Field telephones were standard on the battlefield from the 1910s through the 1980s, with the EE-8 field telephone (1930s–Vietnam) offering a 7-mile range. The SCR-300 Walkie-Talkie, developed by Galvin Manufacturing (Motorola) in 1940, was the first backpack FM radio with about a 3-mile range. SINCGARS, fielded by the U.S. Army in the late 1980s, has…
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WorldSpace, founded in 1990, launched the first satellite radio broadcasts in October 1999 over Africa and the Middle East, with India accounting for 90% of its subscribers before filing for bankruptcy in 2008 and ceasing broadcasts in 2009. XM Satellite Radio launched its first satellite in March 2001 and began broadcasting to U.S. customers on…
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In late 2022, Apple launched Emergency SOS via satellite on the iPhone 14 series, enabling two-way emergency texting via Globalstar satellites. As of iOS 17 and later, iPhone 14/15 users in supported regions can share their location and send basic non-emergency texts via satellite, with two years of free service after activation before a paid…
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Telstar 1 (NASA) transmitted the first live television signals via satellite in 1962, linking Europe and North America. Syncom 2 became the first geosynchronous satellite in 1963, and Syncom 3 in 1964 broadcast the Tokyo Olympics to the United States. Intelsat I (Early Bird) was launched in 1965 as the world’s first commercial communications satellite…
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TIROS-1, launched by NASA on April 1, 1960, weighed about 120 kg and transmitted over 19,000 cloud images in 78 days, proving the concept of space-based weather observation. GOES-16 (GOES-East), launched in 2016 as part of the GOES-R series, delivers 0.5 km resolution imagery across 16 spectral bands and can scan as often as 30…
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The CORONA (Discoverer) program operated from 1959 to 1972 as the United States’ first photo-reconnaissance satellite program, with Discoverer XIV achieving the first mid-air film recovery in August 1960. KH-11 KENNEN (CRYSTAL), first launched in 1976, introduced electro-optical digital imaging with about 15 cm per-pixel resolution, and a 2019 declassified image from USA-224 reportedly achieved…
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The Black Knight legend links Nikola Tesla’s 1899 reports of periodic radio signals from Colorado Springs to the idea of an ancient satellite in Earth orbit. In 1927 Jørgen Hals observed long-delayed echoes, and in 1973 Duncan Lunan claimed a star map pointing to Epsilon Boötes suggesting a 13,000-year-old alien probe, later retracting parts of…
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Google Cloud Speech AI provides Text-to-Speech with 380+ voices across 50+ languages using WaveNet/Neural2, Speech-to-Text in 125+ languages, and Custom Voice generally available in 2024. Azure Speech Service offers Neural Text-to-Speech with 446 voices in 144 languages (as of mid-2024), Speech-to-Text in 75+ languages, and Custom Neural Voice with cloud or on-prem deployment. Amazon Polly…
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Perseids peak on August 12–13, 2025 with 50–100 meteors per hour in the Northern Hemisphere, best after midnight as the Moon wanes. Geminids peak on December 13–14, 2025 with 100+ meteors per hour and the first-quarter Moon sets early. Quadrantids peak on January 3–4, 2026 with about 120 meteors per hour over roughly a four-hour…
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Quantix Prime AI is a web-based automated trading platform that acts as a marketing platform connecting users to partner brokers, with trading accounts and funds actually held by the brokers. It claims to use advanced AI algorithms that scan real-time price feeds, historical charts, news and social sentiment to identify profitable trades and operate 24/7.…
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