In the past, individuals have only utilized satellite internet when they had no other choice, but with the advent of Starlink, that has begun to change. Traditional satellite internet providers aren’t giving up despite SpaceX’s explosive growth in its satellite broadband business. Following the summertime launch of a new communication satellite, HughesNet has begun to provide competitive 100Mbps speeds in the US, matching those of Starlink. It’s still playing catch-up, though.

The new Jupiter 3 satellite (above), the company’s first Ultra High Density Satellite (UHDS), is the key to HughesNet’s speed enhancement. Ironically, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket—one of the least expensive ways to launch big cargoes into space—placed Jupiter 3 into a high geostationary orbit. Over the past few years, SpaceX has used the Falcon 9 rocket to launch thousands of smaller communication satellites at a low cost, which has put pressure on HughesNet to boost speeds.

HughesNet was charging $75 a month for a maximum of 25Mbps before Jupiter 3 went up this week. Given that Starlink can supply over 200Mbps for a little bit extra, that was a difficult sell. However, Starlink performance has reduced to about 100Mbps or less in many areas. The new 100Mbps service will have a monthly price of $90; however, the monthly bandwidth is limited to 200GB. Your speeds will drastically decrease once your “priority access” for the month is used up. Starlink toyed with the idea of a data cap before deciding on a broader fair-use policy.

Although Jupiter 3 is roughly the size of a bus and has solar panels that allow it to go as high as a ten-story skyscraper, SpaceX’s current Starlink satellites are smaller than a vehicle. This results from HughesNet’s more centralized method of providing internet. During Starlink’s early expansion, it has been sluggish to get better, although only one new satellite has tripled maximum data speeds. According to the business, Jupiter 3 expanded the network’s overall bandwidth by 500 gigabits, and its capacity to independently steer 300 spot beams effectively distributes that bandwidth.

However, HughesNet is still lagging behind Starlink. Jupiter 3 will definitely still have a higher latency than Starlink due to its high orbit. In order to lower latency, HughesNet has a “Fusion” plan for $110/month that combines satellite and terrestrial cellular networks. The maximum upload speed offered by HughesNet is 5Mbps, which is still inadequate. Although Starlink isn’t particularly fast, most users may still get about 20 Mbps from it. However, the company’s future remains questionable. Although HughesNet’s service is nearly on par with Starlink’s, at this point there are no scheduled satellite launches. SpaceX is currently in the process of accelerating the deployment of Starlink nodes through the launch of the Starship rocket.

Facebook formally relaunched as Meta back in late 2021. It also declared at the time that it was changing course and going to concentrate on creating the Metaverse, which was essentially a 3D environment where your avatar could engage with people in novel and fascinating ways. Naturally, a VR headset is required to enter the metaverse, and Meta sells them. As is well known, the metaverse is still not widely accepted, and a recent survey on VR device sales suggests that it may never acquire sufficient traction to materialize. Meta continues to pour billions of dollars into the project even though it was unable to get off the ground.

The most recent data on VR gadget sales comes from Circana, an industry research company. CNBC obtained the data, which showed a 40% decrease in sales of VR equipment and alternate reality goggles this year over last. Although sales of the troubled gadgets fell by just 2% overall last year, this is a sharp reduction for them. Though it was still a $1 billion industry in 2022, VR/AR is now distinctly less so. Simultaneously, CNBC reports that Meta’s VR/AR division lost $3.7 billion in the third quarter of 2023 alone, bringing its total losses since the company’s rebranding two years ago to above $25 billion.

A killer app that everyone wants to play or use, as well as a dearth of interesting devices for people to use, seem to be the causes of the downturn. In October of this year, Meta itself launched the Quest 3, and Sony debuted the PSVR2 gadget. According to CNBC, while sales of Sony’s latest headset have not performed well, Meta’s latest headset has caused a 42% increase in sales when compared to the same quarter last year. In the near future, Apple will also be making its $3,500 Vision Pro headset available on the market.

2024 appears to be the year that VR gadgets make or break based on all of these advances. Apple is joining the market, but it isn’t joining the metaverse with its product since it is intended to be used by an individual to enjoy content on their own, not in a networked setting with other people. Thus, Meta will bear the primary responsibility for advancing the metaverse.

Because of the confusion caused by the advent of AI, it’s not entirely obvious where Meta’s attention lies at the moment. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March that the business was changing course and concentrating on integrating AI into every product. Shortly after Zuckerberg’s remarks, the firm softened their stance slightly, saying that while it was still focused on the metaverse, it might take some time to come to pass. To be fair to Meta, the business has said that it will take ten years to construct the metaverse, so we should anticipate seeing it completely realized by 2032 or thereabouts.

Additionally, the business reaffirmed this week its dedication to emerging technologies, which now include artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse. The company is counting on these two technologies to be Meta’s future, and its chief technology officer and virtual affairs officer wrote that they have already started to intersect. The company’s new AI-powered glasses, which have an integrated AI assistant that can respond to inquiries about the user’s surroundings, are one tangible illustration of this.

iPhone owners have relished the exclusivity of blue iMessage bubbles in their conversations for almost ten years. That changed in 2023 with the arrival of the Android underclass, thanks to apps like Beeper that break into Apple’s system and reverse engineer it. Apple has been retaliating against Beeper, but the app has come up with new ways to get around it. However, Apple has won the most recent game of cat and mouse. The new workaround for Beeper greatly reduces the convenience of the service.

On non-Apple devices, it is not possible to log into iMessage by yourself. This is a messaging system that works in conjunction with text messaging; when the iPhone detects that you are contacting another iPhone user, the communication automatically goes through Apple’s servers instead of sending a traditional SMS. Longer messages, HD media, typing indications, and more can be accessed in iMessage in this way. When an Android user sends a message to an iPhone, they are represented as green SMS bubbles devoid of any functionality.

Apple has done a fantastic job of discrediting Android with this unequal communications, although Android phone numbers can participate in iMessage using apps like Beeper and Nothing’s Sunbird-based chat software. Apple is free to obstruct Beeper’s access to iMessage, even as Beeper is free to assist users in using it. The company decided to delay charging for the service while resolving its dispute with Apple.

Apple has been able to disable Beeper’s workaround at every opportunity. To elucidate the latest development in the iMessage story, the Beeper developers have resorted to Reddit. “Registration data” is a packet that needs to be sent when you connect to iMessage. In the past, Beeper’s service relayed data utilizing a fleet of Mac computers housed in a data center. Users must, however, exchange registration information as a result. Apple has blocked Beeper users using this method.

You must create your own registration data with the most recent version of Beeper, which necessitates a Mac computer. Similar to iPhones, Macs come pre-installed with iMessage functionality. Using the registration data, the Beeper Cloud app will link you to iMessage on your Android device. But the Mac must always be online because this info needs to be refreshed around once every week. Additionally, Beeper advises using a friend’s Mac to create the registration data. According to the business, ten to twenty users can share the same data without drawing Apple’s notice.

A few years ago, these clumsy iMessage workarounds might have been useful, but times are changing. It was recently confirmed by Apple that iOS would now enable RCS messaging. Android users will finally enjoy modern text features when speaking with iPhone users, however it presumably won’t have all the functionality of iMessage. When RCS becomes available in a year, nobody will want to bother with iMessage workarounds anymore.