The title I posted is what I got out of the RSS feed. I did not touch it manually and neither did my agent but I would consent to the change.
It does remind though that I’d better get rid of a swollen laptop battery I have in my wood shed. Might be fun to hit it with a few round balls which will liberate any energy left in it.
I could have sworn though that an earlier version of this articles had some photos of the damage.
As a technologist, this is an incredible development.
As a backpacker and avid hiker, no thank you. I go outside to intentionally avoid screens and the internet/connected world. Fortunately I can just not buy this and it won’t have an impact on my life.
Another interesting thing I’m curious about is if this would provide any benefits to SAR crews over traditional sat phones. I could potentially see some benefits there, maybe, but I guess time will tell.
> I’m curious about is if this would provide any benefits to SAR crews over traditional sat phones.
For their communications, I doubt it, unless they happen to need low-latency video (e.g. for telemedicine for complicated cases). Existing solutions are pretty robust, and for anything you use on the move you probably want an omnidirectional antenna you don't have to rest on some surface in operation.
I could imagine this being interesting for drone-based/agumented missing person search, though!
> Fortunately I can just not buy this and it won’t have an impact on my life.
Thank you for saying this. So many people have a knee-jerk reaction of "this will ruin the outdoors" or "this means I can never disconnect anymore", which both kind of imply a concerning lack of agency. The outdoors are large enough for everybody, and nobody can force you to buy and bring one of these things!
It could make it easier to stream music, I’ve come across people who play music on Bluetooth speakers during their hikes. It is really weird behavior that spoils the area around them. Then again, they could just download the music if they are really that devoted to being a nuisance.
Yeah, I'm also really not a fan of this. But as you say, this doesn't require an Internet connection.
Then again, I've also encountered large groups of hikers basically screaming to be able to all hear each other, sometimes while walking on narrow trails (making overtaking hard). It really doesn't take technology for people to be unaware of the space that they're in and be inconsiderate to others.
My first thought was "by backpacker they must mean the rucksack and machine gun variety protecting ukraine because not many backpackers want technology intruding on their expedition"
Chris Harris did it back in 2013 with two ICE vehicles (G63 AMG pulling a Fiesta ST) when the modern EV era was just getting started and none were officially rated to tow: https://youtu.be/5Ea7k3VAdi8
Don't forget the eastern hemlock, which is being decimated by the hemlock woolly adelgid:
> The adelgid has spread very rapidly in southern parts of the range once becoming established, while its expansion northward is much slower. Virtually all the hemlocks in the southern Appalachian Mountains have seen infestations of the insect within the last five to seven years, with thousands of hectares of stands dying within the last two to three years.
