☕ Good morning! It’s Groundhog Day, stay safe out there!

SpaceX adds a Premium tier

Ok, what you might want to know this morning is that Elon Musk tweeted a link to news that SpaceX has a new deal:

• The new Starlink Premium now promises up to 500Mbps for $500 a month.
• To get it, you’ll also need a new premium antenna with “double the antenna capabilities” and an upfront cost of $2,500.
• The new site dedicated to the option says: “Starlink Premium users can expect download speeds of 150-500Mbps and latency of 20-40ms, enabling high throughput connectivity for small offices, storefronts, and super users across the globe.”
• And it’s still pretty flexible: “With Starlink, there are no long-term contracts, no data caps, and no exclusivity requirements.”
• In addition, the new “extra-rugged” dish may work better in very hot or cold environments, and there’s 24/7 prioritized support, too.
• It looks like a pitch towards businesses to buy: the answer to the perhaps shouted demand from an office or someone in the field, something like “Just get me internet that works!”
• By the way, SpaceX has now launched 1,993 Starlink satellites to date, with one tracker saying that 1,468 of them are providing Starlink services, so coverage should be getting better, though the end goal is 42,000 sats.

Pixel 6 sales record

The other thing you should know this morning is that last night, Google confirmed a good quarter for the Pixel.

• Now, unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of detail: no sales figures or dollars, exactly.
• But what Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai did say was: “In Q4 we set an all-time quarterly sales record for Pixel. This came in spite of an extremely challenging supply chain environment. The response to Pixel 6 from our customers and carrier partners was incredibly positive.”
• So, no numbers. Google might’ve sold one more phone than the last quarter, which would give it every right to say we set a new record. That’s how records work.
• But really, it seems bigger than that, and …that’s pretty much expected given Google actually tried.
• The Pixel 6 series is acclaimed, the Pixel 6 alone is a great deal and you don’t need a Pro, and there’s more marketing for it than ever before — and I’ve seen that in my city and heard it from a bunch of people in different parts of the world.
• Google also signed 45 carrier and retailer partnership deals, which is a key vector to getting phones into hands.

Roundup

• 👍 Samsung Galaxy S22 prices have leaked and they look nice — basically the same as S21 pricing (Android Authority).
• 🔒 The Google One VPN for Android just got a little safer: safe disconnect (Android Authority).
• 🍎 Report claims Apple already has the iPhone SE 3 in India for certification (Android Authority).
• 🎮 Sony earnings: Sony is still struggling with PS5 supply: latest update — 3.9 million more sold, but image sensor sales up again, and thanks to Spider-Man, its movie division is way up (The Verge).
• 😄 Google Messages begins displaying iMessage reactions as emoji (Engadget).
• 💵 It’s really over for Facebook and Diem: “…outside investment firm Silvergate Bank confirmed it was buying $182 million worth of Diem assets from the tech giant” (Gizmodo).
• 🤖 Here come the underdogs of the Robot Olympics (Wired).
• 🤔 At least one argument is that it’s pronounced “neft”. NFT, that is (The Verge).
• 📈 Intel R&D spending surges after years of neglect as Gelsinger ramps up (The Register).
• ▶ YouTube’s video player is getting a new look on Android and iOS (The Verge).
• 🔋 Ford will spend up to $20 billion more in shift to electric vehicles (The Verge).
• ☄ Confirmed! Earth has a second Trojan asteroid lurking in its orbit (ABC).
• 📉 Google stock might be up on the back of a very-nice-indeed quarter of revenue(CNET), but I keep seeing people ask something like this: “Is it just me or has Google’s search result quality massively gone down?” (r/nostupidquestions). Anyway, here’s an interesting overview(Seirdy) of search engine indexes, too.

Weirdness Wednesday

You have to hand it to the kid. Jack Sweeney, 19, has been running a Twitter bot (@ElonJet) that tracks Elon Musk’s private jet since 2020.

For some reason, in the past month or so, Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to take down the bot via Twitter DM. And that’s where it gets interesting: now Elon has shut down Twitter negotiations with the teen creator.

• Mashable has been keeping admirable tabs on the whole thing, with Protocol doing the early yards in talking with Sweeney.
• Anyway, first came the Twitter DM offering $5k, with a conversation unfolding about flight tracking via ADS-B Exchange data, and even pointing Musk towards using a free information-blocking program set up by the FAA, called Privacy ICAO aircraft address program, or PIA.
• But Sweeney, whose dad works in the airline industry, has been able to keep tracking ol’ Musky.
• Sweeney countered Musk’s offer by asking for $50k, or a Tesla Model 3, or an internship at SpaceX or Tesla, and was then blocked by Musk.
• Anyway, the Twitter bot is still working, even with the PIA blocking program, even with some kind of weird military-level blocking going on.

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor