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Submission + - Software Defined Satellite Soon To Be Launched (bbc.com)

kbahey writes: Traditionally, large satellites are configured on the ground for specific tasks that cannot be changed after launch, even if market demands evolve.

A new satellite scheduled to be launched soon, will change all that: its coverage, bandwidth, power and frequency can all be altered in orbit.

The 3.5 tonne spacecraft will be operated by Paris-based telecom operator Eutelsat, in a R&D partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), with manufacturer Airbus acting as the prime contractor.

A company official stated that the satellite "will bring unprecedented flexibility to our customers, allowing for in-orbit payload re-configuration and taking customisation to a new level, while also opening the way to a paradigm shift in the manufacture of telecommunications satellites".

Comment Re: It's rather obvious if you use incognito mode (Score 1) 114

I use Firefox containers and they mostly work. The default one is for random stuff since that's where clicked links open. I created one for work and one for Facebook and I try to stick to them (at least the Facebook one). I also run ad block, but usually allow the first party site (even FB). I notice that it seems to serve only adds about tech doodads I click on from friends posts, which is much less annoying. I think they really want to serve you stuff you may actually shell out for, so you can work a bit with the system and sandbox the rest. On mobile I don't have a default Android browser set, so every single time I have to choose between Firefox Focus, plain Firefox or Brave. Never ever Chrome. Sounds like a lot, but you get used in a couple of days

Comment Re:My dad died this year (Score 2, Insightful) 247

A new kidney would have saved him. We need a plan to grow new organs, even if it's in pigs or in brainless human bodies. Of course the Christian fundamentalists will never let this happen. Fucking hypocrites.

My condolences, annon. Regarding organ growth I was thinking something similar. At the turn of the XX Century people thought more or less the same, they believed that humans could never travel at higher than 20Km/hr, or couldn't run faster than some record of the time. Then tech changed and we did. Once they figure out the kinks of individual organ cloning without having to grow a whole being (and hopefully, without having to grow them inside an existing being, such as a pig) then well be in another era of pushing back those limits.

Comment Ways to go yet (Score 1) 366

I haven't heard of any talk of this being an goal, but, besides the usual objections there are still many practical obstacles. I do mostly use the tap-n-go facilities (direct charge to your account, without need for a pin, for purchases up to $100 AUD) but there are plenty of places that have:
  • * minimum purchase amount to use
  • * surcharges
  • * both

Not to mention not every vendor has it, or network reception isn't always there for the reader to connect. So yeah, maybe one day but we won't be the first.

Comment Ingenuity ftw (Score 3, Interesting) 118

From TFA: ''' "When dealing with such large-scale phenomena, we don't usually think it can occur within a few decades. We usually think it would take thousands or tens of thousands of years," Forman says. The finding, he adds, "opens up a big can of worms" because researchers just don't know how or why that would happen. So there's something missing about scientists' concept of goings on in the Earth's core.''' But hey, at least now we know we don't know :)

Comment Re:Lobby (Score 5, Insightful) 234

That's one of the reasons I kind of hope it does pass initially it will cause a lot of problems (technical and otherwise). But we'll have to come up with solutions to those problems and when they really want to censor us it will be a lot more difficult. Where as if it doesn't pass it will likely be replaced shortly by more reasonable and enforceable means of censorship.

I think that's actually a bit too optimistic. What Hollywood, "traditional media", Politicians and associated Moneypolists want is to turn the web into Television. They want a one-way medium to distribute their content, whether it be entertainment, political platform or other stuff they sell. They don't want the regular Joe to generate their own content, hence the extremes they go to brand anything not made by them as spurious and pirated.

If this law was to remain, it would cement their grip on the medium so they can turn it into the advertisement broadcast platform they want it to be: sanitized, monetized and sales-orientated. They want to know who you are and where you are so you can't dodge them; they want you to be a trapped consumer, and they want to keep tabs on you to better tailor their efforts at shovelling their crap down your throat. This is why that MoFo Murdoch (or was it Turner?) said the Internet should have been patented from the start. This is why politicians and law enforcement agencies everywhere want it muzzled, they don't want disent they want obedience and mindless consumerism.

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