Ars Technica
Ukraine has changed drone and war-fighting tech to reduce reliance on Starlink. Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service has played a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine’s successful resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion for years.
Summary drawn from Ars Technica's own description of the story.
The Verge
Satellite-to-phone services let a normal handset connect to a satellite when no cell tower is in range, using mobile spectrum and ground stations to link the call into the phone network. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone have signed a letter of intent to jointly bid for European spectrum and build the ground infrastructure, while a satellite partner to be chosen supplies the spacecraft.
Engadget
A regular SIM or eSIM ties a phone number to one handset. iPhone Handoff, new in iOS 27, adds a companion eSIM to a second iPhone so both are registered to the same number, with one active at a time; unlocking the other phone moves calls, messages and Find My across. Carriers set the price: Verizon will charge $10 a month, against $5 at T-Mobile.
The Guardian
Coordinated universal time is kept by atomic clocks, which are steadier than the Earth's rotation. Officials have added 27 leap seconds since 1972 to keep the two in sync, but a minute with 61 seconds can confuse computers. Delegates from 69 countries voted to replace leap seconds with a leap hour, allowing up to an hour of drift, which is not expected to be needed for thousands of years.
Khaleej Times
Etisalat UAE switched on a smartphone feature that sends data on two streams at once and combines capacity across frequency bands, which it says triples upload speeds on its 5.5G network. Uploads matter more as AI assistants and cloud tools need your device to send photos, files or camera views before they can answer. The operator says it is the first to offer this setup commercially for phones.