A Starlink terminal in the wild. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The EU has signed a deal for its IRIS² constellation of 290 communication satellites that will operate in both medium and low Earth orbit. The Starlink rival will provide secure connectivity to governmental users as well as private companies and European citizens, and bring high-speed internet to dead-zones. The public-private deal valued at €10.6 billion (about $11 billion), according to The Financial Times, is expected to come online by 2030. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the interlinked satellites placed into different orbits will “enable the constellation to communicate securely and quickly and remain constantly connected without needing thousands of satellites.” SpaceX, by comparison, has already launched some 7,000 low Earth satellites since 2018 to ensure Starlink’s global coverage and low latencies. The IRIS² constellation will consist of 264 spacecraft in low Earth orbit and 18 in medium Earth orbit. SpaceRISE — a consortium led by European satellite network operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, and supported by European satcom subcontractors like Airbus and Deutsche Telekom — has been given a 12-year concession contract to develop, deploy, and operate the IRIS² constellation. IRIS² is an acronym for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite.“This cutting-edge constellation will protect our critical infrastructures, connect our most remote areas and increase Europe’s strategic autonomy. By partnering with the SpaceRISE consortium, we are demonstrating the power of public-private collaboration to drive innovation and deliver tangible benefits to all Europeans,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.In September, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said she wanted to see more competition to Elon Musk’s Starlink. “Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies... every communications market that has competition is strong, we see lower prices and more innovation, and honestly, space should be no exception.”Update, December 17th: Added details on the numbers of satellites in the constellation.

Besides writing articles like these, I occasionally make videos about cool gadgets. I have a Sony a6400 APS-C camera that I use to make videos and I absolutely love how compact yet powerful it is. However, there are times when I use my smartphone to record, since it's more convenient, and I have some of the best smartphone cameras in my arsenal. It's also useful for when I haven't charged my camera's battery and need to record something quickly. While working with a phone is rather straightforward, the only disadvantage is the limited visibility on the small screen.

I don't know about you, but there's something about the older Microsoft accessories that have that certain charm to them. Unfortunately, the Redmond giant had to let go of its accessories, but it did partner up with a company called Incase to continue their legacy. Now, we're seeing the first entries from the range, which makes me shed a retro-loving tear.

If you thought gaming was an expensive hobby, you’d be surprised by all the cool (and expensive) products you can add to your home lab. From low-power, budget-friendly SBCs and mini-PCs to server rigs, enterprise-grade switches, and NAS enclosures, there’s a battalion of useful devices in the tinkering landscape.

It's nearly the New Year, which means making resolutions, putting away the holiday decorations, and preparing for the return of the biggest consumer tech event of the year: CES 2025. The year ahead promises some awesome technology, and not all of it is going to be AI-laden. We're expecting the next generation of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, and many new and updated technologies that will make the year fantastic if you're a techie. I've gone through the release dates and predictions and rounded up some of my favorites for the year ahead, and I'm excited about these technologies being launched.

Samsung makes some of the best storage solutions out there. So, whether you're looking to upgrade your PC or laptop with a new SSD, or just want to have some lighting-quick external storage, you can't go wrong with something from Samsung.

Linux was never as user-friendly as macOS and Windows ... for the masses, at least. It was great for those (like myself) who enjoyed messing around for hours but attempting to convince others to give it a go over their favorite OS was a difficult task, largely due to all the annoyances that came with most Linux-based distros, including Ubuntu. It's a completely different story today with many of the leading Linux distros offering far superior experiences than years past. Things are on more of an even playing field with Windows. Although we're not quite there yet, here are some ways Linux is less infuriating.

A keyboard might be just another input device for many, but a highly personal and valued part of their PC setup for others. While many parts come together to determine how good a keyboard sounds and feels, the switch is perhaps one of the most important. Users typically have three kinds of keyboards to choose from, depending on the switch type: mechanical, magnetic (Hall effect), and optical.

A NAS system is a useful addition to any home or office. There are a ton of uses for a NAS, like media streaming, photo and video backup, security cameras, or just as a general storage system that you can access from anywhere.

There’s no denying that Linux distros are perfect for self-hosting and containerization workloads. But once you’ve completed the grueling task of setting up WSL2 and Docker Desktop, you’ll be rewarded with the ability to run containers on your Windows 11 machine. While most Linux containers will work just fine on Microsoft’s flagship OS, there are a handful of services that you must try out on your Windows 11 workstation.

VRAM is a key component of what makes up a fast graphics card. It’s much faster than system memory and has much higher bandwidth, allowing for rapid access to things like game textures. It usually comes at a premium, with the last few generations of graphics cards having as high as 24GB and as low as 6GB.

If you want to write beautiful documents, LaTeX is undoubtedly the best way to do so. It's basically a programming language that you can use to make documents, with an easy-to-use syntax that can be made as easy or as advanced as you want it to be. What's more, gone are the days where you need to set up your own LaTeX environment to write in (though you can), as there are tools like Overleaf that act exactly like Google Docs, but allow you to write in LaTeX with support for packages, too.