Media digest

Weakness of satellite coverage exposed

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has exposed the technological limits of satellites, which can see a license plate from space but struggle to find a missing jetliner.

These limits are shaped by physics, money and practicality. Military and commercial satellites are not closely observing and amassing data about the blank places on the map in lightly traveled seas - such as remote areas of the Indian Ocean thousands of miles from where flight MH370 vanished from radar.