Elon Musk Archives - Exhibit Tech

Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell Service Offers Texting in 2024, Voice and Data in 2025

SpaceX’s Starlink is poised to revolutionize how we stay connected, as they’re venturing into the cosmic domain with its Direct to Cell satellite phone service. Scheduled for liftoff next year, the groundbreaking service promises seamless compatibility with your existing smartphones and, in the not-so-distant future, access to text, voice, and data services.

A dedicated page on the Starlink website outlines the grand vision, with Direct to Cell’s text messaging service set to debut in 2024, followed by the integration of voice and data capabilities in 2025. The prospect is nothing short of awe-inspiring, with Starlink envisioning “ubiquitous access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters.”

Furthermore, this innovative service will be pivotal in connecting many IoT (Internet of Things) devices, forging a bridge between technology and our daily lives. Starlink’s ambitious satellite communication venture first took flight last year in collaboration with T-Mobile US. Their initial goal was to establish coverage across the continental United States, Hawaii, parts of Alaska, Puerto Rico, and US territorial waters. Looking ahead, they plan to enlist global carriers as partners to expand their reach even further.

Today, their reciprocal global access partners list includes Rogers in Canada, Optus in Australia, One NZ in New Zealand, Salt in Switzerland, and KDDI in Japan. The Direct to Cell service is designed to seamlessly work with existing LTE phones, ensuring that no alterations to your phone hardware, firmware, or special applications are necessary for you to unlock access to text, voice, and data. While it remains uncertain whether “existing LTE phones” imply a 4G service, the prospect of 5G compatibility may be on the horizon.

Described as “a cellphone tower in space,” the service promises to integrate with partner networks much like a standard roaming agreement. This means that when you venture beyond the reach of your provider’s cell tower, you can seamlessly transition to the direct-to-cell service provided by your global partner network. As for the pricing details, Starlink has kept them under wraps for now.

Nevertheless, the world eagerly awaits the moment when this cosmic communication service will become a reality. Amidst the buzz surrounding satellite connectivity, driven in part by Apple’s satellite support in the iPhone 14, Starlink’s Direct to Cell venture is set to redefine the way we stay connected, both on Earth and beyond.

However, Starlink has its cosmic competitors and potential regulatory challenges. AT&T has raised concerns about Starlink operating services using T-Mobile’s spectrum, citing possible interference with its terrestrial cellphone services. It seems that the race to the stars is on, and the future of connectivity promises to be out of this world.

From Twitter to X: What’s in a name?

Twitter was undoubtedly one of the strongest brands in the world. The brand was so significant that the Oxford dictionary included the word ‘Tweet’ in it, no other social media platform has been able to do that yet. However, under the leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter came crashing down literally. It started off with major layouts followed by user complaints about the new leadership. The introduction of the paid verified check mark titled ‘Twitter Blue’ (now known as X Premium) changed the face of social media entirely. The verified check mark was considered a status symbol which is now also sold by Zuckerberg’s Meta.

The evolving phase of Twitter and Elon Musk’s leadership changed the face of the platform entirely, from Twitter to X! Before you jump in to understand what the change means, here’s why Musk decided to change the iconic brand name shared by the man himself on X –

“Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”

So… what will the app do now?

Elon Musk has been nothing but vocal about his goal of Turning X (fka Twitter) into an all-purpose platform. China’s WeChat can be considered a goal Musk is trying to achieve as there is no American or global equivalent to such a versatile application. X already allows users to engage in live audio conversations in the form of Spaces, longer posts and broadcasting live videos have also become a thing on the platform.

In simple terms, Musk envisions X to be your go-to platform for everything ranging from news to entertainment. While many users including me believe that the change of brand from Twitter to X is downright unnecessary, one cannot overlook the fact that the platform is indeed evolving for the good. However, the term ‘X Premium Subscription’ reflected in my bank balance sheet does not sit well with my parents!

What about Twitter?

To put it nicely, it’s dead!

The tech billionaire has done away with Twitter and its familiar blue bird logo. Several parts of the platform have also made a switch like X Premium and the Twitter Help Center changing to X Help Center.

Musk has wiped his hands clean from the Twitter branding to the point where more than 580 items of the former Twitter brand will be auctioned off in mid-September. So, whether we agree with Musk or not, we all have to bid goodbye to the iconic Twitter brand forever. Rest it peace little blue bird!

Elon Musk VS Mark Zuckerberg: Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads

If you haven’t been living under a rock then you’re well aware of the fact that Meta recently launched the Threads platform which is a direct competition to Twitter. The Internet had a field day yesterday when users flocked to the newly launched platform to share their views predominantly on Twitter vs Threads. The newly launched platform saw thirty million users signing up on the first day, which is not a surprise for me as Threads has the benefit of launching under the Instagram brand, it’s borderline nepotism, to say the least. While Threads has already become a definitive platform in the social media circle, Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta.

Twitter threatens legal action against Meta

Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro accused Meta of using their company’s trade secrets by ‘hiring dozens of former employees of the blue-bird app’ Elon’s takeover of Twitter resulted in many employees laid off which became talk of the town back in February. Reacting to this latest development, Musk tweeted that he supported good competition but not ‘cheating’. Musk replied to a news article about Twitter’s potential legal action against Meta writing “Competition if fine, cheating is not”

Spiro, who also works as Elon Musk’s personal lawyer has alleged Meta of systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property. Twitter claims that its former employee still had access to its crucial confidential information which was used to build a “copycat” application.

Spiro wrote in a letter, “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information”

On the other hand, Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, stated in a Threads post that the engineering team at Threads does not consists of any former Twitter employees. Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino also took a dig at Meta’s Threads recently saying that Twitter can be imitated, but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.

Instagram all set to compete Twitter with new application

Twitter has been going through a dramatic meltdown ever since Elon Musk took command of the platform. Just recently, Musk revealed that Twitter will be limiting how many tweets a user sees down to just a thousand for non-paying users. It won’t be wrong to state that Twitter is no longer the platform is used to and the changed leadership has caused more damage than one could’ve initially imagined. Taking advantage of a failing platform, Facebook parent Meta is all set to launch a microblogging app of their own titled – Threads.

Twitter competitor on the way

Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation application is expected to be released on July 6, 2023. This platform will allow users to follow the same people they follow on the photo and video sharing platform of Instagram along with having the same username. The launch comes merely days after Twitter announced the restrictions on their app.

The application is already live on Apple’s App Store. The description for the same read – “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

while Threads is closely connected to the Instagram platform, it is a standalone application which is an interesting approach, to say the least. There is no definitive information on how the application will operate as of now. However, it looks like users can like, comment, repost, and share posts on it. It will be interesting to see if Meta is able to migrate hardcore Twitter users to their platform. The general consensus about the new Meta platform has been rather underwhelming on Twitter with many users straight up saying they’re not interested in it. One of the tweets I read was something along the line of – “It’s a Meta product, so we won’t use it” which was followed by a good chunk of likes and replies.

Musk Strikes Back – Twitter’s Tweet Limitation Drama Continues

In the aftermath of Twitter’s decision to limit the number of tweets users can view, Elon Musk, the platform owner, took to Twitter on Sunday morning to humorously urge people to detach themselves from their phones and spend quality time with their loved ones instead.

you awake from a deep trance,
step away from the phone
to see your friends & family

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2023

Musk’s light-hearted remark aimed at Twitter users coincided with the backlash the micro-blogging site faced due to its new policy of temporarily restricting tweet views. In his tweet, the Twitter CEO advised users to awaken from their technological trance and engage with friends and family, stepping away from their smartphones.

Following Musk’s announcement on Saturday that unverified users could view up to 600 posts per day and newly unverified accounts limited to 300 posts per day while Twitter Blue subscribers are limited to reading 6000 posts per day, numerous users flooded Twitter feeds with suggestions that Musk’s underlying motive behind the rule was to amass more subscribers.

To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:

– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
– New unverified accounts to 300/day

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023

However, the Twitter CEO explained that the decision was made to combat excessive data scraping and system manipulation. He later revised the limits to 800 and 8,000, respectively. Five hours later, Musk tweeted again, stating that the new limits would be 1,000 for unverified accounts and 10,000 for verified users.

As a result of the imposed restrictions, users found themselves locked out of Twitter for the day once they reached their daily limit. Shortly after Saturday’s announcement, the term ‘Twitter down’ began trending on the platform, with numerous users expressing frustration over their inability to access the site. Approximately 7,500 individuals reported difficulties accessing Twitter at one point on Saturday, according to Downdetector, a website that monitors online outages.

pic.twitter.com/C7eUC1saNt

— Infy (@omgitsinfy) July 2, 2023

Musk’s recent tweet, where he glorified achieving a new record view count, also sparked a flood of memes in response. However, some users voiced concerns that the new policy could adversely affect businesses attempting to promote their ventures on the platform, as they may struggle to reach their intended audience. Previously, Twitter had taken various measures to win back advertisers who had left the platform during Musk’s ownership and to enhance subscription revenue, such as incorporating verification check marks into the Twitter Blue program.

Earlier, Musk had expressed dissatisfaction with the aggressive data scraping activities of numerous organizations, which significantly impacted the user experience on Twitter. He also voiced his disapproval of Artificial Intelligence firms like OpenAI, the entity behind ChatGPT, for utilizing Twitter’s data to train their large language models.

Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink wins FDA approval

Elon Musk’s ambitious brain-implant company Neuralink has been under controversy and public scrutiny ever since its inception. The much-talked-about company aims to implant human brains with a chip that can control electronic devices like computers and phones. The concept sounds something straight out of a Black Mirror episode and has been mercilessly trolled on the internet for being dystopian but that did not stop Elon and the company from working on it tirelessly. The company also entered some troubled waters when it was revealed that its animal testing is being needlessly rushed causing irresponsible deaths. Now, after years worth of controversies, Neuralink finally has the green light to begin human clinical trials.

FDA Approves Human Trials for Neuralink

Neuralink took to Twitter and announced that it has gained FDA approval for a first-in-human study. The company wrote – “We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study! This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people. Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!”

Musk’s vision of brain implant chips could cure a number of human conditions such as obesity, autism, depression, and schizophrenia. The chip implant also aims at enabling web browsing and telepathy. The billionaire had previously made the statement that he was so confident in the device’s safety that he would be willing to implant them into his own children… I say let’s start with him getting chipped first (Maybe he already is?)

Musk has been hyping up Neuralink’s human trials since 2019 but the company only sought FDA approval in early 2022. The agency had previously rejected the approval application pointing out several concerns which needed to be addressed before sanctioning human trials. One of the major issues revolved around the lithium battery of the device and the possibility of the implant’s wiring migrating within the brain. FDA had also challenged the company’s safety of extracting the device without causing any brain damage. It will be interesting to see whether Neuralink’s efforts will come to fruition and the future where getting chipped is as common as getting vaccinated comes to reality but I surely hope for the opposite!

Tesla workers passed around sensitive content recorded by customer cars

Data privacy has become a matter of grave concern in the modern world. on one hand, we have AI technologies getting challenged by governments around the world over data privacy concerns. On the other hand, we’ve got social media platform leaders like TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew getting grilled by Congress over the same data privacy issues. In today’s time, one can never be sure when your data can be compromised and misused leading to notorious cybercrimes including the leaking of sensitive data causing massive damage to one’s life. Now, a special report by Reuters has revealed Tesla employees privately shared highly invasive videos and images of users recorded by the customers’ car cameras.

Tesla’s Misuse of customer data

Recently, Reuters sat down for an interview with nine former employees of Tesla where it was revealed that passing around customer footage in one-on-one chats is a rather common occurrence in the company. One ex-employee of the company shared that the recordings usually caught Tesla customers in embarrassing situations, one of the videos showcased a man approaching a Tesla vehicle completely naked. Crashes and road rage incidents were also commonly shared amongst workers in the company.

One crash video from 2021 showed a Tesla hitting a child riding a bike at high speed. The ex-employee claimed that the child and bike could be seen flying in opposite directions after the hit in the video which spread “like wildfire” in the Tesla office in San Mateo, California. This is truly a disturbing development as Tesla has always been vocal about customer privacy being important to them.

Tesla states in its online Customer Privacy Note that the camera recordings done by its cars remain anonymous and not linked to the customers or their vehicles. Whereas, one of the ex-employee revealed that some of the recordings appeared to have been made when the cards were parked and turned off. Tesla has not yet shared an official response to all the detailed questions sent by Reuters based on this report.

Tesla disrupts the market with global price cuts

Tesla has been under a lot of heat in recent days having fallen short of market expectations in quarterly deliveries and Elon Musk getting criticised for having too much on his plate with his recent Twitter takeover. The company lost 65% of its market value in 2022 which could be a matter of concern for any carmaker but continued to be the world’s most valuable automaker even after the loss. it is evident that Tesla needs to get its wind back by increasing sales at a time when demand is going down and it looks like the company might have found a solution!

Tesla global price cut

Tesla has cut down the prices of its cars in the US and Europe by as much as 20%. An extensive discounting effort has been undertaken in order to challenge its rivals and make up for the missed out delivery estimates for 2022. This move marks a monumental shift in Tesla’s strategy where new vehicle orders usually exceeded supply. This move comes after Musk had previously warned that a recession is right around the corner that could lower prices all around the market to sustain growth and keep profits low.

It was Elon himself who had acknowledged that the Tesla car prices had become ’embarrassingly high’ in recent years that could ultimately hurt demand. Tesla shares are currently down 0.9% after falling as low as 6.4% on Friday. Whereas, 2022 was the year when Tesla experienced its worst year since the company’s start. The downfall was blamed on China’s slowing growth and Musk’s undivided focus on getting Twitter on its feet.

As of now, Tesla has lowered prices across the USA, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The company made several price cuts in Asia just last week. Analysts claim that the price cuts in Tesla vehicles will allow demand to go up and increase pressure on the rivals. It will be interesting to see how Tesla turns out to perform in 2023.

Global billionaires lost nearly $2 trillion in 2022

We have stepped into the new year over the past weekend but the horrors of 2022 do not seem to catch a break. The previous year, 2022, was a bad one for billionaires who went through a hard time. With tech billionaires having to let go of their workforce in massive layoffs, crypto moguls getting arrested, the stock market plummeting, wars, and alarming inflation, it was definitely a challenging year, to say the least. However, the total amount of wealth lost by tech giants and billionaires, in general, was a whopping $1.9 trillion dollars!

According to a report by Forbes, the planet’s billionaires lost $1.9 trillion in 2022. The collective wealth of the elite dropped from $13.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion, whereas, the number of billionaires around the world also took a hit. Reports suggest that nearly 150 people lost billionaire status this year with the overall number dropping from 2,671 to 2,523 billionaires. Big names like Sam Bankman and the controversial Kanye West famously lost their billionaire status in 2022.

However, the horrors are truly witnessed in the tech sector where around 300 tech billionaires lost $1 trillion in the previous year. After showing an outlandish boom in 2020-21, the tech sector took massive hits costs plummeting, layoffs, and dropping share prices. Forbes reports that Amazon shares have dropped nearly 50%, wiping off $80 billion from Jeff Bezos’ net worth. Whereas, Google’s parent Alphabet and Microsoft’s stock slid 36% and 27% respectively. Mark Zuckerberg took one of his biggest hits this year with Meta’s stock falling down by 66% amounting to $78 billion wiped off his net worth. The biggest loser of 2022 was, however, Elon Musk who lost over $115 billion in 2022. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has been busy working his way to ‘restore free speech’ on Twitter which has concerned investors and stakeholders leading to a massive net worth loss. What do you think 2023 looks like for tech billionaires around the world?