Mastodawn

Weekly output: Pope Leo XIV on AI, American Airlines + Starlink, Taara photonics, New Glenn explosion, way less Waymo

I did not see Project Hail Mary as soon as possible, but I did see it tonight and am very glad that I did, If you haven’t watched that movie, please do so while it’s still available on a big screen at a theater near you.

Patreon readers got an extra post Saturday inspired by a different sort of larger-than-life multimedia experience, seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Nats Park Wednesday: a recap of the few years when I had “concert reviewer” as a low-paying, in-house side hustle at the Washington Post.

5/25/2026: Pope Leo XIV: Unchecked AI Development Risks Building a New Tower of Babel, PCMag

I spent much of Monday morning reading the pope’s encyclical about AI, then spent much of the afternoon writing a post unpacking that lengthy document for PCMag readers. Yes, Monday was a holiday, but as somebody brought up Catholic who then went to a Jesuit university, I felt like I had to do this work.

5/26/2026: American Airlines Will Switch to Starlink for Now, But Only on Airbus Narrowbodies, PCMag

American’s press release about this coming upgrade to the WiFi on part of its fleet left multiple questions unanswered, so I was glad that a publicist for AA fielded my questions as quickly as she did.

5/29/2026: Taara CEO: Our free-space optics links go where fiber won’t, Light Reading

I sat down with Mahesh Krishnaswamy, founder and CEO of this Alphabet moonshot offshoot, at the start of a busy day at Web Summit Vancouver two weeks ago. A small part of that conversation surfaced in a piece I did for PCMag about photonics that itself began with a trip to San Jose for NTT Research’s Upgrade conference there in mid April (with NTT covering my travel costs), but the rest had to wait for this piece. That, in turn, required me to have some downtime in which to write it, and as you may have noticed May was another ridiculous month for travel.

5/29/2026: Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Explodes Spectacularly During Ground Test, PCMag

This is an outright disaster, and not just for Blue–if you want to see SpaceX get some competition for satellite-to-phone data, fast inflight WiFi and a return of American astronauts to the Moon’s surface, New Glenn would have been at least helpful if not outright essential. Blue not only has to figure out what went wrong with its heavy-lift rocket and fix that, it also has to either rebuild the launch complex mostly destroyed by this explosion or speed up construction of the second pad it has planned.

5/29/2026: Waymo Halts Freeway Operations, Stops Service in Some Cities Without Clearly Communicating What’s Up, PCMag

I had missed covering Waymo ending freeway service because that happened when I was flying home from Google I/O, but after seeing how badly that company had informed customers about that cutback in service and its suspensions of all service in some cities, I realized I had a broader piece to write.

#AA #AI #AIEthics #AmericanAirlines #BlueOrigin #commercialSpace #encyclical #explosion #laserLinks #MagnificaHumanitas #NewGlenn #papalEncyclical #photonics #pope #PopeLeoXIV #StarlinkInflight #StarlinkWiFi #Taara #Waymo #WaymoFreeways

Verdict: Yes, you should go see Project Hail Mary as soon as possible

Ars Technica's spoiler-free review of the film, which opens in the US on March 20.

Ars Technica

Rob Pegoraro Apr 6

Weekly output: AT&T OneConnect, federal privacy fears, Artemis II, better inflight WiFi, 6G

This week started with me in Chicago for the Online News Association’s conference, then had a quick trip to Boston to see family for Easter, and tomorrow will have me off to San Francisco for the HumanX conference to lead two panels there.

I wrote an extra post Tuesday for Patreon readers recapping some scenes from SXSW, including a not-yet-campaign appearance by California governor Gavin Newsom and a stemwinder of a speech by Patreon founder Jack Conte on how human creativity can endure through the rise of AI.

3/31/2026: AT&T OneConnect Bundles Fiber, Wireless, Doesn’t Say What Mobile Service You Get, PCMag

I had just enough spare time at ONA to field this story–even factoring in time to try, without success, to get AT&T to explain just what wireless plan subscribers would get with this new offering.

4/1/2026: The One Thing Americans Can Agree On: The Feds Collect Too Much Personal Data, PCMag

I wrote up this study by the Center for Democracy & Technology a day after it was published Tuesday in part because I had nearly no free time on day two of ONA.

4/1/2026: NASA Launches Artemis II, Its First Moonshot Since 1972, PCMag

I watched the launch Wednesday evening of Artemis II with fingers crossed through main engine cutoff, then followed the first few hours of the mission while writing up this post. I updated the story a day later after the translunar injection burn of the Orion spacecraft’s service module engine committed astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen on a flight around the Moon and then back to Earth. I can’t wait to see this American and Canadian crew’s Earthrise photos.

4/2/2026: Fast, Free Wi-Fi Now Arriving at These Airlines, AARP

I showed up at my occasional client’s site not as a writer but as a subject-matter expert, courtesy of AARP writer Berit Thorkelson quizzing me over e-mail for this piece about how low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink are upgrading inflight WiFi.

4/3/2026: Unfortunately, It’s Time to Talk About 6G. Here’s What You Need to Know, PCMag

I got most of my reporting for this done at MWC Barcelona, but then needed a little more time to collect some industry insight about the wireless industry’s curious rush to hype 6G when so many of its customers are still trying to discern how 5G is supposed to make a noticeable difference in their everyday phone experience.