

The 4 established an entirely new industrial design aesthetic that was at once instantly recognizable and highly practical. Gone were the smooth, rounded edges and back of the stainless original iPhone (probably the second-best phone Apple made) and the jellybean-esque 3G and 3GS.

In the place of those soft curves were hard lines and uncompromising geometry: a belt of metal running around the edge, set off from the glass sides by the slightest of steps. It highlighted and set off the black glass of the screen and bezel, producing a of specular outline from any angle.

The camera was flush and the home button (RIP) sub-flush, entirely contained within the body, making the device perfectly flat both front and back. Meanwhile the side buttons boldly stood out. Volume in bold, etched circles; the mute switch easy to find but impossible to accidentally activate; the power button perfectly placed for a reaching index finger. Note that all these features are directly pointed at usability: making things easier, better, more accessible, while also being attractive and cohesive as parts of a single object.

Compared to the iPhone 4, every single other phone, including Samsung’s new “iPhone killer” Galaxy S, was a cheap-looking mess of plastic, incoherently designed or at best workmanlike. And don’t think I’m speaking as an Apple fanboy; I was not an iPhone user at the time. In fact, I was probably still using my beloved G1 — talk about beauty and the beast!

The design was strong enough that it survived the initially awkward transition to a longer screen in the 5, and with that generation it also gained the improved rear side that alleviated the phone’s unfortunate tendency towards… well, shattering.

The two-tone grey iPhone 5S, however, essentially left no room for improvement. And after 4 years, it was admittedly perhaps time to freshen things up a bit. Unfortunately, what Apple ended up doing was subtracting all personality from the device while adding nothing but screen space.

The 6 was, to me, simply ugly. It was reminiscent of the plethora of boring Android phones at the time — merely higher quality than them, not different. The 6S was similarly ugly, and the 7 through 8 somehow further banished any design that set themselves apart, while reversing course on some practical measures in allowing an increasingly large camera bump and losing the headphone jack. The X, at least, looked a bit different.

But to return to the topic at hand, it was after the 6S that Apple had introduced the SE. Although it nominally stood for “Special Edition,” the name was also a nod to the Macintosh SE. Ironically given the original meaning of “System Expansion,” the new SE was the opposite: essentially an iPhone 6S in the body of a 5S, complete with improved camera, Touch ID sensor, and processor. The move was likely intended as a sort of lifeboat for users who still couldn’t bring themselves to switch to the drastically redesigned, and considerably larger, new model.

It would take time, Apple seems to have reasoned, to convert these people, the types who rarely buy first generation Apple products and cherish usability over novelty. So why not coddle them a bit through this difficult transition?

The SE appealed not just to the nostalgic and neophobic, but simply people who prefer a smaller phone. I don’t have particularly large or small hands, but I preferred this highly pocketable, proven design to the new one for a number of reasons.

Flush camera so it doesn’t get scratched up? Check. Normal, pressable home button? Check. Flat, symmetrical design? Check. Actual edges to hold onto? Check. Thousands of cases already available? Check — although I didn’t use one for a long time. The SE is best without one.

At the time, the iPhone SE was more compact and better looking than anything Apple offered, while making almost no compromises at all in terms of functionality. The only possible objection was its size, and that was (and is) a matter of taste.

It was the best object Apple ever designed, filled with the best tech it had ever developed. It was the best phone it ever made.

And the best phone it’s made since then, too, if you ask me. Ever since the 6, it seems to me that Apple has only drifted, casting about for something to captivate its users the way the iPhone 4’s design and new graphical capabilities did, all the way back in 2010. It honed that design to a cutting edge and then, when everyone expected the company to leap forward, it tiptoed instead, perhaps afraid to spook the golden goose.

To me the SE was Apple allowing itself one last victory lap on the back of a design it would never surpass. It’s understandable that it would not want to admit, this many years on, that anyone could possibly prefer something it created nearly a decade ago to its thousand-dollar flagship — a device, I feel I must add, that not only compromises visibly in its design (I’ll never own a notched phone if I can help it) but backpedals on practical features used by millions, like Touch ID and a 3.5mm headphone jack. This is in keeping with similarly user-unfriendly choices made elsewhere in its lineup.

So while I am disappointed in Apple, I’m not surprised. After all, it’s disappointed me for years. But I still have my SE, and I intend to keep it for as long as possible. Because it’s the best thing the company ever made, and it’s still a hell of a phone.