New Better-Than-Radar Technology Will Boost Aircraft Tracking

As reported by GigaOm: As aircraft from more than a dozen countries continue to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, technology already being rolled out in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere could prevent a recurrence of a “lost” jet airliner.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology will provide more detailed tracking of planes than radar, even over water when planes are outside the scope of traditional radar. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has mandated that all aircraft flying over the continental U.S. be equipped with ADS-B  by 2020 — many newer planes already have it – and has deployed more than 600 ADS-B enabled ground stations nationwide.  But it takes time to retrofit existing gear and to build infrastructure, and ADS-B is still wending its way through the certification — a process some ADS-B  proponents hope will now be speeded up.

And some companies, including Globalstar, are pushing for adoption of “space-based” ADS-B which would send the signal up  – to a satellite network — as well as down, for continuous global monitoring.

“There is no way a Boeing 777 should be able to go missing in this day and age,” said Skip Nelson, CEO of Anchorage-based ADS-B Technologies. His company has developed technology called ALAS or the ADS-B Link Augmentation System. With ALAS, the ADS-B signal is basically copied and forwarded to a satellite system so that an airliner would be visible even over the ocean, mountainous terrain, or other places where there are no ADS-B ground antennas.

Radar bounces energy off a plane and interprets the return to determine basic information about the aircraft. With ADS-B, the plane has a transceiver or transponder that gets global navigation or GPS position data and combines it with the plane’s side number, airline, heading, altitude, and airspeed,” he said. In the future ADS-B equipped jets would be signaling data to a set of ground stations — and to other planes — throughout their journeys.

“In the case of the Malaysian Airlines jet,  we would have known that it was MA 370, a Boeing 777 and the ADS-B unit on the plane would be giving someone its information within 30 meters every second,” he said. ADS-B makes the plane “an active participant yelling its position to ground stations.”

Ah yes. Ground stations  – there can’t be many of them in the open ocean, right? Well, Globalstar says it could provide coverage worldwide with additional ground stations, each of which can cover a million square miles, according to Barbee Ponder, general counsel and VP of regulatory affairs for Globalstar.  ADS-B utilizes Globalstar for its work.

As Kevin Fitchard has written,  Globalstar and Iridium are pushing their respective satellite networks for use as consumer hotspots and now for air traffic control.

Aireon, a joint venture of Iridium Communications, and civil aviation bodies in Canada, Italy, Ireland and Denmark are also aboard the ADS-B bandwagon using Iridium’s satellite network and ground stations. Over open oceans, Aireon’s service will “piggy back”on aircraft transponders in the area to extend coverage in remote areas, said Don Thoma, Aireon CEO.

One issue in dispute following Malaysia 370′s disappearance is the cost of equipping planes with this gear, and here estimates vary wildly. Most published reports have put the cost at a rather nebulous several hundred thousand dollars per plane, but some disagree. Barbee said most planes can be retrofitted for $10,000 to $15,000 per plane for on-board gear, not including cost of the service. Aireon’s Thoma puts the price tag higher — to update an old plane, ADS-B enablement could cost $350,000 to $500,000 per aircraft, he said. Much depends on the age of the aircraft, and the higher numbers factor in costs of the data service as well.

Either way, as Nelson said,  it’s all relative.”It can cost $10 million to $20 million to build a radar installation. With ADS-B, we get the same information at one-twentieth the cost,” he said. In his view, ADS-B provides better, more detailed plane tracking, which means planes can be more closely spaced on takeoff and landing and routing can be better. That could mean huge fuel cost savings.  

And, while we’re talking cost, how much is this multi-nation search over vast expanses of the ocean costing? No one’s saying.

For more on ADS-B, check out this FAA video:

All-Electric Formula E Racing Kicks Off This Year

As reported by GigaOm: The Formula E electric racing car — the Spark-Renault SRT_01E — was shown off at the Bloomberg Energy conference in New York on Monday, just the second time that it’s been shown off in the U.S. For those not following the FIA’s first all-electric auto racing series, it will kick off in September of this year with races in 10 major city centers, starting with Beijing, and ending up in London, and will feature an hour-long race with these new electric race cars.

But as Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag said during an interview on Monday at the event, car racing has a long history of pushing the bar forward with the latest in transportation technology, because of the extreme conditions (high performance and power and strict rules) and Formula E will likely do the same. I learned about this positive benefit of car racing over the years, after attending the ReFuel electric car races in Laguna Seca, Calif., and reading about the Pike’s Peak electric motorcycle races.  

Electric car and motorcycle racing can potentially deliver important breakthroughs and innovations for the future of electric vehicles. That’s one reason why electric car companies like Renault, Tesla and others enter these races.

Agag says he hopes in years two, three and four of the race that technology will start to improve as a result of the racing conditions and the race will evolve to incorporate the new technology. For example, for this year’s race, each driver actually uses two cars, switching cars half way through the race, because the battery of the cars can only last half of the race (about 30 minutes) at such high performance and power. Some day, he hopes the hour-long drive can use just one car, said Agag.

Formula E is also using social media tech to make its race more interactive than traditional Formula One. The five racing teams that get the most tweets and votes during the event will be able to use a few-second battery boost in the race, which could be the difference between winning and losing. On that feature, Agag said during the interview that it might not be traditional, but it’ll be a lot of fun for spectators.

Another Regional Mobile Carrier Bites The Dust: Cincinnati Bell Sells Its Spectrum To Verizon

As reported by GigaOm: in a U.S. mobile industry dominated by mega-carriers, it’s becoming harder and harder for smaller regional carriers to survive. Cincinnati Bell became the latest case in point on Monday, announcing it is exiting the wireless business and selling off its spectrum to Verizon for $210 million.

As you might expect by its name Cincinnati Bell operates in southwestern Ohio, where it’s the incumbent telephone company offering phone, DSL, IPTV, fiber broadband and even electrical utility services to Cincinnati and its environs. Its wireless operations extend beyond its traditional wireline footprint into northwestern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana.

Cincinnati Bell is still one of the dominant mobile providers in its home territory but its wireless business has definitely seen better days. In its heyday in 2007 and 2008 it had close to 600,000 customers. It ended 2013 with 340,000 subscribers.

“It has become economically challenging for us to invest in our wireless business at the levels necessary to deliver best-in-class service to our customers,” Cincinnati Bell CEO and President Ted Torbeck said in a statement.

Verizon is buying the regional carrier’s spectrum because it has little use for its networks. While Verizon is the country’s largest CDMA operator, Cincinnati Bell uses the competing GSM standard for voice and HSPA for data services. Like so many of the regional carrier acquisitions we’ve seen in the last year — T-Mobile buying MetroPCS, AT&T buying Leap Wireless — this deal is about airwaves, not network assets or customers.


Cincinnati Bell’s mobile customers won’t have to scramble to find a new carrier – at least not yet. The companies don’t expect the deal to close until the second half of the year, and Cincinnati Bell said it would continue to offer service to its customers for 8 to 12 months after the deal’s signing.

NASA LADEE Lunar Probe Will Crash Into The Moon This Month

As reported by International Business Times: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is wrapping up its scientific mission and will crash into the moon at the end of the month. The space agency is not sure when the lunar probe will cause a new crater and is asking the public to take part in a “Take the Plunge” challenge with winners receiving a special LADEE certificate.

As reported by NASA, LADEE is entering the final stages of its lunar mission and is lowering its altitude in preparation of the lunar impact scheduled for later this month. The space agency believes LADEE will crash into the moon sometime around April 21. The total lunar eclipse on April 15 will push the lunar probe to the edge of what it was prepared to withstand but it should survive the four-hour event. Ahead of the eclipse, LADEE will perform its last orbital maintenance maneuver which positions the probe for a targeted impact on the far side of the moon.

Butler Hine, LADEE project manager, explains that the reason why there is some uncertainty about precisely when LADEE will crash into the moon is due to the lunar atmosphere. Hine said in a statement, "The moon's gravity field is so lumpy, and the terrain is so highly variable with crater ridges and valleys that frequent maneuvers are required or the LADEE spacecraft will impact the moon’s surface."

For those wanting to guess when LADEE will crash into the moon, NASA has set up the "Take the Plunge" challenge with the submission deadline set for April 11 at 6 p.m. EDT. You can submit your guess here and winners will receive a commemorative LADEE certificate.

LADEE launched on Sept. 6, 2013, and entered the lunar orbit on Oct. 6. The lunar probe has spent more than 100 days observing the moon’s atmosphere and lunar dust. LADEE also tested the effectiveness of the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration, achieving record-breaking transfer speeds. LADEE was equipped with three specialized instruments, the Ultraviolet/Visible Spectrometer (UVS); the Neutral Mass Spectrometer; and the Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX).

The UVS and NMS are used to observe the lunar atmosphere, with the former analyzing its composition and the latter measuring variations of the elements that comprise it. LDEX has collected dust samples and observed variations in lunar-dust density in regard to location, with more dust being observed in the lower altitudes of the atmosphere as well as the sunrise sector of the moon, notes NASA. The space agency says the LADEE mission has been successful, completing the 100-day main science objectives and collecting even more data than expected. While NASA is not targeting a specific lunar impact location for LADEE, it will search for the spot using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

An animation of the LADEE lunar impact, courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center, can be viewed below.

Google Wants To Launch Its Own Wireless Network

As reported by The Verge: Google is reportedly considering running its own wireless network. Sources tell The Information that company executives have been discussing a plan to offer wireless service in areas where it's already installed Google Fiber high-speed internet. Details are vague, but there are hints that it's interested in becoming a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO, buying access to a larger network at wholesale rates and reselling it to customers. Sources say that Google spoke to Verizon about the possibility in early 2014, and that it talked to Sprint about a similar possibility in early 2013, before the company was officially acquired by Softbank.

Currently, Fiber networks have been built in Kansas City, Missouri and Provo, Utah; a network is planned in Austin, Texas in the near future. Google also hopes to expand into Atlanta, Georgia; Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; and six other metro areas further down the line. Fiber has already put pressure on other broadband carriers: in the wake of Google's Austin announcement, AT&T quickly began installing its own high-speed fiber network, which it launched in late 2013. A move into wireless would take aim at the Verizon and AT&T duopoly and would almost certainly further complicate Google's relationship with carriers, turning it from a producer of phones like the Moto X to a direct competitor. Google already competes indirectly with phone companies through video and voice services, which it's been operating in some capacity for several years.

The Information speculates that Google's wireless network could depend partly on Wi-Fi access points built on the Fiber network, relying on carriers only when service is unavailable or insufficient. AT&T already uses this strategy, easing congestion by transferring users to Wi-Fi hotspots, and Google reached a partnership with Starbucks last year to provide internet access through 7,000 hotspots. In February, the company was said to be planning an app that would let users skip the login process and automatically connect to its networks, bringing a carrier-like seamless transfer closer. It's also partnered with other broadband providers in lobbying for more spectrum on which to build public Wi-Fi networks. Even if Google is poised to move into wireless broadband, its wired Fiber network is still tiny compared to major broadband providers, and a wireless network would only highlight that fact. But the company's penchant for ambitious experiments still makes it a definite possibility.

Tesla Model S Has Hidden Ethernet Port, User Runs Firefox On The Screen

As reported by Slashdot/Drag Times: While we’re testing the performance capabilities of the Tesla Model S by running it down the 1/4 mile in heads up races such as Tesla vs Corvette Stingray and Tesla vs Viper, others are digging deep into how the Tesla Model S functions internally.

Being the technical marvel that the Model S is with it’s 17″ multi-touch display, all digital dashboard, all electric drivetrain, remote control Apps and more,  along with the fact that the car was designed from the ground up with no predecessor, it’s no surprise that internally it’s using the latest technologies to run these systems.

Some tech savvy Model S owners have located a 4 pin connector (HSD 4 pole M12) on the left side of the Tesla Model S dashboard that turns out to be a disguised ethernet networking port.  After taking apart one end of an ethernet patch cable and trying different pin combinations to connect with the Tesla’s port, a networking connection was established between the Model S and a laptop computer.  This connection allowed for port scanning and data sniffing to explore  how the Tesla Model S systems communicate with each other and what services are running and used.

The car’s internal 100 Mbps, full duplex ethernet network consists of 3 devices with assiged IP addresses in the 192.168.90.0 subnet, the center console, dashboard/nav screen and one more unknown device.  Some ports and services that were open on the devices were:

• 22 (SSH)
• 23 (telnet)
• 53 (open domain)
• 80 (HTTP)
• 111 (rpcbind)
• 2049 (NFS)
• 6000 (X11)

Port 80 one one device was serving up a web page with the image or media of the current song being played.  The operating system is modified version of Ubuntu using an ext3 filesystem.

Using X11 it also appears that an owner was able to somewhat run Firefox on both screens as per the pictures.

All of this technology certain brings up the question as to when and if Telsa’s internal systems will be hacked and jailbroken to allow 3rd party applications to run on the large 17″ touchscreen.  Hacking your iPhone is one thing, hacking your car is quite another.

We should also note that apparently Tesla engineers detected this hacking or exploring and sent a nastygram to the cars owner, “Tesla USA engineers have seen a tentative of hacking on my car.”, “can be related to industrial espionage and advised me to stop investigation, to not void the warranty”.

Does Tesla have an network intrusion detection system installed on the cars?  Do they have the right to not allow you to tinker with your own car?

This is certainly going to be interesting as more Tesla’s hit the road and more people attempt to get into it’s systems.  So far just about every consumer device that’s been desired to be hacked into, has.

Congress Supports GPS-Backup System

As reported by PR Newswire: Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation announced that just hours after the US House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday to preserve infrastructure that could support a back-up system for GPS, the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system unexpectedly went out of service for 11 hours. 

On Tuesday afternoon, the first of April, the House passed the 2014 Coast Guard Authorization Act requiring the Department of Homeland Security to halt dismantling and disposal of infrastructure that could be used for a terrestrial system during times and in places where GPS is not available.  The Department had announced in 2008 that it would build such a system.  It never did so, and has recently begun divesting needed equipment and properties. This, in spite of a long standing presidential mandate for a system that could be used for critical infrastructure and applications in the event of a GPS outage. 

Some media reports link the 11 hour failure of the GLONASS system, Russia's equivalent of GPS, to a solar storm that struck at about the same time.  Others have speculated that it was cyber-attack, though most reports indicate that it was probably due to bad data being uploaded.  In April of 2010, a single satellite in the US Global Positioning System failed to respond to commands after a solar flare.  This is the first time an entire constellation of navigation satellites is known to have failed.

Congress has lately become more visibly concerned about the vulnerability of the nation's space systems.  Late last year the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act tasked the administration with reporting on how it was going to provide necessary national security capabilities when space systems were disrupted.  More recently, Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA), chair of the House Coast Guard and Marine Transportation Subcommittee, held a hearing at which he expressed his concern that the nation has no back-up for GPS.  He also expressed his frustration with the Department of Homeland Security saying "They said they need to do a study about their study."   Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), ranking member of the committee, commented "GPS will go down one day… the question is, is there a backup..?"  The legislation passed by the House was a result of Congressman Hunter and Garamendi's efforts.  It also authorizes DHS to partner with public or private entities to build a system that would not only backup GPS, but also work indoors, underground and underwater.

According to Mr. Dana Goward, President of the non-profit Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation which tracks these issues, such a project would be relatively inexpensive.  "If the existing equipment and infrastructure are preserved and reused, the system could be restored and put into operation for less than half the cost to dispose of it" Goward said.  "It isn't an issue of money, it is one of the government taking this problem seriously and acting on it."  The foundation has as offered to partner with the government to build the system.

"Our government has known about this issue for a long time," Goward said.  "At least since 2001.  And there has been a standing presidential direction to obtain back-up capability since 2004.  But for some reason, it hasn't yet happened."

About Resilient Navigation & Timing FoundationThe Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (www.rntfnd.org) is a Virginia 501(c)3 scientific and educational non-profit dedicated to:

• Educating the public and leaders about the importance of navigation and timing signals, as well as the need for resilience
• Supporting stronger laws and better enforcement to combat jamming and spoofing
• Supporting establishment of a strong, difficult-to-disrupt terrestrial signal to augment and be used alongside GNSS

RNT Foundation Corporate members:

AFCEA International
Chronos Technology
The Institute of Navigation
iPosi
Locata Corporation
The Maritime Alliance
The National Defense Industrial Association
Nautel Incorporated
Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services
Research and Radionavigation (GLA)
UrsaNav Incorporated