Have you ever felt the frustration of losing internet access while camping, hiking or living in a remote area? Whether you’re trying to connect with family, access important information or simply enjoy your favorite streaming service, losing internet access can be a real bummer. For many, this is a daily struggle. However, new technology from a company called Sceye could be the answer to these connectivity woes, offering a solution to the digital divide that leaves so many people in the dark.

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Enter the Sceye HAPS: A blimp-like aircraft with a mission

The Sceye HAPS is not your average aircraft. This 213-foot-long uncrewed helium-filled behemoth is designed to soar to stratospheric heights, hovering between 60,000 and 65,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. What makes it truly special is its ability to beam high-speed internet to areas that traditional infrastructure cannot reach.

Sceye HAPS (Sceye) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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Solar-powered stratospheric sentinel

One of the most impressive features of the Sceye HAPS is its power source. The aircraft is covered in a “solar cape” made of gallium selenide and gallium arsenide solar cells, allowing it to harness the sun’s energy to stay aloft for months at a time. This sustainable power approach enables the HAPS to perform its critical tasks continuously, from providing internet access to monitoring environmental conditions.

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Sceye HAPS (Sceye) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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Breaking records and bridging divides

The Sceye HAPS is already making waves in the real world. It set a long-range record by maintaining a data connection across a distance of over 87 miles, far exceeding the typical LTE range. This achievement has significant implications for bridging the digital divide, especially in areas like the Navajo Nation, where the HAPS is part of a project to provide universal broadband access. By demonstrating its ability to connect over such vast distances, the Sceye HAPS is proving its potential to revolutionize internet access in remote and underserved communities.

Sceye HAPS (Sceye) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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More than just internet

While providing internet access is a key function of the Sceye HAPS, its capabilities extend far beyond that. The aircraft is also being used for climate and environmental monitoring, disaster response, forest fire detection, and tracking and measuring methane emissions as part of an EPA study.

Sceye HAPS (Sceye) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Recent milestones and future plans

The Sceye HAPS continues to impress with its technological advancements. In a recent flight, it demonstrated its ability to charge its batteries during the day and use that power to stay airborne overnight, a crucial step towards long-duration missions. With 20 test flights under its belt and commercial deployment planned for 2025, the future looks bright for this stratospheric innovation.

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Sceye HAPS (Sceye) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Kurt’s key takeaways

The Sceye HAPS is shaking things up in the world of global connectivity. Think of it as a high-tech blimp that’s on a mission to bring the internet to places that have been left in the digital dark ages. By floating way up in the stratosphere, this clever contraption is tackling problems that have stumped tech experts for years. This flying innovation could be a game-changer in making our world more connected and better prepared for whatever Mother Nature throws our way. Sure, there are still some kinks to work out. But the way things are going, it looks like the Sceye HAPS is proving that when it comes to solving big global problems, sometimes the best solution is to aim high, really high.

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Instagram is adding the ability to leave comments on Instagram Stories, the ephemeral posts that many people use even more than traditional posts these days.

Previously, replying to an Instagram Story sent a private message visible only to the person who posted the content. The addition of comments adds a more public way to respond to Stories. The ability to comment in the first place is more limited, though: only people who follow the poster and who the poster follows back will be able to leave a comment. Instagram explains how most of it works in this video.

Just like Stories, the comments are temporary and will last for up to 24 hours; Instagram spokesperson Emily Norfolk says users will have the option to turn comments on or off for any Story they share. It’s not clear whether comments will be archived after a Story post expires, but we’ve asked Instagram for clarification.

Instagram has steadily added new features to surfaces like Reels and Stories that seem to suggest the company views them as key places for user engagement with friends, not just casual content meant to be scrolled through.

Earlier this summer the platform added disappearing “notes” (essentially comments) to grid posts and Reels, meant to draw more attention to how your friends are engaging with content. Those disappearing notes expire after three days, and users can choose who’s able to see their notes — either mutual follows, or a curated list of close friends. Temporary notes are overlaid on top of the post, making comments from friends more prominent.

Instagram also announced today that some likes on posts will now appear more prominently as floating hearts, similar to how they appear on the disappearing notes.

Snapchat will soon start “experimenting” with placing sponsored messages next to chat threads from friends, according to CEO Evan Spiegel.

These “Sponsored Snaps” from brands will appear as unread messages in Snapchat’s main Chat tab, implying that they’ll sit above messages from a person’s contacts until they’re acted on. This is the first time Snap will show ads in the most used part of its app.

In an employee memo also posted on the company’s website, Spiegel says that Sponsored Snaps will appear “without a push notification, and opening the message is optional.” It’s unclear how easy it will be to get rid of a Sponsored Snap without opening it, or if doing so will even be possible. (Snap declined to comment beyond Spiegel’s memo.)

“Sponsored Snaps empower advertisers to communicate visually with the Snapchat community, making the core functionality of Snapchat accessible to advertisers,” writes Spiegel, who goes on to note that, “As always, your conversations with friends are private and are not used for advertising purposes.”

To understand why Snap is doing this now, look no further than its stock price, which is hovering near an all-time low. Despite now reaching over 850 million monthly users globally, Snap’s ads business is still tiny compared to its biggest competitors, including Meta. Snap also still isn’t profitable.

“The growth of our digital advertising business is one of the most important inputs to our long term revenue potential, and investors are concerned that we aren’t growing faster,” writes Spiegel in his memo, which is timed to the company’s 13-year anniversary. He writes that Snap will also start letting advertisers pay to promote places in its Map tab, where Snapchat users can see the whereabouts of their friends.