Digital Aurora

NASA mission to map the boundary of solar system

2008-10-21T13:57:00.002+02:00

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) to map the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space will be launched on a Pegasus XL rocket today. The two year mission, costing US$165 million, will study the region in space where the solar wind from the sun suddenly slows down as it reaches the thin, cold gas of interstellar space. This region, called the heliospheric boundary of the solar system, helps to deflect most of the potentially life-threatening forms of radiation coming from elsewhere in our galaxy.

IBEX will ride Pegasus to around 200 kilometres from earth, before boosting itself into its final earth orbit 322,000 kilometres away. The probe will capture energetic neutral atoms (ENAs), which are formed when positive ions in the solar wind hit neutral atoms of interstellar material and rip out electrons from them. IBEX-Lo and -Hi detectors will collect data on the ENAs to create a three-dimensional map of the heliosphere.

The heliospheric boundary was first probed by Voyager 1 in 2004 and later by Voyager 2 in 2007. The data from the two missions indicated several indentations on the heliospheric boundary. It is hoped that IBEX studies may reveal the cause of these indentations.

Recent observations indicate the solar wind pressure has weakened by 25 percent over the past decade and is presently at its weakest level in 50 years. Ibex studies could help confirm whether and why the heliosphere is shrinking. Scientists postulate that if the heliosphere continues to weaken, the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including earth will increase. This could trigger growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and possibly harm life on earth.

"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment," said Nathan Schwadron, co-investigator on the IBEX mission at Boston University. "IBEX gives us a chance to look at how our Solar System's bubble fits in as a tiny piece of the entire Galaxy," claimed David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and IBEX's principal investigator.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Small Businesses to Fly New Technologies on Zero-Gravity Flights

2008-07-15T22:26:00.001+02:00

NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program has selected seven Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR, companies to participate in reduced-gravity test flights in early September. The companies will have the opportunity to test their newly developed hardware on an aircraft that simulates the weightless conditions of spaceflight. The fights will the first by NASA's Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training program, called FAST.

Testing new technologies in weightless conditions is an important step in making them available for applications in NASA space projects. An aircraft flying on a parabolic trajectory can create weightless conditions for up to 30 seconds at a time and simulate the reduced gravity conditions of the moon or Mars. This allows developers to test new technologies to ensure that they will work in space or, if they do not work during testing, understand why. It is difficult for emerging technology developers, especially small businesses, to gain access to parabolic aircraft flights. Through FAST, NASA will provide a flight demonstration opportunity while the developer provides the technology.

The selection for the first round of flights was limited to companies that already have SBIR contracts with NASA. The technologies being flown address needs in each of NASA's four core mission directorates. In the future, the competition will be extended to any companies and laboratories working in partnerships on technology of value to NASA's missions. Another important aspect of FAST is that the Zero-Gravity Corporation of Las Vegas will conduct the flights as a commercial service to NASA.

The Zero-Gravity Corporation contract is managed by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and is part of an effort to expand the agency's use of commercial services. The reduced-gravity flights will be conducted from Ellington Field in Houston. NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and Glenn are providing technical support to the participating companies.

The September flights will include the following projects and companies:

Vacuum-Compatible Multi-Axis Manipulator/Machining Center for Long-Duration Space Missions, Beck Engineering Inc., Port Orchard, Washington
Investigation of Pneumatic Mining System under Lunar Gravity Conditions, Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corporation, New York
Aircraft Sensor Logger, Metis Design Corporation, Cambridge, Mass.
Microgravity Flight Testing of Passively Self-Deploying Shells, Mevicon Inc., Sunnyvale Calif.
Virtual Sensor Test Instrumentation, Mobitrum Corporation, Silver Spring, Maryland
Nanofluid Coolants, nanoComposix Inc., San Diego
Constant-Force-Exercise Sled, Valeo Human Performance LLC, Houston.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Shoulder Motor Balks on Opportunity's Robotic Arm

2008-06-25T13:14:00.002+02:00

A small motor in the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity that began stalling occasionally more than two years ago has become more troublesome recently.

Rover engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are diagnosing why the motor, one of five in the robotic arm, stalled on April 14 after much less motion that day than in the case of several earlier stalls. They are also examining whether the motor can be used and assessing the impact on Opportunity's work if the motor were no longer usable.

The motor controls sideways motion at the shoulder joint of the rover robotic arm. Other motors provide up-and-down motion at the shoulder and maneuverability at the elbow and wrist. A turret at the end of the arm has four tools that the arm places in contact with rocks and soils to study their composition and texture.

"Even under the worst-case scenario for this motor, Opportunity still has the capability to do some contact science with the arm," said JPL's John Callas, project manager for the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit. "The vehicle has quite a bit of versatility to continue the high-priority investigations in Victoria Crater and back out on the Meridiani plains after exiting the crater."

The performance of the motor in the past week is consistent with increased resistance in the electrical circuit, such as from degrading of wire in the winding, rather than a mechanical jam. Additional tests are planned for checking whether the apparent resistance is localized or intermittent.

Opportunity and Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 to begin missions originally planned for three months. They have continued operating for more than four years, though each with some signs of aging.

Opportunity's balky shoulder motor began stalling occasionally in November 2005. The motor could still be operated by applying increased voltage. Engineers assessed it has an increased likelihood of becoming unusable, however, so the team changed its standard procedures for stowing and unstowing the arm.

Until then, on days when the arm would not be used, the team kept it stowed, resting on a hook under the front of the rover deck. Motion of the stall-prone shoulder motor is necessary to unstow the arm, so if the motor were to become unusable with the arm in the stowed position, the arm could not be deployed again. With diminished confidence in the balky motor, the team began unstowing the arm at the end of each day's drive rather than leaving it stowed overnight. This keeps the arm available for use even if the motor then stops working.

This spring, Opportunity is crossing an inner slope of Victoria Crater to reach the base of a cliff portion of the crater rim, a promontory called "Cape Verde." On April 14, Opportunity was backing out of a sandy patch encountered on the path toward Cape Verde from the area where the rover descended into the crater. As usual, the commands included unstowing the arm at the end of the day's short drive. The shoulder motor barely got the arm unstowed before stalling.

"We'll hold off backing out of the sand until after we've completed the diagnostic tests on the motor," Callas said. "The rover is stable and safe in its current situation, and not under any urgency. So we will take the time to act cautiously."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Additional information about Spirit and Opportunity is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/rovers.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Life Endures 120,000 Years Under Ice

2008-06-04T00:24:00.003+02:00

Being tiny has its advantages, and a newly discovered microbe in Greenland has exploited this fully. The bacterium survived more than 120,000 years beneath the ice where inhospitable conditions reach new lows. Most organisms constantly deal with trade-offs, such as some hot-desert residents that take advantage of sunshine yet must endure dehydration.

The new microbe makes dehydration seem like a walk in the park. Called Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, the tiny bacterium was found 2 miles (3.2 km) beneath a Greenland glacier. There, conditions are extreme, with temperatures below 16 degrees F (-9 degrees C), high pressure, very little oxygen and meager food.

The ultra-small size of the new species - about 10 to 100 times smaller than E. coli bacteria - could explain why it was able to gain a foothold in such harsh conditions and survive for so long, scientists say. Tiny microbes like this one likely can more efficiently absorb nutrients due to a larger surface-to-volume ratio. They also may be able to hide more easily from predators and take up residence in microenvironments, such as microscopic veins or cracks in the ice.

Link: Life Endures 120,000 Years Under Ice.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft Reports Good Health After Mars Landing

2008-05-26T15:14:00.003+02:00

A NASA spacecraft today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars.

The images from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander also provided a glimpse of the flat valley floor expected to have water-rich permafrost within reach of the lander's robotic arm. The landing ends a 422-million-mile journey from Earth and begins a three-month mission that will use instruments to taste and sniff the northern polar site's soil and ice.

"We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we saw from space, we don't see ice on the surface, but we think we will see it beneath the surface. It looks great to me," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission.

Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed that the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. In the intervening time, those signals crossed the distance from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. The confirmation ignited cheers by mission team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona.

As planned, Phoenix stopped transmitting one minute after landing and focused its limited battery power on opening its solar arrays, and other critical activities. About two hours after touchdown, it sent more good news. The first pictures confirmed that the solar arrays needed for the mission's energy supply had unfolded properly, and masts for the stereo camera and weather station had swung into vertical position.

"Seeing these images after a successful landing reaffirmed the thorough work over the past five years by a great team," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of JPL. A key milestone still ahead is the first use of the lander's 7.7-foot-long robotic arm, not planned before Tuesday.

"Only five of our planet's 11 previous attempts to land on the Red Planet have succeeded. In exploring the universe, we accept some risk in exchange for the potential of great scientific rewards," said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Phoenix carries science instruments to assess whether ice just below the surface ever thaws and whether some chemical ingredients of life are preserved in the icy soil. These are key questions in evaluating whether the environment has ever been favorable for microbial life. Phoenix will also study other aspects of the soil and atmosphere with instrument capabilities never before used on Mars. Canada supplied the lander's weather station.

Transmissions from Phoenix have reported results after a check of several components and systems on the spacecraft. "Phoenix is an amazing machine, and it was built and flown by an amazing team. Through the entire entry, descent and landing phase, it performed flawlessly," said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "The spacecraft stayed in contact with Earth during that critical period, and we received a lot of data about its health and performance. I'm happy to report it's in great shape."

Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science opportunity. A few months earlier, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter discovered that plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.

The signal confirming that Phoenix had survived touchdown and the transmission of the first pictures were relayed via Mars Odyssey and received on Earth at the Goldstone, Calif., antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit nasa.gov/phoenix.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Wow! Taiwan Design Competition

2008-05-19T03:46:00.002+02:00

On the opening day of the 2008 Young Designers' Exhibition (May 15), the Council for Cultural Affairs of Executive Yuan announced the first-ever "Wow! Taiwan Design Competition" at the Taipei World Trade Center. It will take place in conjunction with the main show (2008 YODEX). The winners from the Professional and Student classes were announced and awarded in an ceremony yesterday.

According to official information from the Taiwan Design Center (TDC), this first-ever design competition was designed for local participants to construct creative products with internationalizations and traditional cultures, and market them worldwide.

"EasTea / WesTea" and "Window & Box" also won the championship in the professional and student groups in this competition.

WikiNews

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Microsoft drops bid for Yahoo

2008-05-06T02:15:00.001+02:00

Microsoft has announced it is dropping it bid to acquire one of their Internet competitors, Yahoo!, after a three-month courting effort by Microsoft.

Microsoft chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer notified Yahoo! chief executive officer, chairman and co-founder, Jerry Yang via a letter that Microsoft was dropping their bid for the Sunnyvale, California based search engine giant.

In a press release from Microsoft, Ballmer said, “Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly US$5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal”.

Microsoft withdrew its bid effort after raising their bid from $44.6 billion to $47.5 billion, which works out at $33 per share. However, Yahoo! were waiting for a bid of around $53 billion, which was more than Microsoft were willing to pay.

Microsoft had previously wanted to takeover Yahoo! in-order to compete with Google, the market leader in online advertising. The online advertising market was worth $40 billion in 2007 and will rise to an expected $80 billion in 2010.

Some observers, however, are speculating that the bid withdrawal could just be another tactic in their attempt to acquire Yahoo!. Yahoo shares have dropped since the bid was pulled out.

WikiNews

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

eBay Australia to only permit payment via PayPal

2008-04-17T01:33:00.003+02:00

On the back of new restrictions being imposed on eBay users in the United Kingdom requiring that sellers offer PayPal payments for all sales, eBay Australia is mandating that only PayPal payments will be acceptable as of June 17. PayPal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay, and charges a 30¢ transaction fee, plus a commission between 1.1% for high volume traders, and 2.4% for low value or low volume traders. These higher costs will be passed onto buyers.

Cash payment on pick up will be the only other payment option, and it may only be offered in conjunction with PayPal.

eBay has brought in this restriction under the guise of improving customer protection, bolstering its "Paypal Buyer Protection" insurance programme to allow claims up to A$20,000 instead of the previous maximum of $3,000, however as of June 17 many of the items which would exceed $3,000 are no longer covered by the programme, such as services, vehicles, real estate and businesses.

eBay Trust and Safety director Alastair MacGibbon said this change was not in response to the once-off fund established in March to refund eBay buyers who lost their non-existent holiday accommodation packages from the Melbourne eBay seller Robert Kobis. Mr MacGibbon said "It is part of a much larger initiative".

In addition to these measures, Paypal will be withholding funds from some sellers for 21 days until the earliest of the following occurs:

the buyer leaves positive feedback,
3 days after confirmed item delivery
21 days without a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal filed on that transaction

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has held discussion with eBay, but declined to comment. The Australian Consumers Association spokesman Christopher Zinn said the unique use of PayPal could give rise to competition issues, however if the costs charged stayed as they were, they had no further concerns.

WikiNews

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Flickr launches video-sharing service

2008-04-10T22:39:00.002+02:00

Flickr, the online photo sharing service owned by American internet company Yahoo!, today launched a new video-sharing service for "Pro" users. After 4 months of waiting since an unofficial "coming soon" on the Flickr forums, subscribers to the service are now able to upload videos of up to 90 seconds in length, or 150 MB in size.

After some criticism over the website diversifying too much, Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ, and Yahoo! spokesperson George Hadjigeorgiou responded by calling these 90-second videos "long photos", which capture a "slice of life to share".

Mr. Hadjigeorgiou elaborated, by saying that "digital media has led to new behaviour with digital photography fans and we've seen a huge growth in people taking short video clips, essentially 'long photos', with their digital still cameras and mobile phones." He added that he could see "a great resonance between this new category of content and with the kind of authentic, personal moments already being shared on Flickr."

Flickr Blog: Video! Video! Video! The rumours are true and “soon” is now. We’re thrilled to introduce video on Flickr. If you’re a pro member, you can now share videos up to 90 glorious seconds in your photostream.

90 seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.

"Pro" users, who pay a yearly subscription of US$24.95 for unlimited file uploads, have also had their filesize limit increased to 20 MB for each individual photo, and other members, who do not pay a subscription, have had their limit raised to 10 MB per photo. "Free" members are currently unable to upload videos.

WikiNews

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Earth Hour

2008-03-27T12:19:00.003+01:00

On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

http://www.earthhour.org/

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Demonstrations planned to protest internet censorship in Finland

2008-03-06T00:20:00.003+01:00

On March 4, 2008 a demonstration against censorship is planned to be held at the Finnish Parliament, part of the continuing controversy over the Finnish Internet child porn filter. The organizers of the demonstration expect at least two-hundred participants, with representatives of the digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) and several political parties will also present.

The controversy arose after the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) blacklisted censorship critic Matti Nikki's site. Matti Nikki himself is now under criminal investigation for aiding in the distribution of child pornography, as he published a large portion of the filtering blacklist on his still-censored website. MP Jyrki Kasvi has made an official inquiry in the Finnish Parliament on the matter, and Effi has filed an official complaint to the parliamentary ombudsman.

The Finnish Minister of Communication, Suvi Lindén, and the NBI have been severely criticized over the filtering system, which has been under heavy scrutiny by the media. After stating that she will not tolerate discussion criticizing the filtering system, as the situation is not a matter of freedom of speech, a petition was signed by over 12,000 people demanding her resignation. This was accompanied by a Thai civil rights group questioning the blocking as child porn of a memorial site dedicated to a member of the Thai royal family. Eventually the NBI removed the memorial site from the blacklist, explaining that the DNS based system blocks only whole sites, and that there was child pornography site under the same domain; this raised questions about the efficiency of the filtering system.

Lindén later admitted that she did not know the details of the filtering system, as it had been established by her predecessors, before the change of government in early 2007. She has nevertheless defended the system, citing the protection of children, but admitted that there are problems with the Finnish system, and in other countries with similar systems.

The NBI have published a statement explaining their actions, at the request pf Lindén. In it the NBI stated that there are filtered sites do not contain any child pornography, but claimed that it was not their fault, rather a side effect of the system. They also noted that they are planning to address this issue by switching from a DNS based filter to a URL based system.

According to a prominent Finnish expert of filtering technology, the planned URL filtering would cost least two million euros. This estimate comes at the same time that the government cut back funds for work against child abuse, causing further uproar.

The NBI's official position is that they block pornographic sites where the actors look too young, and sites which link to these sites. The argument for the filtering is that there is a large amount of child pornography on the Internet, most of it based on servers in countries where there the authorities are indifferent to the issue.

The general opinion after analysis by multiple people is that the list of at least 1,700 sites contains a handful of actual child pornographic sites, most of which are not located in Western countries. However, some sites in the list are located in countries like the U.S., the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany, and very few of those contain even questionable or borderline material. Dutch journalist Karin Spaink reviewed 40 sites on the list which were physically located in the Netherlands. She concluded that some of the sites have illegal child pornography, and that four of those are also blocked in the Netherlands by their equivalent filtering system. She estimated that about half of the 40 did not contain any illegal material.

Effi's response to the NBI's statement was that the issue with censorship is not technical but that it has no place in an open, democratic society.

Wikinews

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Lunar eclipse to occur Wednesday night

2008-02-19T22:16:00.003+01:00

The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.

Sky watchers viewing through a telescope will have the added treat of seeing Saturn's handsome rings. Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.

As the moonlight dims - it won't go totally dark - Saturn and Regulus will pop out and sandwich the moon. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.

Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show "Star Gazer," called the event "the moon, the lord of the rings and heart of the lion eclipse."

Link: Lunar eclipse to occur Wednesday night (Yahoo).

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Passive Obesity

2008-02-13T14:26:00.003+01:00

Passive Obesity: n. Flabbiness caused by physical inactivity rather than caloric excess. Recent studies blame much of the obesity epidemic on the increasing amount of time people spend seated - at desks, in cars, and on couches. Corpulence, the theory goes, is the fault of modern lifestyles, not individual behavior.

Tags: digital, aurora, technology, computers, software, science, exploration, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

A Violent History of Time

2008-01-28T21:11:00.000+01:00

From mother Earth, the night sky can look peaceful and unchanging, but the universe as seen in gamma-rays is a place of sudden and chaotic violence. Using gamma-ray telescopes, astronomers witness short but tremendously intense explosions called gamma-ray bursts, and there is nothing more powerful.

No one is sure what causes gamma-ray bursts. Favored possibilities include the collision of two neutron stars or a sort of super-supernova that occurs when extremely massive stars explode. One thing is certain: gamma-ray bursts happen in galaxies far, far away -- so far away that the distances are called "cosmological," beyond ordinary comprehension.

Think about this: When you look up at the night sky, you are looking at the ultimate history book – one that goes back to the very beginning of what we call time. And each star is a chapter in the book. You are not really seeing the stars as they are now. You are looking at stars as they used to be when their light left them long ago. And the deeper we peer into space, the farther back in time we are looking. In fact, light from the galaxies farthest away is billions of years old.

"Gamma-ray bursts are so bright we can see them from billions of light years away, which means they occurred billions of years ago, and we see them as they looked then," says Charles Meegan of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "They can help us look back in time and teach us something about the conditions in the early universe. In gamma-ray bursts, we may be seeing the first generation of stars, from the earliest galaxies created after the Big Bang."

Not only do gamma-ray bursts help scientists learn about our universe's history; they also help explain its physics. But the tricky part in studying a gamma-ray burst is catching it before it disappears. Each burst happens and fades so fast that it's hard to detect them all. It's like trying to capture every single firefly's flash on a summer night with an ordinary camera.

NASA's Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, GLAST for short, will soon help in the chase. More on that in a minute, but first, let us set the stage with a little history.

Scientists have been hot on the gamma-ray trail for years, but the bursts were actually discovered by accident. During the Cold War in the 1960s, US satellites keeping an eye out for Soviet nuclear testing in violation of the Limited Test Ban Treaty detected intense bursts of gamma radiation. But the bursts weren't coming from the Soviet Union. Scientists realized that the bursts were coming from space!

Quickly, gamma-rays bursts became one of the most compelling mysteries of astronomy, and NASA decided to build a Great Observatory to map the gamma-ray sky. In the 1990s, the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory discovered more than 400 new gamma-ray sources and recorded 2704 gamma-ray bursts, detailing the gamma-ray universe early satellites had merely glimpsed. Most importantly, Compton uncovered evidence that gamma-ray bursts issued not from the Milky Way, but from staggeringly distant galaxies.

To be seen at such distances, the explosions had to be almost impossibly violent, astronomers realized. In a way, this was no surprise. Gamma rays are by their very nature a herald of great energy and violence. Consider the following: gamma rays are a super-energetic form of light. Ordinary visible photons, the kind we see with the human eye, have energies of about 2 to 3 electron-volts. Gamma-ray photons have energies greater than 10 giga-electron-volts (GeV), billions of times that of ordinary light. Ground-based observatories have detected gamma-rays of even higher energy – thousands of GeV.

In May 2008, NASA will launch GLAST to welcome these high-energy messengers. GLAST's main instrument, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), will make pioneering observations of gamma-ray bursts at higher energies than ever before from space. It is expected to accurately locate 50 or so bursts per year. Meanwhile, another instrument onboard GLAST, the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM), will monitor gamma-ray bursts at lower energies.

By working together, these two instruments will capture the whole energy range of these cosmic fireflies – from 10 thousand eV to 100 giga-electron-volts.

"Capturing the events in more than one wavelength will help scientists understand more about them, kind of like seeing in color instead of black and white," says Meegan. "We can't reproduce in any laboratory the extreme physical conditions that occur in gamma-ray bursts, so we don't understand how they work. By studying them with these instruments, we may learn some new physics about matter."

"I think it is likely that LAT and GBM will see something new and unpredicted from gamma-ray bursts. They will likely answer some old questions and raise new ones."

That's what science always seems to do. Stand by for launch in May 2008!

Tags: Violent, History, Time, Earth, planet, sun, solar, system, nasa, aerospace, flight, gamma, ray, glast, science, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Data from 650,000 credit card holders lost in US

2008-01-18T20:39:00.000+01:00

Information on 650,000 credit card holders held by U.S. retail stores is reported to be lost. The lost data includes 150,000 social security numbers.

Card holder data from J.C. Penney and other major retailing outlets was being stored on a backup computer tape owned by GE Consumer Finance and went missing in October. Theft or foul play is not believed to be involved.

The tape's last known whereabouts was a storage facility operated by Iron Mountain Incorporated. There are no records of the tape being signed out, but no one is able to locate it. The location of the facility is not yet known.

None of the accounts have been compromised and GE says that the tape does not contain enough information on one individual to open another card account. GE will offer all of those affected 12 months of free credit monitoring.

Iron Mountain says that only an individual with "special skills" could access any of the data on the tape, but they regret the incident because they have made mistakes in the past.

Wikinews

Tags: data, credit, card, lost, computer, tape, backup, jc, penney, ge, consumer, finance, theft, hacker, storage, iron, mountain, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

KDE 4 desktop environment released

2008-01-11T20:46:00.000+01:00

The fourth major version of the K Desktop Environment, KDE 4.0, was released today after several years of development and testing.

KDE is a free software project which aims to provide an easy to use desktop for UNIX and Linux workstations. As part of KDE also comes applications for many daily needs, and a complete platform for developers with the tools and documentation needed to write applications for the system.

The release is a major break from the last major version, KDE 3. The most immediately obvious new feature is Plasma, a new desktop shell. Plasma provides a panel, a menu and other means to interact with the desktop and applications. Plasma also features a widget engine, that allows users to use various desktop widgets that are referred to as plasmoids.

Among other major changes are Phonon, a framework independent multimedia API, Solid, a device integration framework and Oxygen, a new style guide and default icon set and a move to Qt 4, the most recent release of the Qt application development framework.

KDE 4.0 packages are available for Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Kubuntu, Mandriva and openSUSE.

KDE4 plasma icon demonstration

Menu KDE 4

KBFX - KDE Menu

KDE 4 - Dolphin

Source: WikiNews, images: The Coding Studio.

Tags: kde, 4, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Kubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE, plasma, desktop, open, source, gnu, linux, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Netscape navigating the World Wide Web no more

2008-01-01T22:52:00.000+01:00

AOL has decided to discontinue development of Netscape web browser which brought surfing the Internet to the masses, until its user base began to erode during the "browser wars" of the mid-1990s and resulted in the birth of Mozilla project.

Tom Drapeau, the director of Netscape inside AOL announced on the Netscape blog that support for the recently released Netscape Navigator 9 and all of Netscape's browsers back to version 1.0, will end because it was unable to gain market share and a low number of users that continues to dwindle. Drapeau noted, "AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," and that "the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."

Netscape's origins lie at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where Netscape's co-founders, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina wrote their first copy of NCSA Mosaic which became the first popular web browser and opened up the web for the first time to the general public and started the rise of the Internet in everyday life.

Andreessen along with Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, started the Mosaic Communications Corporation and released their first product Mosaic Netscape 0.9 in October 1994. A month later the company became the name it is today, the Netscape Communications Corporation to avoid legal problems from NCSA. A year later, had a successful IPO on August 9, 1995 and the stock closed the day at $75.

Netscape's early success and virtual monopoly of the browser market was short-lived however as Microsoft viewed Netscape's idea of a consistent browser across various operating systems a threat and quickly began development of its own browser, Internet Explorer.

This competition between Netscape and Microsoft became known as the browser wars, where both companies tried to outdo each other with their increasingly unstable browsers including: new features that did not always work, not providing bug fixes, deviating from Web standards (including the infamous "blink" and "marquee" HTML tags), program crashes and security holes.

By the end of 1997, Netscape's glory had run out and it experienced it's first bad quarter which resulted in January 1998. The new year also brought the world with the arrival of what would eventually become Mozilla and later Firefox, when Netscape decided to make the source code for their browser open source. A year later, Netscape was out of steam and was no longer a independent company but now a subsidiary of America Online.

The most recent version of the Netscape browser, Navigator 9, was for the most part was a re-skinned version of Firefox developed internally by a small group of people inside AOL. Netscape's actual browser development division was closed back in July 2003 and the work laid off.

However, AOL continues to run Netscape as a brand including a web portal, including a Digg-like social news aggregator which was branded as Netscape.com from June 2006 till September 2007, when it was spun off into a renamed site called Propeller. Netscape.com is now a dually branded AOL Netscape web portal, which is a duplicate of AOL.com. Netscape is also used as brand by AOL as a low-cost dial-up Internet service provider.

Firefox's third version is currently available as a beta and Microsoft is expected to release Internet Explorer 8 sometime in 2008.

WikiNews

Tags: netscape, navigator, aol, microsoft, internet, explorer, mozilla, firefox, browser, wars, market, share, production, development, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

A Preview of HTML 5

2007-12-28T01:18:00.000+01:00

This is a recommended article for all of you who write code for the web. A List Apart has a preview of the upcoming HTML standard, Generation 5.

The web is constantly evolving. New and innovative websites are being created every day, pushing the boundaries of HTML in every direction. HTML 4 has been around for nearly a decade now, and publishers seeking new techniques to provide enhanced functionality are being held back by the constraints of the language and browsers.

To give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications, HTML 5 introduces and enhances a wide range of features including form controls, APIs, multimedia, structure, and semantics.

Read about the new elements like: header, nav, section, article, aside, and footer. In addition, see the new video and audio elements: video, audio, source and so on. Here is an example code:

<video poster="poster.jpg">
   <source src="video.3gp" type="video/3gpp" media="handheld">
   <source src="video.ogv" type="video/ogg; codecs=theora, vorbis">
   <source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>
<audio>
   <source src="music.oga" type="audio/ogg">
   <source src="music.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>

Link: A Preview of HTML 5.

Tags: html, 5, validation, element, entity, header, footer, audio, video, embed, source, markup, language, programming, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Climate Conference in Bali concluded; opinions on outcome differ

2007-12-18T12:53:00.000+01:00

The climate conference that was held for the last two weeks in Bali came to a conclusion on Saturday. Agreement was reached on the so called Bali roadmap, but opinions differed on the substance of this and other documents that were decided upon.

The Roadmap establishes the target year of 2009 and the scope for a post-2012 climate change agreement. This agreement is expected to include the setting, for industrialized nations, of reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, amongst other things.

While the EU had wished for the inclusion of a guideline range of 25-40% for GHG emission cuts by industrialized nations by 2020, this had been opposed by the US and others, and so was not included in the final "roadmap" which addresses all nations that are part of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC). The range was however included in the preamble of the document agreed on by the members of the Kyoto Protocol.

Bali Roadmap breakdown

The "Bali Roadmap" document can be seen as having three distinct sections:

The first is the preamble, which is non binding and is there to put the following decisions in context. This is where the guideline emissions cut range would have been. Still included is a reference to the latest report by the international body of scientists that is charged with assessing the current state of knowledge on climate change. This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had presented its Synthesis report earlier this year. It also recognizes that "deep cuts in global emission will be required" to avoid dangerous climate change.

The second part is composed of a section calling for a "shared vision for long-term cooperative action, including a long-term global goal for emission reductions" and then goes on with a description of the four "building blocks" envisioned for tackling climate change. These are

mitigation
adaptation
technology development and transfer
and financing

The third and last part is the technical part of the document, with a proposed timetable for meetings and similar procedural matters being included.

Current matters

But it was not just the future that was talked about. There was also consensus on a number of current issues, such as the setting up of an expanded adaptation fund, and the necessity of accelerating the transfer and development of "climate friendly" technology.

Opinions

Perspectives on the outcome varied, with some non governmental organizations (NGOs) like Greenpeace International being generally happy that an agreement was achieved, but stating that a stronger mandate for the post 2012 negotiations had been wished for, and that current issues were not all addressed satisfactorily either.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon on the other hand welcomed the outcome of the conference, stating that all of his three benchmarks for success had been reached. He went on to say that he "believes that the Bali Roadmap that has been agreed is a pivotal first step toward an agreement that can address the threat of climate change, the defining challenge of our time."

The EU also welcomed the agreement that was reached, with Commission President José Manuel Barroso noting that "We have worked hard to achieve this result. It is a very important step forward." Both he and Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for Environment, made it clear that Bali had only been the start of what needed to be done, with the later stating that "Now the real hard work must begin. It is essential that the agreement to be worked out over the next two years is ambitious enough to prevent global warming from reaching dangerous levels.”

Tags: Climate, Conference, Bali, opinion, global, warming, diversity, nature, eu, usa, un, roadmap, ipcc, ghg, earth, science, report, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

A battle between AMD and Intel takes place at 2007 Taipei IT Month

2007-12-04T15:22:00.000+01:00

On the third day of the 2007 Taipei IT Month in Taiwan yesterday, notebook computers and desktop computers built with AMD's Phenom processor and Intel Penryn processor openly battled for the consumer-market after each company launched their quad core processors.

Intel with partners like Acer, Genuine, ASUS, and Lenovo promoted their desktops with Core 2 Quad and notebooks with Centrino Duo, even though Intel didn't plan to exhibit in IT Month. Intel's Taiwan division is holding two road shows for DIY experts. One was on December 1 while the second will be on December 8.

AMD, on the other hand, put on a showcase for IT Month with a "Bee Movie" booth-style exhibit at halls 1 and 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center. AMD's subsidiary company ATI showcased HDMI and Full HD with a demonstration of a new graphic card named "Radeon HD2000".

As the two rivals postured over factors like performance and high-definition, Wikinews reporter Rico Shen interviewed some of their partners. BenQ and Micro-Star International both said: "No matter whether the consumer chooses a computer with AMD or Intel, the consumer should consider it based on functionality and practically before purchasing. For example, some low-price notebook computers (EeePC, OLPC) were launched before the show because notebook computer manufacturers had considered and evaluated what a consumer really want. Sincerely, I recommend a consumer not be fooled by a its price but to consider its functionality first!"

WikiNews

Tags: amd, intel, processor, olpc, eepc, linux, windows, ati, nvidia, hdmi, radeon, core2, notebook, laptop, desktop, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

French government reveals industry sponsored anti-piracy body

2007-11-28T00:14:00.000+01:00

After brokering a deal between record companies, film corporations, internet firms and itself, the French government has unveiled a new anti-piracy body formed to counter what President Nicolas Sarkozy has described as the growing use of the internet as a "lawless zone where outlaws can pillage works with abandon or, worse, trade in them in total impunity".

Internet service providers will be forced to monitor the activities of their clients, and will restrict access for users known to be partaking in file sharing of selected media. In some cases, ISPs will be instructed to either cut off internet access entirely or threaten to do so.

The French consumer group UFC Que Choisir criticised the deal as being "very tough, potentially destructive of freedom, anti-economic and against digital history".

Film companies have agreed to hasten the cinema-to-DVD process as part of their obligations under the deal, and record companies have indicated future support for the sale of Digital Rights Management-free media in their stores.

The body will be supervised by a judge.

WikiNews

Tags: file, sharing, piracy, law, legislation, france, isp, internet, download, service, provider, dvd, cinema, drm, digital, rights, management, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Scientists Find Fossil of Enormous Bug

2007-11-21T18:25:00.000+01:00

This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.

"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.

"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," he said.

Link: Scientists Find Fossil of Enormous Bug.

Tags: Scientists, Find, Fossil, Enormous, Bug, amazing, discovery, excavation, old, scorpion, university, bristol, insect, monster, cockroach, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Intel launches 45nm "Penryn" processor aiming for energy-efficiency

2007-11-19T03:12:00.000+01:00

This week in Taiwan Intel and other technology companies showcased server and computer hardware with processors built using "Penryn" technology, the second generation of quad core technology that is produced with the high-k metal Hafnium that has come to replace halogen and lead components, which are not environmentally safe.

This new 45 nanometer (45nm) process technology included features on Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) compatible with video decoding (encoding) software, "Radix 16" which increased computing efficiency, and "deep power down" technology for energy efficiency. For the SSE4 feature, this will benefit makers of high-definition and AV-media, as both HDMI and 1080p are supported.

Companies that will participate in the Taiwan Informonth exhibition next month, announced that some products with "Penryn" processors will be on the market by then. Some companies like Tyan and Supermicro will provide small business solutions as well as enterprises solutions. This launch will be tied to other unveilings by the IT and AV-media industries in Taiwan.

Wikipedia

Tags: intel, processor, penryn, energy, efficiency, 45nm, technology, environment, hafnium, simd, hdmi, radix, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Arrives at Launch Pad

2007-11-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

After safely reaching its launch pad Saturday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the space shuttle Atlantis now awaits its next major milestone for the upcoming STS-122 mission. The full launch dress rehearsal is scheduled from Nov. 18 to 20 at Kennedy.

The shuttle arrived at the pad about 11 a.m. EST Saturday on top of a giant vehicle called the crawler-transporter. The crawler-transporter began carrying Atlantis out of Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building at 4:43 a.m., traveling less than 1 mph during the 3.4 mile journey. Atlantis achieved hard down and was firmly on the launch pad at 11:51 a.m.

Atlantis is targeted to launch Dec. 6 on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle's seven crew members will deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station and bring a new crew member to the station and return another to Earth.

Atlantis’ crew members are Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, and Hans Schlegel and Léopold Eyharts of the European Space Agency. Eyharts will replace current Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Daniel Tani. Eyharts will return to Earth aboard STS-123, which is targeted to launch Feb. 14, 2008.Tani will return to Earth aboard Atlantis. He launched to the station with the STS-120 crew.

The STS-122 astronauts and ground crews will participate in a launch dress rehearsal, known as the terminal countdown demonstration test, or TCDT. The test provides each shuttle crew with an opportunity to participate in various simulated countdown activities, including equipment familiarization and emergency training. STS-122 is the 121st space shuttle flight, the 29th flight for space shuttle Atlantis and the 24th flight to the station.

Link: Space Shuttle.

Tags: space, shuttle, atlantis, kennedy, launch, pad, flight, nasa, science, research, iss, schedule, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.

NASA to Establish Nationwide Lunar Science Institute

2007-11-06T16:37:00.000+01:00

NASA has announced its intent to establish a new lunar science institute. This effort, with dispersed teams across the nation, will help lead the agency's research activities for future lunar science missions related to NASA's exploration goals.

Named the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), the effort will be managed from NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Ames currently manages a similar distributed NASA Astrobiology Institute.

NLSI's operations are expected to begin March 1, 2008. NLSI will augment other, already established lunar science investigations funded by NASA by encouraging the formation of interdisciplinary research teams that are larger than those currently at work in lunar science.

"I am excited about NLSI," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "As the National Academy of Sciences has told us, the science to be done at the moon and from the moon are of high value, and NLSI will help us coordinate and expand a number of in-depth research efforts in lunar science and other fields that can benefit from human and robotic missions that are part of NASA's exploration plans."

NLSI research teams will address current topics in basic lunar science, and perhaps astronomical, solar and Earth science investigations that could be performed from the moon. They also will offer a quick response capability for lunar science support to NASA's Exploration initiative.

A national search for a NLSI director is currently underway. Most work done under NLSI's banner will take place at other NASA centers, universities and non-profit research groups around the nations. These groups will be competitively selected after scientific peer review.

Initially, NASA will select four or five teams for grants of $1 to $2 million each for three years, with renewals of up to five years. NASA will solicit team proposals in a 2008 NASA Research Announcement.

By late 2008, about 50 researchers around the U.S. could be working under NLSI's banner. By 2010, that number could double. Funds for this effort are part of the president's proposed 2008 NASA budget for the lunar science project within the planetary research program, now under consideration in Congress.

"We're delighted NASA Ames was chosen to lead this exciting new lunar science research office," said S. Pete Worden, Ames center director. "This will complement the agency's ongoing lunar research and further the implementation of the nation's exploration efforts."

The lunar science institute is modeled after the highly successful NASA Astrobiology Institute, based at Ames. Established in 1997, the NASA Astrobiology Institute promotes, conducts and leads integrated multidisciplinary astrobiology research in addition to training a new generation of astrobiology researchers.

Tags: NASA, Astrobiology, Institute, lunar, moon, team, exploration, science, operation, nlsi, ames, research, center, Macedonia, Македонија, Panta Rei, GoodBytes.