Every week, Ken Whittaker, Director of Engineering, and Neal Cook, Director of Support at Front Rush, review recent tech news, offering analysis and banter about changes in tech.
Neal: Aloha, Kenneth! Another week, another Tuesday, where does the time go?
Ken: Hey Neal, I hope you had a good week. This week was pretty quiet in the tech world, however, we scoured the interwebs to dig up the best stories from the week.
Neal: Even if I had a bad week, I’d say it was a good week. “How’s it going?“, should be replaced with a different question. You get the same answers all of the time. I do hope you and all our readers had fantastic, dream filled weeks.
To the tech front, one little bit of news that is really mind-blowing if you think about it, is Microsoft’s plan to bring broadband internet to an estimated 34 million Americans, 23.4 million of them in rural areas. How do they plan to do this? Well, it’s quite simple, they are going to use the ‘white space’ in between TV channels to give the household broadband Internet access.
It really confused me at first. White Spaces are gaps between television channels on the wireless spectrum below 700 MHz. Scientists have figured out a way to turn that unused ‘white space’ into internet for those who are in rural areas with either no access to internet (or over-expensive internet).
It’s a massive undertaking, and would need wide-adoption to be successful. It still boggles me that some households do not have access to internet. It’s become critical in all aspects of life, especially education. I’d love to see this take off and provide more Americans with access to the web.
Ken: Yea, and I think it’s great that such a big company – like Microsoft – is spearheading this. The article we read mentions that there has been some success already with similar projects in 17 countries around the world. Sometimes we take it for granted, because many of us live in overpopulated areas. It’s a no brainer for a company to invest in an area where hundreds of thousands of potential customers live. Those more remote places might not show such promising results. However, if this technology proves to be effective, Microsoft will be the only game in town – literally. And while we’re on the topic of location, let’s switch to this Hyperloop. It’s kind of ironic how on one hand, we have Microsoft trying to bring broadband internet to places in this country that don’t have it, and on the other we have Elon Musk trying to build a super fast speed line between major cities in the Northeast.
Neal: Elon Musk tweeted “Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins,” though, this hasn’t been confirmed by the White House or anyone else in government.
Ask any European what they think about the state of America’s public transit, and they’ll laugh in your face. The few subways we do have in the east coast fail in comparison to the transportation across the pond. We all agree that quicker transit is a win-win. The average American commutes 100 hours a year to work and would greatly benefit from such improvements to our infrastructure. The Hyperloop could travel up to 800mph (double the speed of an airplane), while whisking passengers in low-pressure steel tubes. I am a big fan of Musk and I hope that this project takes off just like Microsoft’s internet initiative. How do you see this playing out?
Ken: Well, like you said it hasn’t yet been confirmed – but I like the idea of it. Of course, this also wouldn’t just go up overnight, but Musk is ambitious and I think he’s got the right mindset to get the job done. While the ability to jump across a few states in under a half hour is appealing, the price tag might not be. I’ll be really interested to follow this story and see how it pans out. The idea of giving people more time to spend with their families or explore areas that might typically need to take place over a few days is a great concept. Plus, who doesn’t want to be stuck in a metal tube going 800mph first thing in the morning?
Neal: That would definitely give you an extra jolt with your morning joe. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see these both progress over the next few years.
With that being said, it’s time to say goodbye for another week. Don’t forget to be your unique self this weekend. You’re one hell of a guy. See ya!
Ken: Thanks, Neal – next week we’ll have to find a topic we can banter more about!