Day: June 24, 2026

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This flying solar-powered platform could deliver better internet from the air

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/24/1138771/solar-powered-platform-delivers-better-internet/

As soon as August, a giant silver bullet will cut its way through the dry air of the southwestern US and cross the Pacific to reach the coast of Japan. 

Once there, the roughly 200-foot-long craft, built by the New Mexico–based company Sceye, will park some 18 kilometers above the ocean’s surface, in a wispy-thin layer known as the stratosphere. Then it will use a custom-built antenna to supplement Softbank’s 5G network, a test that will include beaming data straight to devices. 

Sceye (pronounced “sky”) is one of several firms building a class of airborne craft called HAPS, or high-altitude platform stations or systems. Such a platform can be a plane or a balloon or, yes, an oblong craft filled with helium and outfitted with solar panels. HAPS companies, including the Airbus subsidiary Aalto, envision them serving a variety of lofty purposes, such as delivering internet service to disaster sites and observing Earth’s surface. 

a silver blimp-like aircraft hovering over a field
Hovering over Roswell, the high-altitude system is sheathed in lightweight, reflective fabric.
COURTESY OF SCEYE

The stratosphere is a good place to be if you want to cover a large area. It’s also much closer to the ground than even the lowest-orbiting satellites, which means sending down a signal takes far less energy. “What we ultimately offer is space-like conditions, without the cost of going to space and without the complexity of being in orbit,” says Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, Sceye’s CEO and founder.

But it’s also not so easy to stay there. Sceye’s aircraft, Frandsen says, has to be light enough to stay aloft but also strong enough to carry the necessary systems. It must soak up and store enough solar energy during the day to provide around-the-clock power to an electric fan that can maneuver the HAPS back into place when winds knock it out of position—mettle it proved in a 2024 test flight.

Since then, Sceye has been preparing for its big Japan test. In the flight pictured here from this spring, for example, the craft stayed aloft for 12 days as it flew to the coast of Brazil and spent more than 88 hours “parked” in various locations. Eventually, the company expects its platform could help satellite operators better serve densely populated areas.

Someday, Frandsen says, spotting a HAPS may be as common as seeing ships at port or trains on the tracks.

via Technology Review Feed – Tech Review Top Stories https://ift.tt/EQnGutH

June 24, 2026 at 04:14AM

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Cate Blanchett Launches ‘Human Consent Registry’ to Help Protect Your Likeness From AI Industry Scraping

https://gizmodo.com/cate-blanchett-launches-human-consent-registry-to-help-protect-your-likeness-from-ai-industry-scraping-2000776268

Is it a little ironic that someone who plays other people professionally is leading the charge in protecting people’s identities in the age of artificial intelligence? Sure, but it’s not like anyone else is doing anything about it.

On Tuesday, multi-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett announced the release of the Human Consent Registry, a new tool designed to help people control their likeness and how it can be used by AI systems.

The tool, which is being released by Blanchett’s non-profit RSL Media, allows people in the United States and the European Union to create a record of themselves that can be used to dictate how their identity can be interacted with by AI. “Your identity is your intellectual property, and every person should have a clear way to say what is, and is not, allowed to be used by AI systems,” the organization said in a press release.

How the registry works

Upon creating an account, users will be presented with a form that asks them for biographical information like name and profession, as well as ways to mark their identity like a website or social media account. They then choose an “AI use consent” level, which is set up like a stoplight: Prohibited (red light), Permitted with Terms (yellow), or Permitted (green). Once completed, the person will have a Human Consent ID, which AI systems are able to check before including any part of a person’s likeness in their training data.

“Your identity is your IP in the age of AI, and every person deserves the right to decide how AI can or cannot use it,” Blanchett said. “RSL Media’s free Human Consent Registry gives everyone a voice and a way to take action on AI permissions, helping to preserve and protect trust across the evolving AI landscape.”

According to RSL Media, this first tool will cover name, image, likeness, voice, movement and other signature or personal attributes for those who register through its platform. The organization plans to follow up the Human Consent Registry with similar simple registries for “Work,” “Characters,” and “Marks.”

Now, it should be noted that there does not appear to be any sort of enforcement method in place for making AI firms actually comply with this at this time, and you are turning over a lot of personal data to a third-party, so uploader beware. That said, it does build on the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standard, which has become a popular open protocol that was designed to establish AI usage rights and licensing terms for content. RSL has become a popular option for digital publishers, and with this new effort, RSL Media aims to extend that approach to human likeness.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/

June 23, 2026 at 04:52PM