Google's Pixel 9 Phones Are the First To Get Satellite SOS For Android (theverge.com) 21
Google's Brian Rakowski announced today that the new Pixel 9 lineup will be the first Android phones to feature Satellite SOS. The Verge reports: The feature launches first in the US "regardless of your carrier plan," Rakowski said, though it won't be available in Hawaii and Alaska, per a support page. According to fine print shown during Google's livestream, the service will be included "at no additional charge for the first two years after activation of devices." A blog post by Rakowski qualifies that further, saying that it will be free for those first two years "on Pixel." And it's unclear when the feature might arrive for other Android phones.
EULA change (Score:2, Insightful)
Will be interesting how the many EULA will change just due to this story as opposed to the actual law suite.
For example "This item is only to be used for this one function, all other users are not allowed and ..."
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Crap, wrong place for the above post, was meant for:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/13/2128237/oceangate-submersible-victims-family-sues-for-50-million-partly-blames-30-logitech-controller
My aim missed, good thing I was not in the rifle compartitions in the olympics.
Good luck charging for emergency calls (Score:4, Insightful)
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Satellite SOS isn't calls. It's not even SMS. It's not even 2-way!
It's a very short packet of predefined options (i'm lost, i'm hurt or things like that), and your GPS location.
You point the phone up and it will blindly transmit hundreds of times and hope a satellite caught it and was able to decode it.
T-Mobile rolling out Starlink to all LTE phones (Score:3)
Starlink is putting up satellites which can directly communicate with LTE phones. T-Mobile will be first to have this service later this year.
No special phone required.
The Direct to Cell network will expand Starlink’s vision by
providing ubiquitous connectivity and seamless access to text,
voice, and data for LTE phones and devices across the globe.
Text service begins this year, followed by voice, data, and
Internet of Things (IoT) services in 2025.
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I wish them all the best luck. They will need a service which locks to specific frequencies in specific areas. Easy to do on a massive country the size of the USA. Not so easy when zipping across 10 countries in a short time in Europe.
They are going to face massive regulatory challenges in much of the world.
Re: T-Mobile rolling out Starlink to all LTE phone (Score:2)
They already have regulatory approval in most countries so that shouldn't be a problem.
Very nice (Score:3)
Making it one step closer to iPhone. Took less than 2 years to copy the feature.
Re: Very nice (Score:3)
Didn't Huawei's satellite calling pre-date the iPhone's?
I guess they are all different in some way, so they can all say they were first.
Re: Very nice (Score:3)
Didnâ(TM)t they announce satellite SOS one day before Apple?
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This is called the leapfrog principle. iPhones were infamously slow to incorporate some emergency measures, such as AML for 112 calls. Now they introduce it and had a focus on emergency services so they put effort into that while everyone else sat around doing nothing. Now it's someone else's turn to play catchup.
It's worth pointing out specifically since your post makes it sound like Google is always behind Apple when it reality they each are ahead at different things at different times.
And given the choic
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2 years, more or less the same time it took Apple to implement copy and paste for the iphone.
Hawaii and Alaska? (Score:2)
Maybe they can get a Huawei phone which has satellite calling since a while ago.
Or maybe not, actually. I read that it is only available with Chinese sim cards, though perhaps that has changed. Still, the US government is afraid of China, so I guess it'll never work in any US territory.
First? no (Score:1)
The Cat S75 has had SOS Satellite since 2023
https://www.techradar.com/revi... [techradar.com]
False alarms (Score:2)
Oh excellent. Now my phone can butt dial 911 from anywhere. At least give an option to turn it off!
I don't know why my pocket is so special that my phone decides it needs to call for help repeatedly when there's no emergency.
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Oh excellent. Now my phone can butt dial 911 from anywhere. At least give an option to turn it off!
I don't know why my pocket is so special that my phone decides it needs to call for help repeatedly when there's no emergency.
Your username is ironic in this case. No, your phone cannot utilize a satellite feature to dial 911 from anywhere. Putting aside the fact that this is not how Apple or Android's feature works, in the Subway, you will not latch on to a satellite and get anything out over satellite.