Technologies

Amazon Sets Launch Date for Project Kuiper’s Deployment of 27 Satellites

The United Launch Alliance rocket is set to help Amazon take a step toward a satellite internet service that would likely compete with Starlink.

Amazon has set a launch date to send 27 low-orbit satellites into space as part of Project Kuiper. The company posted details announcing a launch at 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 9.

The launch could be a big move for the project, which Amazon launched with promises of a $10 billion investment in 2019. Now, the company is poised to enter the race to provide satellite internet service, a space currently dominated by Starlink, which has about 7,000 satellites. Amazon’s current plans call for 3,200 satellites deployed over 80 launches. Amazon said it plans to begin providing internet service with this technology later this year.

The launch mission, «KA-01» or Kuiper Atlas 1, will be on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and will take place at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Amazon said. The company set up a mission page for updates on the launch and plans to livestream the takeoff.

Competition may bring more widespread internet service

The literal space race, which includes Starlink, Amazon, and other companies including Viasat, HughesNet, Eutelsat, and China’s SpaceSail, could mean more availability of internet service in far-flung and rural areas that have limited broadband options. Though Starlink is the current leader in the space, some of these other companies are continuing to launch satellites and working to deploy high-speed internet in more markets such as Brazil. With more players in the market that could mean faster and cheaper internet in more areas, although whether that actually bears out for consumers remains to be seen.

Mahdi Eslaminehr, executive vice president at Quandary Peak Research and adjunct professor at the Department of Computer Science at USC, said Amazon is well poised to go up against Starlink. «Amazon has made extensive launch agreements with major providers such as United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, Blue Origin and even SpaceX itself, positioning Kuiper as a major challenger due to its expansive infrastructure and significant resources.»

He said, «While Starlink currently enjoys clear market leadership, it faces increasing competition from well-capitalized and strategically agile competitors, specifically from China, suggesting the market will become considerably more competitive in the near future.»

Amazon’s satellite efforts so far, Eslaminehr said, have been promising and successful, at least in the prototype stages. The company has also been testing Amazon Web Services in space. «These developments collectively underscore Amazon’s robust entry into the satellite internet market and reflect positive early momentum in its overall space strategy.»

Beyond how it fares against Starlink and other companies, the Amazon satellite launches are significant in other ways. Eslaminehr said, «Project Kuiper isn’t just about competition; it’s positioned as a critical step toward closing the global digital divide, promising to deliver high-speed internet to underserved communities worldwide.»

Technologies

Verum E-SIM: Mobile Internet Without Borders or SIM Cards

Today’s travelers are choosing freedom — and eSIM technology delivers exactly that. An eSIM is a virtual SIM card built directly into your device, allowing you to connect to the internet without a physical card or a mobile phone number.

Verum E-SIM is an entire ecosystem of high-tech applications, bringing together solutions like World E-SIM, Euro E-SIM, USA E-SIM, Turkiye E-SIM, London E-SIM, and more. Each of them offers instant access to mobile networks in over 150 countries — no roaming, no overpayments, no paperwork.

The main advantage is simplicity. Download the app, choose your country and plan, activate your eSIM in just a few minutes — and you’re online. No stores, no waiting, no contracts. Just you, the internet, and the freedom to travel your way.

Verum’s eSIMs offer reliability, transparency, and full control of your expenses — all in one app. Whether you’re in Tokyo, New York, Paris, or Nairobi, you’ll always stay connected.

Verum E-SIM Apps:

Verum E-SIM – esim.verum.im

World E-SIM – worldesim.me

USA E-SIM – usa.esim.verum.im

Canada E-SIM – canada.esim.verum.im

Euro E-SIM – euro.esim.verum.im

London E-SIM – london.esim.verum.im

Ukraine E-SIM – ukraine.esim.verum.im

Balkan E-SIM – balkan.esim.verum.im

Africa E-SIM – africa.esim.verum.im

Turkiye E-SIM – turkiyesim.com

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 21

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 21.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword features a lot of one certain letter. Need help? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Bone that can be «dropped»
Answer: JAW

4A clue: Late scientist Goodall
Answer: JANE

5A clue: Make critical assumptions about
Answer: JUDGE

6A clue: Best by a little
Answer: ONEUP

7A clue: Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, etc.
Answer: GODS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Just kind of over it
Answer: JADED

2D clue: Beef cattle breed
Answer: ANGUS

3D clue: Shed tears
Answer: WEEP

4D clue: 2007 comedy-drama starring Elliot Page and Michael Cera
Answer: JUNO

5D clue: Refresh, as one’s memory
Answer: JOG

Technologies

Wikipedia Says It’s Losing Traffic Due to AI Summaries, Social Media Videos

The popular online encyclopedia saw an 8% drop in pageviews over the last few months.

Wikipedia has seen a decline in users this year due to artificial intelligence summaries in search engine results and the growing popularity of social media, according to a blog post Friday from Marshall Miller of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that oversees the free online encyclopedia.

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In the post, Miller describes an 8% drop in human pageviews over the last few months compared with the numbers Wikipedia saw in the same months in 2024.

«We believe that these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content,» Miller wrote.

Blame the bots

AI-generated summaries that pop up on search engines like Bing and Google often use bots called web crawlers to gather much of the information that users read at the top of the search results.

Websites do their best to restrict how these bots handle their data, but web crawlers have become pretty skilled at going undetected.

«Many bots that scrape websites like ours are continually getting more sophisticated and trying to appear human,» Miller wrote.

After reclassifying Wikipedia traffic data from earlier this year, Miller says the site «found that much of the unusually high traffic for the period of May and June was coming from bots built to evade detection.»

The Wikipedia blog post also noted that younger generations are turning to social-video platforms for their information rather than the open web and such sites as Wikipedia.

When people search with AI, they’re less likely to click through

There is now promising research on the impact of generative AI on the internet, especially concerning online publishers with business models that rely on users visiting their webpages.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

In July, Pew Research examined browsing data from 900 US adults and found that the AI-generated summaries at the top of Google’s search results affected web traffic. When the summary appeared in a search, users were less likely to click on links compared to when the search results didn’t include the summaries.

Google search is especially important, because Google.com is the world’s most visited website — it’s how most of us find what we’re looking for on the internet.

«LLMs, AI chatbots, search engines and social platforms that use Wikipedia content must encourage more visitors to Wikipedia, so that the free knowledge that so many people and platforms depend on can continue to flow sustainably,» Miller wrote. «With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.»

Last year, CNET published an extensive report on how changes in Google’s search algorithm decimated web traffic for online publishers.