SpaceX reaches 100K Starlink prospects. Right here’s how to enroll

SpaceX has now shipped 100,000 Starlink terminals to customers who’ve signed up for the company’s internet-from-space service.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk dropped the news in a tweet on Monday, August 23. It means the company has added 90,000 new customers to its beta service in just six months. The company opened Starlink to its first paying customers in October 2020 and it now serves 12 countries, with more on the way.
Starlink uses a constellation of small satellites in low-Earth orbit to beam down broadband connectivity to customers on the ground using a Starlink dish.
SpaceX has been sending Starlink satellites into orbit since May 2019 and currently has more than 1,700 of them circling Earth.
The goal is to blanket the planet with affordable and reliable broadband connectivity, with a particular focus on communities in remote areas that have little or no access to decent internet services.
Starlink says current download speeds via its service should be around 100 Mbps, though reports online suggest they can be anywhere between 60 Mbps and 150 Mbps.
How to sign up to Starlink
First, you’ll need to find out if Starlink’s beta service is available your area. To do so, simply head to its website and fill in your details. If it’s accessible, you’ll be invited to sign up.
Customers in the U.S. will need to pay $499 for the necessary hardware, and then $99 a month for the internet service. Shipping and handling costs $50, with tax coming in at about $33. You can get the ball rolling by handing over a $99 deposit, and you’ll receive a notification when your order is ready to ship. Note the small print at the bottom of the page: “Depending on location, some orders may take six months or more to fulfill.”
SpaceX isn’t the only company working to provide internet connectivity via Earth-orbiting satellites. U.K.-based OneWeb is also building a constellation, with its most recent batch of satellites heading skyward just a few days ago. With 288 satellites in orbit and more on the way, OneWeb is planning to launch a trial broadband service in Alaska and Canada by the end of this year, with more locations coming in 2022. Amazon has also outlined plans for its Project Kuiper service that could comprise a constellation of some 3,200 satellites, though the company has yet perform any launches.

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Watch Elon Musk unveil Tesla’s superior humanoid robotic

Tesla boss Elon Musk has revealed the company is building a highly advanced humanoid robot.
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Musk dropped the surprise news during a presentation at Tesla’s A.I. Day event on Thursday, August 19.
After appearing first in a brief video, the robot then strutted onto the stage and performed an astonishingly complex dance. Except the stage version was in fact a human dressed to look like the robot. “Obviously that was not real,” the Tesla CEO confirmed to the audience as the performer slunked off.
The upcoming “Tesla Bot,” as Musk called it, is designed to “eliminate dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks,” with a prototype expected to appear some time next year.
Musk said it made sense to design the robot as Tesla engineers have already created “semi-sentient robots on wheels” in the form of its vehicles, and therefore much of the technology should be able to be refined and transferred.
Tesla Bot stands at 5 foot 8 inches, weighs 125 pounds, and has a display on its head “for useful information.” It’s also packed with actuators for natural movement, including “human-level hands.”
Tesla
Tesla Bot includes a version of Tesla’s autonomous navigation system powered by multiple cameras to help it find its way and keep clear of hazardous obstacles. Built-in artificial intelligence smarts mean it will be able to learn and respond to instructions. “Please go to the store and get me the following groceries,” Musk offered by way of example.
He also suggested it could perform tasks on the Tesla production lines, a comment that may have sent a chill down the spines of the current workforce. On that issue, Musk said he believes that with robot technology taking more and more jobs, offering people a universal basic income will one day become a necessity.
Apparently keen to reassure those living in fear of an even more extreme robot takeover, Musk quipped that Tesla Bot has been designed with a top speed of 5 mph “so you can run away from it and most likely overpower it,” adding, “It’s intended to be friendly, of course.”
It’s clearly a monumental task to build and meaningfully deploy a truly useful humanoid robot, with the likes of Honda, for example, having ditched its impressive Asimo robot, and with other more recent efforts falling well short of expectations.
But let’s hope Tesla can take the design to the next level and properly surprise us when it unveils its humanoid robot in 2022.

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