According to the head of the European Space Agency (ESA), Europe is exploring the development of space-based solar power to boost its energy independence and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

"It will be up to Europe, ESA and its Member States to push the envelope of technology to solve one of the most pressing problems for people on Earth of this generation," said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the space agency, an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states.

In the past, the space agency hired British and German consultancy companies to do studies on the costs and advantages of creating space-based solar power. To give European policymakers technical and programmatic knowledge, the ESA published the studies this past August.

Aschbacher will propose his Solaris Program to the ESA Council in November. Aschbacher has been trying to increase support for solar energy from space in Europe as a route to energy de-carbonization. This council determines the budget and priorities for ESA. The construction of the solar power system would start in 2025, according to Aschbacher's proposals.

The Positives. Space-based solar energy is simple to understand conceptually. Solar energy is captured by satellites orbiting high above the Earth's atmosphere. The satellites would then transform that energy into current and transmit it back to Earth via microwaves, where it is captured by photovoltaic cells or antennas and transformed into electricity for homes or businesses. There is no night or cloud cover to impede collection, and the solar incidence is significantly higher than in northern latitudes of the European continent, which are the main advantages of collecting solar energy from space as opposed to the ground.

The program proposes enormous installations in geostationary orbit that could supply between 25% and 30% of the yearly electricity demand for Europe, which is now estimated to be over 3,000 TWh. These technologies would be expensive to develop and implement, costing hundreds of billions of euros.

Why will it cost so much? Because it would take a constellation of many enormous satellites situated 36,000 kilometers from Earth to enable space-based solar power. Each of these satellites would be 10 or more times heavier than the 450 metric ton International Space Station, which took over a decade to build in low Earth orbit. The final launch of these satellites' components would need hundreds or, more likely, thousands of heavy lift rocket missions.

"Using projected near-term space lift capability, such as SpaceX’s Starship, and current launch constraints, delivering one satellite into orbit would take between 4 and 6 years," Frazer-Nash, the British Firm involved in the study states. "Providing the number of satellites to satisfy the maximum contribution… to the energy mix in 2050 would require a 200-fold increase over current space-lift capacity."

The Negatives. Although the idea of solar energy generated in space is intriguing, it is not without its detractors. Elon Musk, who one might expect supporting a system that is in space and produces solar energy, is one of the biggest opponents.

"It's the stupidest thing ever," he said, several years ago. "If anyone should like space solar power, it should be me. I've got a rocket company, and a solar company. I should be really on it. But it's super obviously not going to work. It has to be better than having solar panels on Earth. With a solar panel in orbit, you get twice the solar energy, but you've got to do a double conversion: Photon to electron to photon, back to electron. What's your conversion efficiency? All in, you're going to have a real hard time even getting to 50%. So just put that solar cell on Earth."

He is not alone either. Physicist Casey Handmer identified four cost drivers in an online analysis that will render space-based solar power unaffordable: transmission losses, heat losses, logistics expenses, and a space technology penalty. According to Handmer, the cost of space-based solar energy is at least "three orders of magnitude" more than energy sources on Earth.

"I can relax assumptions all day," Handmer wrote. "I can grant 100 percent transmission efficiency, $10/kg orbital launch costs, complete development and procurement cost parity, and a crippling land shortage on Earth. Even then, space-based solar power still won’t be able to compete. I can grant a post-scarcity fully automated luxury communist space economy with self-replicating robots processing asteroids into solar panels, and even then, people will still prefer solar panels on their roof."

Perhaps the conflict in Ukraine and the dearth of Russian natural gas will spur this project along. A major space agency trying out a technique that has been considered science fantasy for literally decades would be good. But there are many obstacles to overcome and a lengthy time frame.
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The Earth will probably get its energy from space in the future. But will that happen in the next century or even later? Without a doubt, the most comprehensive and ambitious project the European Space Agency has ever done would be space-based solar power. It would undoubtedly be the Apollo program of the twenty-first century. Only much bigger.

Each week, I select one article from the current issue of my newsletter Technology This Week, and post it to this blog. Today, I received a note from a representative from the VPN company Private Internet Access (PIA).
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In his note to me, he said he’d read my article on passkeys and thought it was interesting. He continued, “Everyone online is at an ever-increasing risk of being targeted by hackers these days, which is why covering these issues is really important.”

“At PIA, we’ve also done our part to raise awareness, even producing an in-depth, four-part series on hacking that was well received. We added a helpful glossary, important infographics, and expanded statistics, plus a few safety tips for preventing cyberattacks.”

“Perhaps you would consider fitting in a link to our series in your page? We hope this will help keep more of your readers safe and well-informed – and much less vulnerable to hackers.”
So, if you want to get some well-thought-out information on hacking and Internet security, consider reading their four-part series.

On September 1, the USB Promoter Group announced USB4 V2.0, a specification that will double the current max speed of USB-C from 40Gbps to 80Gbps. This spec will work with existing USB-C passive cables and new 80Gbps USB-C “active cables”.

USB4 will be backwards compatible with USB4 Version 1.0, USB 3.2, USB 2.0, and Thunderbolt 3. It will also align with the latest versions of DisplayPort and PCIe.

Most home users might be perplexed as to why they've never heard of USB 4, the standard that USB 4.0 version 2.0 seeks to replace. The widely used USB 3.2 standard was intended to be doubled in performance by the August 2019 announcement of USB 4. The minimum throughput requirement for USB 4 devices is 20 Gbit/s, which is the same as the maximum throughput that USB 3.2 offers, even though the standard does permit up to 40 Gbit/s.

Although there are USB 4 cables and goods like docking stations and external hard drives available, most items still use USB 3.2 or even older standards.
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It will be up to phone, laptop, PC and USB cable manufacturers to implement the technology. It's another win for USB-C, which Europe has decided to standardize on for all phones and gadgets.

How many people do you know who use the same password for everything and it isn’t even something hard to guess, like a birthday, anniversary, address or just “password” or “123456”? There are a lot and even with today’s excellent password managers, users have to be proactive to be sure they have rock solid passwords, change them regularly and protect them by not using them more than once.

Standards. A group of technology giants, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, have banded together to form the FIDO Alliance. This is an open industry association with a focused mission: authentication standards to help reduce the world’s over-reliance on passwords. FIDO promotes the development of, use of, and compliance with standards for authentication and device attestation. 

Apple is the first of the major players in FIDO to bring out their standards compliant solution to removing passwords from online security. The new technology is called Passkeys and will debut this fall on all of Apple’s operating systems: macOS Ventura, iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and Apple TV.

How do Passkeys Work? Passkeys are unique digital keys that are easy to use, more secure, never stored on a web server, and stay on your device. Hackers can’t steal Passkeys in a data breach or trick users into sharing them. Passkeys use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, and iCloud Keychain to sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption.

When you create an online account on a website, you will use a Passkey instead of a password. “To create a Passkey, just use Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate, and you’re done,” said Darin Adler, Apple’s P of internet technologies.

When you go to log in to that website again, Passkeys allow you to prove who you are by using your biometrics rather than typing in a pass phrase (or having your password manager enter it for you). When signing in to a website on a Mac, a prompt will appear on your iPhone or iPad to verify your identity. Apple says its Passkeys will sync across your devices using iCloud’s Keychain, and the Passkeys are stored on your devices rather than on servers. (Using iCloud Keychain should also solve the problem of losing or breaking your linked devices.) Under the hood, Apple’s Passkeys are based on the Web Authentication API (Within) and are end-to-end encrypted so nobody can read them, including Apple. The system for creating Passkeys uses public-private key authentication to prove you are who you say you are.

A password-less system would be a significant step forward for most people’s online security. As well as eliminating guessable passwords, removing passwords reduces the likelihood of successful phishing attacks. And passwords can’t be stolen in data breaches if they don't exist in the first place. (Some apps and websites already allow people to log in using their fingerprints or using face recognition, but these usually require you to first create an account with a password.)
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When all the tech companies have rolled out their version of passkeys, it should be possible for the system to work across different devices—in theory, you could use your iPhone to log in to a Windows laptop, or an Android tablet to log in to a website in Microsoft’s Edge Browser. “All of FIDO’s specs have been developed collaboratively, with inputs from hundreds of companies,” says Andrew Shikiar, the executive director of the FIDO Alliance. Shikiar confirms Apple is the first company to roll out passkey-style technology and says this shows “how tangible this approach will soon be for consumers worldwide.”

We’ve covered the four-day workweek in several issues: In the pre-pandemic issue 6-10, we made the case that a four-day workweek could be the norm by 2050. In issue 9-05, the cover article also said the four-day workweek may be coming and potentially much sooner than 2050 because of the pandemic. Neither of these articles, however, looked at the positive impact a four-day workweek could have on the planet and our ecosystem.

When the pandemic hit, the world as we knew it changed dramatically with everyone at home, transportation infrastructure stopped and heavy industrial production drastically curtailed. Emissions from driving, flying and industrial output were dramatically reduced. Air quality in cities around the world showed marked improvement, while global emissions plummeted.

In May 2021, environmental and social justice collective Platform London released a report detailing the ecological impact of a shorter work week. From the earliest days of the pandemic, it was apparent that fewer people commuting translated quickly to reduced pollution, clearer skies, and less congestion on the roads. The impact was global, with Americans reporting less smog in Los Angeles and Europeans famously spotting dolphins in the canals of Venice. While some of this may be exaggerated, the benefits of fewer rush hour commuters are not. Fewer people heading to the office also means a reduction in electricity consumption from fewer lights, air conditioners and elevators running.

Many estimates put the reduction in carbon footprint at around 30% simply by offering one full day off per week. A more modest 10% reduction in hours (roughly three to four hours a week for most full-time workers) still translates to a 14.6% decrease in carbon emissions.

“The one thing we do know from lots of years of data and various papers and so forth is that the countries with short hours of work tend to be the ones with low emissions, and work time reductions tend to be associated with emission reduction,” said Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College who researches work, consumption and climate change.

It’s what you might call a “potential triple-dividend policy, so something that can benefit the economy, society and also the environment,” said Joe O’Connor, chief executive of the nonprofit group 4-Day Week Global. “There are not many policy interventions that are available to us that could potentially have the kind of transformative impact that reduced work time could have.”

Part of the problem is that we can’t forecast what workers will do with that additional day. Many believe, and international studies like those recently done in Iceland prove, that people will eventually gravitate into more eco-friendly activities like hiking, camping and other outdoor activities. But, if people choose to spend their extra time off traveling, particularly if they use planes or automobiles, we may not see any material eco-related benefits.
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“When we talk about the four-day workweek and the environment, we focus on the tangible, but actually, in a way, the biggest potential benefit here is in the intangible,” O’Connor said. “It’s in the shift away from a focus on hard work to a focus on smart work. It’s the cultural change in how we work and the impact that could have on how we live, and I think that’s the piece that’s really revolutionary.”

On June 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized SpaceX and a second commercial satellite company—Kepler Communications— to use their satellite internet system on vehicles in motion, including cars, trucks, boats, and aircraft.

Starlink is SpaceX’s network of satellites in low Earth orbit, designed to deliver high-speed internet anywhere on the globe. There are currently about 2,700 Starlite satellites to support the global network. As of May, SpaceX told the FCC that Starlink had over 400,000 subscribers.

The FCC states that approving the new capability is in the public’s interest. “We agree with SpaceX and Kepler that the public interest would benefit by granting with conditions their applications,” the FCC wrote in its authorization. “Authorizing a new class of terminals for SpaceX’s satellite system will expand the range of broadband capabilities to meet the growing user demands that now require connectivity while on the move, whether driving an RV across the country, moving a freighter from Europe to a U.S. port, or while on a domestic or international flight.”

For some time, SpaceX has been very vocal in its desire to expand Starlink service beyond residential consumer use. SpaceX has signed an early deal with Hawaiian Airlines and one with semiprivate charter provider JSX to provide Wi-Fi on planes.

SpaceX has already deployed a version of its satellite service called “Starlink for RVs.” It requires an additional “portability” fee. But portability is not the same as mobility, which the new FCC decision now allows. It will also apply to ships at sea and even long-haul semi-tractor trailers.

Customers who want the Starlink service must purchase a user terminal for $599 and then pay $110/month for usage.
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It’s clear that this decision opens new worlds of connectivity literally all over the world.

Last month consulting firm McKinsey & Company released their newest edition of their American Opportunity Survey on remote work. There are many statistics from the survey, but the bottom line is that the flexible work arrangements companies put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic are here to stay.

“After more than two years of observing remote work and predicting that flexible working would endure after the acute phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, we view these data as a confirmation that there has been a major shift in the working world and in society itself,” the report states. 

The survey is a joint effort between McKinsey & Company and market-research firm Ipsos. Around 25,000 Americans 18 and older completed the survey and the report shares the number of people working remotely, how many days per week they have flexible arrangements, the gender, ethnicity, and education level of those wanting to work remotely, and more. Another important fact is that respondents come from many different careers, not only with “white collar” jobs.

The first interesting result was that 58% (the equivalent of 92 million people) have the opportunity to work remotely at least one day a week. 35% have the option to work remotely up to 5 days a week. 42% had no opportunity to work from home.

Another striking result from the survey is that when offered, almost every employee would take the opportunity to work remotely. 87% of employees offered at least some remote work embraced the opportunity and spent an average of 3 days per week working from home.

The report stated that flexible work arrangements vary by occupation, age, gender, and income level. Young, educated people with high incomes had the most remote work possibilities. Men (61%) did better than women (52%). 47% of those with incomes between $25,000 and $49,000 had remote opportunities. 75% of those with incomes over $150,000 had remote work opportunities.
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Because the survey was conducted online, McKinsey admits the results could be biased against people with lower incomes, less education, and people living in rural areas, as these groups tend to be underrepresented on the internet. The firm attempted to overcome any possible bias with weighted models. 

The single most important factor in surviving a battlefield injury is the combat medic. The medic is first on the scene and can administer help within the Golden Hour or even Golden Ten Minutes. Quick, effective medical procedures can be the difference between life and death.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Raytheon BBN to lead a team to develop an augmented reality device that will provide the combat medic with a virtual assistant. The system will use a set of AR goggles, which will provide visual information on 50 different medical procedures.

Medics are highly trained in the most common battlefield injuries, but they aren’t doctors or surgeons and often have no experience in little-used procedures which may be needed at a moment’s notice. This is why DARPA is working on its Medical Assistance, Guidance, Instruction and Correction (MAGIC) system. 

MAGIC uses a pair of augmented reality goggles equipped with audio and video sensors and special artificial intelligence software that can act as an assistant to monitor the situation and advise the medic on how to proceed.

Raytheon will use machine learning technology to ‘teach’ the system both medical skills and situation assessment skills. The initial prototype will study 2,500 stereo videos and almost 50 million images. The machine learning process will review the historical data and synthesize useful concepts and solutions from that data.

When the AI software is ready, MAGIC should be able to provide spoken suggestions to medics or project visual overlays on the scene to guide their hands through needed medical procedures. The system will also provide events timing from engagement to final hand-off to field hospital personnel. MAGIC will also provide dosage guidance for in-field medications.

A first prototype is expected in about 18 months.
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"The combat medical environment is challenging and chaotic," said Raytheon BBN scientist Brian VanVoorst. "Our goal for the Raytheon BBN MAGIC AI tool is to help support personnel to provide guidance as needed without disrupting their concentration."

Most of us think of May 5th as “Cinco de Mayo” and look forward to an after-work margarita. But May 5th is also World Password Day and Apple, Google and Microsoft used this day to announce their support for the passwordless standard from the FIDO Alliance (fast identity online).

The three companies jointly announced that they have committed to building support for all the mobile, browser, and desktop platforms that they control in the coming twelve months. This means that passwordless authentication will come to iOS and Android mobile operating systems, Chrome, Edge and Safari browsers, and Windows and macOS desktop environments.

The FIDO Alliance announced that it won’t be long before users will be able to use a fingerprint reader, face scanner or even a mobile phone instead of passwords to conduct online business securely.

“Just as we design our products to be intuitive and capable, we also design them to be private and secure,” said Kurt Knight, senior director of platform product marketing at Apple. “Working with the industry to establish new, more secure sign-in methods that offer better protection and eliminate the vulnerabilities of passwords is central to our commitment to building products that offer maximum security and a transparent user experience — all with the goal of keeping users’ personal information safe.”

At Microsoft, Alex Simons, corporate vice president for identity program management, said that tomorrow’s digital products need to be safer and easier to use. "The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives," he said in a statement.
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FIDO said the three technology leaders will implement over the next year. We’ll likely hear many more details from all three, as each has their annual developer conferences this spring/summer. FIDO is already used by a wide variety of device makers and service providers. With Apple, Google and Microsoft supporting the interoperable standard, it will make a passwordless future much more attainable.

We all do everything we can to keep our phones charged, but the time will come when you’ve run the battery down to where you must charge it during the day rather than in the evening while you sleep. Everyone knows you can’t go from zero to full charge in 10 or 15 minutes. But following a few simple rules will help you charge your phone quicker.

Completely Turn Off the Phone. This will not work if you’re waiting for an important call, but when you can, shutting the phone off completely will provide the fastest charge. You may not think that anything is happening when you’re charging, but when the phone is still on, it’s constantly polling its cellular service and even potentially updating apps in the background. All that activity slows the charging process. 

Use a Wall Charger, Not Wireless Charging. Whenever possible, use a plug-in wall charger. We know you can plug a USB cable into your PC or laptop, but that will almost always result in longer charging time. Even if you’re using a charger with lower wattage, an outlet will usually charge faster most of the time. While wireless charging pads are perfect for overnight use, a gold old-fashioned cable plugged into the wall is always better when you have little time to spare.

Don’t Use Your Phone While It’s Charging. It’s so tempting to fire off an urgent text or scroll through Instagram, but leave it alone. It will charge faster.

Consider Getting a Fast Charger. Nowadays, Apple and most Android makers don’t provide a charger with their phones. If you are still using a charger from an earlier phone, it’s probably a slow 5W model. You’re going to need at least a 20W charger to fast charge most current models. Also remember that there is a limit on wattage. You can’t buy a 100W charger and expect a 10-minute recharge. As an example, the iPhone 13 Pro Max has a charging ceiling of 27W.

Here are two of the better fast chargers:

• ArcStation Pro 40W Dual Charger from Spigen. If you have multiple phones in your household and fight for the charger, this dual charger will solve your problems. At 40W, you can fast-charge two phones at once. If one port is being used on its own, it can provide up to 30W for charging larger devices.
• Anker 725 Charger (Nano II 65W). This charger is a multi-tasker. The top port gives 20W of power for phone charging while the bottom can hit 45W. When every device you own is hitting that low power range, this is the charger you want around. Despite its power capabilities versus lower-wattage chargers, it’s still a very small adapter.