Mobile Digest: Orange tells us that its 3G Mobile Office card is being put to unusual use by scientists in the UK. Researchers over here are using the cards to let them access and control one of the largest fully robotic telescopes in the world based over in Hawaii. They can access the internet from their laptops to connect to the Faulkes Telescope, allowing them to check out and download images received from the star gazer wherever they may be. Great PR story for Orange, and one that certainly sparked our interest.
3G to help stargazers [Mobile Digest]
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Yeah, great PR story, but where’s the beef?
“Someone uses mobile data connection to do something” doesn’t have the same grab, I suppose, but that’s all it is-someone using a data product.
I can’t help thinking the scientists would be better off for cost and performance using WLAN extension to their observatory’s LAN, unless they’re sitting on a lonely hilltop somewhere… but then lonely hilltops away from urban light pollution don’t usually have 3G coverage…