Along coastlines, where tides are typically magnified, they profoundly affect navigation, commerce, coastal flooding, water properties and sediment transport. Tides impact the flooding of rivers and, thus, influence the extent of their floodplain, which has cascading effects on biogeochemical and ecological processes.
We are the only company capable of delivering 4G and 5G and in the future, 6G broadband speed sufficient for voice calls, voice over LTE, live video calls, streaming, and full Internet access directly to unmodified devices. Simply put, we are the first company in the history of commercial satellite manufacturing to produce satellites of our size and power at scale.
Signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems are quite vulnerable. They are exceptionally weak, meaning that any radio noise near their frequency, accidental or malicious, can interfere with reception. I am confident that there are people in every government who understand the problem. The challenge is getting leadership to both understand and act to reduce the risk.
Apple's satellite features were originally designed for emergencies, allowing iPhone users to contact emergency services when cellular and Wi-Fi coverage is unavailable. With recent versions of iOS, Apple has expanded those capabilities to include sending and receiving messages via satellite. This makes it possible to stay in touch with friends and family from remote locations where traditional networks do not reach, such as hiking trails, rural areas or offshore locations.
On February 28, ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz started appearing on tracking screens in places they couldn't possibly be. They appeared to be sitting on airport runways, parked on Iranian land, and clustered at nuclear power plants. More than 1,100 commercial vessels had their navigation systems scrambled in a single day following US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, bringing a waterway that handles a fifth of the world's oil exports to a halt.
We are firmly in the era of the satellite constellation—groups of dozens of similar satellites—and are currently entering the era of the mega constellation, wherein groups of thousands of satellites swarm the skies. The clusters of satellites started small, but, like a viral outbreak, they grew almost without us noticing—and now we're dealing with a pandemic.
The other day we were scrolling through r/meshtastic and someone asks: "Why does my device show 10+ satellites in view while my buddy's barely sees 8?" Good question. Really good question, actually. And it's about to take us down a rabbit hole that involves atomic clocks, Cold War competition, European independence, and why your Meshtastic node cares about all of this.
Edge computing is a type of IT infrastructure in which data is collected, stored, and processed near the "edge" or on the device itself instead of being transmitted to a centralized processor. Edge computing systems usually involve a network of devices, sensors, or machinery capable of data processing and interconnection. A main benefit of edge computing is its low latency. Since each endpoint processes information near the source, it can be easier to process data, respond to requests, and produce detailed analytics.
The achievement was revealed at the recent CES 2026, using commercial modem silicon, with real satellite-to-satellite mobility, leading to a standard 5G phone said to stay connected while switching between satellites, using the new 3GPP Release 19 n252 band, as defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) under Release 1. The demo also represented the public validation of n252 in an NTN system, a band expected to be adopted by next-generation low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations.
Now say you want to run some modest AI stuff. That's a bigger job, so let's scale up our cubical computer with edges twice as long as before. That would make the volume eight times larger (2 3), so we could have eight times as many processors, and we need eight times as much power input-2,400 watts. However, the surface area is only four times (2 2) larger, so the radiative power would be about 4,000 watts.
By the end of the year, Northwood, based in El Segundo, California, had shown the ability to build eight of these Portal arrays a month. And in January the company had deployed operational Portal antennas across two continents. These deployments, which comprise an area of 8 to 15 meters, have the equivalent capability of a 7-meter parabolic dish, said Griffin Cleverly, co-founder and chief technical officer of Northwood.
Can quantum physics enable better, cheaper, faster satellite photos? In a month or two, a startup will test a "quantum camera" for space-based imaging. If it works, it could slash the cost of missile defenses and give smaller NATO allies and partners spy-satellite capabilities that were once exclusive to major powers.
