Um, why do you have the idea that there are not beam-steerable antennas on the ground? I can't speak to the antennas on the data centers, the personal ground terminal has two different steering modes.
One is a coarse mechanical electric motor, used to roughly position the terminal to cover the largest number of satellites.
The other is the ~1200 emitting elements of the transceiver phased array, which can steer the beam +/- 90 degrees from normal (although constrained to something less than that in practice, I would imagine).
Since the primary steering mode is purely solid state, I believe this means that the array can maintain communication with multiple satellites simultaneously if the birds are visible.
Since Starlink also plans to include laser communication between satellites at some point in the future (I think there are a few in orbit right now that are testing this), it means that effective coverage becomes much less critical on the location of ground based data centers (i.e., the places that connect Starlink into the internet).
Then scalability primarily becomes a limitation of the total bandwidth that can be provided by the constellation.
Pocket full of emeralds? He stayed in an effing youth hostel when he arrived in North America (Canada), and worked at a lumber mill and on a farm (According to his biography, anyway; never seen it refuted, though).
Family wealth? Possibly, but he and his father aren't exactly friendly, so take anything said by his father with a grain of salt (granted, take everything said by either party with a grain of salt; I do notice there is a lack of verification for any of these "reports").
Not sure what this means. Due process (as described in the Bill of Rights) is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a organizational one.
Considering the suit is "Cayuga Nations vs.", the judge is pointing out that because the particular organization (Cayuga Nation) is, in fact, a federally recognized governmental organization, it is not entitled to "due process," as you phrase it, in the particular case of a libel suit.
If an individual of the Cayuga Nation were to attempt their own suit, then that person would be entitled to due process, but might have a harder time making the case, unless their actual name (or many distinguishing points of similarity) were used in conjunction with false/fictional activities that cause damage of reputation
"... if the only games they have to offer are ones that are much better on competing platforms/services..."
You definitely have a point regarding the disposal of exclusives and platform uncertainty.
Performance, on the other hand, is not a problem that I have observed for Stadia, except when compared to extremely high-end (meaning in the ~$2K rage) gaming PC's.
Witness the recent release of the all-but-unplayable Cyberpunk 2077 - I say "all-but-" because it was playable in the following formats (at least, as I read within a week of launch):
High end PC
XBox Series X in XBONE emulation
PS5 in PS4 emulation
Stadia
In three of those four, I would have to have shelled out at least $500 for the cover charge (or, to be honest, considering the scalping situation, more like $750 - $1000).
Or, I can pick up my Stadia Founder's Edition controller (offered for free to YouTube Premium customers), link to my Chromecast Ultra (included for free with the previously mentioned promotion), and play the game with quality equal to- or better-than the above mentioned. On Day One.
Even without exclusives, Stadia has a business model - it will take a lot of months at $10/month to rack up to one of those systems (>4 years, not counting time value of money). Additionally, I can play it pretty much anywhere; I ponied up some extra cash for a specialized controller for my cell phone (the Razer Kishi), and now my phone makes the Switch look pathetic; again, only $60 out of pocket for extra hardware (got the Kishi on sale). I of course do not count the cost of my phone, since that is a given.
Plus, I don't have to pay for hardware upgrades (like PC users do). And since I am a low frequency gamer (maybe 8-10 hours in a month; I have a toddler), this model works much better for me than shelling out for a top of the line console.
This is why everybody is currently rushing to get their own cloud gaming on-line. I've used NVidia Shield as well, and it works, although the interface is a bit clunky (plus, nice to have access to some of my steam titles on mobile - I didn't say I wasn't a PC gamer; I just don't have a High-end PC. I get most of my games from Humble Bundle and GOG, which typically don't require a lot of horsepower).
But I agree - even though I feel the product itself is great all of this is overshadowed by the fear that Google will just kill it, and the move to kill off the development studios just reminds everybody of the fact the google has a tendency to just axe services regardless of the level of entrenchment might exist in the userbase.
Wow - that got longer than I expected - if you made it this far, sorry everybody!
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by BruJr.
Re: Re: Yeah, right
Um, why do you have the idea that there are not beam-steerable antennas on the ground? I can't speak to the antennas on the data centers, the personal ground terminal has two different steering modes.
One is a coarse mechanical electric motor, used to roughly position the terminal to cover the largest number of satellites.
The other is the ~1200 emitting elements of the transceiver phased array, which can steer the beam +/- 90 degrees from normal (although constrained to something less than that in practice, I would imagine).
Since the primary steering mode is purely solid state, I believe this means that the array can maintain communication with multiple satellites simultaneously if the birds are visible.
Since Starlink also plans to include laser communication between satellites at some point in the future (I think there are a few in orbit right now that are testing this), it means that effective coverage becomes much less critical on the location of ground based data centers (i.e., the places that connect Starlink into the internet).
Then scalability primarily becomes a limitation of the total bandwidth that can be provided by the constellation.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do SpaceX deserve the subsidy?
Pocket full of emeralds? He stayed in an effing youth hostel when he arrived in North America (Canada), and worked at a lumber mill and on a farm (According to his biography, anyway; never seen it refuted, though).
Family wealth? Possibly, but he and his father aren't exactly friendly, so take anything said by his father with a grain of salt (granted, take everything said by either party with a grain of salt; I do notice there is a lack of verification for any of these "reports").
Re: Due Process
Not sure what this means. Due process (as described in the Bill of Rights) is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a organizational one.
Considering the suit is "Cayuga Nations vs.", the judge is pointing out that because the particular organization (Cayuga Nation) is, in fact, a federally recognized governmental organization, it is not entitled to "due process," as you phrase it, in the particular case of a libel suit.
If an individual of the Cayuga Nation were to attempt their own suit, then that person would be entitled to due process, but might have a harder time making the case, unless their actual name (or many distinguishing points of similarity) were used in conjunction with false/fictional activities that cause damage of reputation
Re: Failure even with the deck stacked in your favor (as Chad Brubaker)
"... if the only games they have to offer are ones that are much better on competing platforms/services..."
You definitely have a point regarding the disposal of exclusives and platform uncertainty.
Performance, on the other hand, is not a problem that I have observed for Stadia, except when compared to extremely high-end (meaning in the ~$2K rage) gaming PC's.
Witness the recent release of the all-but-unplayable Cyberpunk 2077 - I say "all-but-" because it was playable in the following formats (at least, as I read within a week of launch):
In three of those four, I would have to have shelled out at least $500 for the cover charge (or, to be honest, considering the scalping situation, more like $750 - $1000).
Or, I can pick up my Stadia Founder's Edition controller (offered for free to YouTube Premium customers), link to my Chromecast Ultra (included for free with the previously mentioned promotion), and play the game with quality equal to- or better-than the above mentioned. On Day One.
Even without exclusives, Stadia has a business model - it will take a lot of months at $10/month to rack up to one of those systems (>4 years, not counting time value of money). Additionally, I can play it pretty much anywhere; I ponied up some extra cash for a specialized controller for my cell phone (the Razer Kishi), and now my phone makes the Switch look pathetic; again, only $60 out of pocket for extra hardware (got the Kishi on sale). I of course do not count the cost of my phone, since that is a given.
Plus, I don't have to pay for hardware upgrades (like PC users do). And since I am a low frequency gamer (maybe 8-10 hours in a month; I have a toddler), this model works much better for me than shelling out for a top of the line console.
This is why everybody is currently rushing to get their own cloud gaming on-line. I've used NVidia Shield as well, and it works, although the interface is a bit clunky (plus, nice to have access to some of my steam titles on mobile - I didn't say I wasn't a PC gamer; I just don't have a High-end PC. I get most of my games from Humble Bundle and GOG, which typically don't require a lot of horsepower).
But I agree - even though I feel the product itself is great all of this is overshadowed by the fear that Google will just kill it, and the move to kill off the development studios just reminds everybody of the fact the google has a tendency to just axe services regardless of the level of entrenchment might exist in the userbase.
Wow - that got longer than I expected - if you made it this far, sorry everybody!
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by BruJr.
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