Fifty Years after Telstar: Why the first commercial satellite was so important

Today, July 12, marks the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast from the Telstar satellite, the first commercial satellite in orbit. These broadcasts heralded a sea change in the way we communicated, and laid the groundwork for many of the services we take for granted today.

Telstar was one of the first satellites with a usable purpose. Up until its launch, the world’s two superpowers at the time — the US and the USSR — were more interested in one-upping each other by just proving they could put something in orbit. The Soviets were first, launching Sputnik in October 1957, which included a radio transmitter that emitted a short beep every few seconds. The US responded in January 1958, launching Explorer 1, which sent back measurements of the magnetic belt that surrounds the earth.

There were other major accomplishments: the first living organism in space, Laika the Dog, aboard Sputnik 2 in November 1957; and the first telephone and TV transmissions via satellite carried by Echo 1 in 1962 shortly before the launch of Telstar. But it was this satellite, built by Bell Telephone Laboratories for AT&T that changed everything.

On July 10, 1962, Telstar launched into orbit atop a Thor-Delta rocket and communicated between two ground stations, one at the Andover Earth Station in Andover, Maine, and the other at the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall, England. Once in orbit, the satellite took what is called a “non-geosynchronous” orbit, which means the satellite orbited the earth at a different speed than the Earth’s rotation.

This resulted in only a 20 minute window of use every 2.5 hours as Telstar passed over the Atlantic Ocean. Those first few transmissions were fairly simple: the first attempt was live video of the American flag from the Andover Earth Station. Telstar’s big test though came on July 23, when viewers in both North America and Europe were treated to the first live television satellite pictures.

At 3:00pm ET, Telstar delivered portions of a press conference by President John F Kennedy, a clip of a baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs, and video images from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Quebec, and Stratford, Ontario. Before its transmitters failed due to high-altitude radiation in November 1962 and then permanently in Feburary of the following year, it had carried more than 400 telephone, telegraph, facsimile and television transmissions in total.

Even though it had spent not much more than six months in operation, Telstar’s effect on society was immense. The world suddenly became a whole lot smaller. The era of the 24-hour news cycle arguably got its start right here: instead of the old news reels which moved only as fast as the couriers that delivered them, pictures of world events could be transmitted worldwide within minutes.

Communications also changed. Undersea cables were the go-to method for overseas communications. One break in these lines, however, and those communications could be cut off. Satellites in the mode of Telstar made possible a much more reliable method to communicate over long distances.

“50 years ago transmissions enabled by Telstar captured the attention and imaginations of people everywhere,” Secretary of the Smithsonian Museum Wayne Clough says of the occasion. “The 50th anniversary reminds us how far we have come, and how much potential there is the new era of digital communications.”

Clough is certainly correct, but those first few transmissions in the Summer of 1962 are what changed everything.

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on the Version Galaxy Nexus

Google did a lot to make Android 4.1 Jelly Bean a desirable evolution of Ice Cream Sandwich. There is all the attention paid to responsiveness and colors that improve the visual experience. Then we have the more substantial improvements like Google Now predictive search and all those widget and notification enhancements. Jelly Bean is solid software, but you’re probably not going to get your paws on it officially for a good long time.

If that bums you out, there is alwaysrooting and custom ROM. You’re going to be taking a risk doing it, but you can probably get the newest Android 4.1.1 software on your phone right now. Stability and support have improved now that Google has added the new build to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), so let’s look at what you’ll get, and then see how to do it.

Rooting

The device I used to test this is the Verizon Galaxy Nexus . This is important for several reasons — principally that this is a Nexus without an official Jelly Bean update. Verizon is slow to update devices, and the GSM Nexus already has it update. By all rights, this phone should be updated, and you can make that happen. It is also an easily unlockable phone, so if you’re using a different device, this first bit might be tougher.

You need a phone with an unlocked bootloader and root access to install custom ROMs like the Android 4.1.1 builds. The way you go about this is going to vary from one phone to the next, so you will have to do some digging to figure out how to do that. Some phones have unlockable bootloaders, notably HTC and Sony devices. Samsung leaves most bootloaders unencrypted, so it’s easy. Most phones will require you to tether to a computer to unlock. For root, check out XDA-Developers forum to get the latest on your device and what root exploit to run.

The easiest way to unlock and root the Nexus is with the WugFresh toolkit. Just plug in your phone, and follow the instructions to get your drivers all set up. This is a handy step-by-step program that gets you an unlocked bootloader and root access. Be aware that unlocking the bootloader blanks all your data.

WugFresh also flashes a custom recovery ROM called ClockworkMod as a consequence of rooting. Other devices will need to be flashed with a custom recovery ROM after the fact, but this is easier than you might think once you have root.

Flashing

In the interests of simplicity, you should download ROM Manager from the Play Store. This handy app will let you download and flash ROMs very easily. At the top of the app is also an option to flash ClockworkMod, which you should do unless it’s already been installed as part of your root. Grant root to ROM Manager when it asks, and your recovery should be set up in moments.

At this point, your device is ready for a custom ROM. In the “Download ROM” section of the app, just find the ROM that best suits your phone. For the Galaxy Nexus, I think Vicious Jelly Bean 4.1.1 (AOSP) is your best bet. Other phones may have different ROM support, and if all else fails, you can get the ever-popular Cyanogen Mod here.

[If Vicious Jelly Bean isn't available from the Download ROM area, you may have to update to the paid version of ROM Manager; or alternatively, download the latest versions of Vicious Jelly Bean, copy it to your phone's SD card, and hit "Install ROM from SD Card."]

When you download the ROM file, ROM Manager will pop up a dialog box. Once you make your selection, the install will begin. Make sure you have everything you need backed up. Ideally, you won’t lose data from the SD card directory, but better safe than sorry. Consider using Titanium Backup (root required) to save your apps and associated data.

Now, back to ROM Manager and that pop-up. It will have a few options, including backing up the current ROM, clearing the data and cache, and clearing the Dalvik cache. If this is your first time flashing to Jelly Bean, you should check all of these to make sure no Ice Cream Sandwich bits are in the way. Hit OK, and the phone will reboot into ClockworkMod to install the ROM.

That’s it. You’re done. The install should go through and your device will boot up with Jelly Bean. If something goes wrong, read on for some advice.

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The camera that can see through around corners

Scientists in Israel have created a camera that can see around corners, or through solid objects such as frosted glass, and skin. The most exciting facet of this innovation is that the camera uses natural light to perform the imaging — such as a lamp, or the Sun — and not lasers or X-rays.

Ori Katz, Eran Small, and Yaron Silberberg of the Weizmann Institute have shown that they can accurately resolve an object that’s hiding behind nearly opaque obstacles, or around a corner (or in another room, as long as the door’s open. In both cases, the light is scattered by the obstacle (the frosted glass, the corner wall), creating what appears to be white noise — but their camera can take these speckles of noise and enhance them “1000-fold” (the scientists’ words) to recreate the image with surprising accuracy.

The approach is surprisingly simple, and relies on a device called a spatial light modulator (SLM). Basically, when light bounces off an object, each part of that object changes the phase of light differently. An SLM is an array of pixels that can alter the phase of light passing through it, depending on the electrical current passing through each pixel. In this case, the scientists used a genetic optimization algorithm to modulate each pixel of the SLM until a sharp image is extracted from the white noise.

In the image below, the first two images show the genetic algorithm’s ability to discern a single point of light in a mess of white noise; ‘c’ shows what the human eye would see, looking at the obstacle between the camera and object; and ‘d’ shows what this new camera can see through the obstacle.

Now, if you’re an avid follower of bleeding edge tech, you will probably remember a previous project by MIT which is a femtosecond laser that could photograph objects at a trillion frames per second, or see around corners. 

Moving forward, the scientists hope that their SLM-based approach can play a significant role in medical imaging, where it is currently very hard to resolve details that are inside the brain or other organs. It’s also worth noting that MIT’s around-corners camera is laboratory-sized — but it sounds like the technology behind the Israeli design might fit into a conventional camera. If that doesn’t raise the eyebrows of wannabe superheroes and privacy advocates, I don’t know what will.

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MIT creates intelligent car co-pilot

Mechanical engineers and roboticists working at MIT have developed an intelligent automobile co-pilot that sits in the background and only interferes if you’re about to have an accident. If you fall asleep, for example, the co-pilot activates and keeps you on the road until you wake up again.

Like other autonomous and semi-autonomous solutions, the MIT co-pilot uses an on-board camera and laser rangefinder to identify obstacles. These obstacles are then combined with various data points — such as the driver’s performance, and the car’s speed, stability, and physical characteristics — to create constraints. The co-pilot stays completely silent unless you come close to breaking one of these constraints — which might be as simple as a car in front braking quickly, or as complex as taking a corner too quickly. When this happens, a ton of robotics under the hood take over, only passing back control to the driver when the car is safe.

The video below does a fairly good job of explaining the system (though unfortunately it lacks an actual example of the co-pilot saving a driver from imminent death):

This intelligent co-pilot is starkly contrasted with Google’s self-driving cars, which are completely computer-controlled unless you lean forward, put your hands on the wheel, and take over. This is a lot like an airplane’s auto-pilot, where the human pilot only takes over if something goes wrong, or there are adverse conditions that the flight control system can’t handle. The problem with the “human backup” approach is that you’re asking someone who has been leaning back for X hours to suddenly take over the controls, which results in panicky behavior. It recently emerged that the Air France Flight 447 accident was caused by the autopilot disengaging, and then the human pilot making a silly mistake.

There is also the “deskilling” issue, where eventually no one knows how to drive a car (or fly a plane). This isn’t so bad if every car on the road is autonomous, and if steering wheels are removed altogether, but the in between period could be tricky. To this end, the MIT team admits that their co-pilot needs to be tweaked to deliver significant negative feedback so that drivers (especially learners!) don’t get too big for their britches.

In other news, Eric Schmidt — Google’s chairman — has gone on the record and said that “self-driving cars should become the predominant mode of transportation in our lifetime.” At the same press conference, Schmidt also said that Google has talked to every automaker in the world about its self-driving cars, though they’re still “not ready for productization.”

It will be interesting to see how the autonomous vs. semi-autonomous battle pans out. As we’ve covered before, the semi-autonomous solutions that keep your car in-lane or slam the brakes on when a human walks into the road could be a huge boon to road safety. A completely autonomous road system with car-to-car communications would improve safety as well, and reduce fuel consumption and increase the total capacity of roads — but at the expense of losing our ability to drive.

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BMW adds Siri-like voice dictation

Match and raise: BMW adds Siri-like voice dictation, then builds a touchpad into iDrive

Buy a 2013 BMW and you’ll be able to dictate text messages or email while you drive, and not just the canned Yes, No, Running Late responses that pass for replies. It’s part of BMW’s newest ConnectedDrive technology and includes a touchpad with smartphone-like gestures built into the iDrive control knob, a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot, and a new 3D navigation system. BMW’s free-form voice recognition is the first application of Nuance Dragon Drive. Voice recognition happens in the cloud, so it should be just as good as Apple’s Siri (another Nuance-backed product that uses the cloud). But because of Apple’s current non-support of key Bluetooth protocols, you better have an Android or BlackBerry phone if you want to try out the BMW dictation function.

If you’re looking for proof that competition improves products, about half the ConnectedDrive announcement is BMW’s belated game of catch-up with Audi, which brought out a touchpad and dazzling 3D navigation graphics run by an Nvidia processor. BMW has all that, now, plus industry firsts on free-form voice dictation, and the ability to connect two cellphones simultaneously (and merging their address books in the big center stack display). Competition also means lower prices, sometimes, but that may not be a game BMW will play. Yet. Its navigation system has always been around $2,000 even when cars such as the Nissan Altima offer a competent Bosch navigation system for $595.

Here’s how free-form voice recognition works: A text or email comes in via your smartphone and the message (or first part) appears on BMW’s honking big 10-inch, 1280×480 LCD display atop the center stack. You can choose to reply by voice-to-text. (Or ignore the message if you’re worried about distracted driving or if the message isn’t worth a reply.) Start talking and use phrases like “stop” for a period or “new line” for a new line. Your words are uploaded via BMW Assist, the on-board telematics package, parsed by a Nuance server in the cloud, and returned to the car. If the message looks good, you hit Send and off it goes. The message itself came in via the phone and that’s how your reply departs. And that’s where Apple comes up lacking. It has announced support for Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Protocol), a message transfer standard, but it’s not implemented yet. It will work on many Android and BlackBerry phones (not all).

Almost as cool is the circular touchpad embedded in the top of the BMW iDrive control wheel, which is now celebrating its 10th birthday as an emblem of the future and lightning rod for complex tech. (It’s better now.) Before, you turned the scroll wheel M-A-I-N-S-T-2-4-5, now you can just run your finger across the top forming each letter. It’s nice for English and German speakers, a godsend for Chinese BMW-buyers who can quickly draw the lines that make up their 10,000 character alphabet of ideograms, so it will be showing up first in BMW production destined for China. You still can use the iDrive control wheel to dial in the address, or use BMW’s on-board voice recognition system that is not as advanced as the off-board Dragon Drive system, says Eric Sargent, the product manager for ConnectedDrive technologies in the US. You can email yourself the destination in advance by using Google Maps’ “Send To Car” feature.

The new iteration of BMW Professional Navigation has more 3D maps and a cleaner interface. The on-board hard drive has been bumped up to 200GB to hold the map data; 20.5GB is set aside for audio, twice as much as on the outgoing nav system. In cities, you see actual buildings and your route highlight snakes through the concrete canyons. In split screen mode, the right side zooms in to show a close-up of the next turn. Some of this is new on BMWs, as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes try to outdo each other in providing a reason to spend $2,000 (final price not announced) for high-end navigation. Real-time traffic information is now provided by Inrix over cellular (BMW Assist), replacing the Clear Channel radio feed.

Two more cool features: BMW will offer a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot as module that drops into the phone holder in the center console. That’s coming shortly in Europe. BMW may bring it to the US; that isn’t certain yet. Also, BMW will let you have two cellphones connected and active at the same time and the address books are merged when you look up a phone number on the LCD display.

BMW will start with the 3 Series, 5 Series, 5 Series GT, and 3 Series Active Hybrid, which make up more than half its sales, with the first cars hitting US dealers in the fall. The new navigation comes first; that includes Dragon Drive. The touchpad iDrive controller follows a couple months later. The best features such as Dragon Voice require BMW’s concierge level of BMW Assist, which runs $199 a year. Real-time traffic requires base-level BMW Assist, which is part of the purchase price for the first four years, then $199 a year.

Will all this cause or reduce distracted driving? BMW’s philosophy is that you probably can’t keep drivers from yakking on cellphones and texting, so make it as safe as possible. It’s likely the safety zealots in Washington who control the National Highway Traffic Administration will sternly voice grave doubts about distraction and information overload.

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A mysterious lightning sprite in the sky ! What is it ?

What you see here is a red sprite, captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, which happened to be passing over Myanmar during a large thunderstorm.

Sprites — named after Puck, a nature sprite in English folklore — are huge electrical discharges that occur in the mesosphere (50-100km above Earth), which are triggered by positive lightning strikes on the ground below.

Beyond that, we don’t know a whole lot about sprites. Because they’re so high up in the sky, often obscured by huge clouds, and only exist for a few milliseconds, the existence of sprites was only confirmed in 1989 when the University of Minnesota accidentally caught one on tape. Since then, they’ve been captured on film and tape hundreds of times — but their properties and the mechanism that creates them is still a big mystery. My educated guess would be that lightning strikes also send some energy up into the mesosphere, where the electrons collide with other molecules (oxygen, when excited, emits a red glow).

The photo of the sprite is actually a still frame from a time-lapse sequence shot by Expedition 31 aboard the ISS. The sprite appears around the 7-second mark, in the top right corner of the frame.

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The 10-million-year sapphire hard disk

A multidisciplinary team of scientists, anthropologists, archeologists, artists, archivists, and linguists have put pen to paper and come up with the ultimate long-term storage solution: two 20cm (8in) sapphire disks, molecularly fused together, with a thin layer of inscribed platinum in between. The disk is expected to have a lifetime of 10 million years.

As you have probably assumed, this 10-million-year hard disk (well, it isvery hard, and it is a disk) has nothing to do with computers — rather, this is all about passing important messages to future archeologists. Complex storage devices such as flash drives are no good: There’s just no way of guaranteeing that a future human (or alien?) race will be able to decode the data. With the sapphire disk, up to 40,000 miniaturized pages of text or images can be inscribed in the platinum — and all you need to read the data is a microscope, which hopefully future civilizations will still have access to.

The basic need for such insanely durable storage solutions stems from our use of nuclear power. Nuclear reactors produce radioactive waste that needs to be safely stored for up to 1 million years. A variety of solutions have been proposed — including my personal favorite: disposing waste near subduction zones, so the waste is carried into the core of the Earth — but none have yet been implemented. Once we finally choose a disposal method (mile-deep boreholes are likely to win), we need some way of warning future societies where we’ve buried the waste.

That’s where the sapphire disk comes in: In theory, once you’ve chosen a site to dump the radioactive waste, you would leave a lot of markers buried around the dump site, warning future archeologists and builders that they should stop digging. Until now, the plan has been to engrave warning signs in rocks or lumps of concrete — but this is a problem if the future civilization speaks a different language. With a sapphire disk, you could encode the warning message into every form of written human communication, including words, pictograms, and diagrams. This is why linguists and artists are involved in the project.

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