Amazon's Satellite broadband 🛰️

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In today's edition: Amazon to launch satellite broadband service, layoffs continue in tech and memes.

Reading time is 4 minutes. Let’s dive in.

Main Thing

Amazon’s $10B Satellite Broadband service

What: Amazon's Kuiper project got the final approval from FCC to launch and operate a satellite constellation to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband service.

Key points:

• Amazon will build a satellite constellation of 3,236 satellites to provide internet all around the world.

• Amazon has already secured 83 contracts for rocket launches.

Getting crowded: SpaceX has a massive lead on other satellite-internet providers, with a fully operational constellation of 3,120 satellites and more than 1M subscribers.

But the space is limited (no puns intended) and the risk of collision and debris goes up with every new satellite.

Zoom Out: More than 20% of the US, including National parks, is not covered by any wireless carrier. But that’s set to change this year as carriers are partnering with StarLink to provide connectivity straight to your phone, beginning with T-mobile’s text service later this year.

Soon you’ll be able to text and call without a cellular connection even in the remotest regions of the US.

Big Picture

Layoffs: A tough week in tech with bunch of companies jumping aboard the layoff bandwagon: 20% at Yahoo, 10% at Github, 7% at Gitlab, 8% at GoDaddy, 19% at Affirm, 15% at Zoom, and 7,500 employees at Disney.

Lyft: The stock tanked ~38% after the company issued a weak guidance for this year, even though its quarterly revenue increased 21%!

Comcast: provided inaccurate service coverage data to FCC, saying it offered 1.2Gbps internet to homes it doesn’t service.

Meme Time

(Got better memes? Send us to get featured.)

Quick Bites

• The most important job skill of this century might be ‘talking to an AI’.

• Lo and Behold, Jupiter reclaims the title of planet with the most moons, with 12 newly discovered moons bringing the total to 92.

• ‘AI First’ to last: How Google fell behind in AI boom.

• Nuclear Fusion breakthrough with world’s first ‘Super’ magnet.

Brain Food

Did OpenAI achieve Theory of Mind like ability?

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states such as beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, and knowledge - to ourselves and others. This is thought to be unique to humans and differentiates us from rest of the animal world.

But now OpenAI’s GPT-3 model can solve 93% of ToM tasks, indicating a performance comparable with that of a 9-year old child! Read the research paper for more.

Pic of the day