Apple Hires Top Google Satellite Executives For New Hardware Team

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The iPhone maker has recruited a pair of top Google satellite executives for a new hardware team, according to people familiar with the matter. John Fenwick, who led Google's spacecraft operations, and Michael Trela, head of satellite engineering, left Alphabet Inc.'s Google for Apple in recent weeks, the people said. They report to Greg Duffy, co-founder of camera maker Dropcam, who joined Apple earlier this year, the people said. With the recruits, Apple is bringing into its ranks two experts in the demanding, expensive field of satellite design and operation. At the moment, these endeavors typically fall into two fields: satellites for collecting images and those for communications. In a regulatory filing last year, Boeing Co. detailed a plan to provide broadband access through more than 1,000 satellites in low-earth orbit. The aerospace company has talked with Apple about the technology company being an investor-partner in the project, a person familiar with the situation said. It's unclear if those talks will result in a deal. At the annual Satellite 2017 conference in Washington D.C. last month, industry insiders said Boeing's project was being funded by Apple, Tim Farrar, a satellite and telecom consultant at TMF Associates Inc., wrote in a recent blog. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.

Common space

[spinitch]

Location base satellites services that can be used by most people seem to be a reasonable use of oribital space near term, while Nations figure out how to deal with growing space debris. Maybe need to contribute to a new Super fund before adding to the potential junk, but this fund deserves a bigger name like Super Duper fragilistic... Fund. Connecting developing areas by satellite may seem more expedient and cost effective near term with good benefits to the poorer residents but should consider long term

MOAR Executives!

[chihowa]

Ah yes, the world from the point of view of executives... If you want to move into a new field, you need to start by importing the bloated, overpaid legion of administration that floats above the actual workers in that field. That's definitely where the action happens!