Intel Accelerates 45nm Chip Production

Intel Corp. on Thursday is expected to open a new factory to accelerate the production of chips using a 45-nanometer manufacturing process, slated to be used for its upcoming Penryn chips.

The 'Fab 32' in Chandler, Arizona, will use the 45-nm manufacturing process to produce chips for servers, PCs, mobile phones and consumer devices, according to Intel.

"The opening of this fab means that we've now moved into high-volume production of our 45nm chips," said Kari Aakre, an Intel spokeswoman. Intel's been making 45nm chips for a year now in a development fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, which isn't high-volume, Aakre said.

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said last month that Intel plans to introduce 15 new 45-nm processors by the end of the year and 20 in the first quarter of 2008. Penryn chips for servers and workstations will be introduced on Nov. 12.

Intel will also use the 45-nm manufacturing process for Silverthorne, a low-power Intel architecture designed for ultramobile devices, mobile Internet devices and low-cost PCs. Silverthorne chips will appear early next year.

Next year it will add factories in Kiryat Gal, Israel and Rio Rancho, New Mexico, to produce 45nm chips. The new fabs will help Intel meet its projection to ship more 45nm chips than 65-nm chips by the third quarter of 2008, Aakre said.

Intel currently ships 65nm chips, and Penryn is the code name given to the 4-5nm "shrink" of Intel's current chip designs. The measurements refer to the size of the features on the silicon chip.

Penryn's successor, the 45-nm 'Nehalem' processor, will appear in 2008. At Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last month, Otellini demonstrated Nehalem, saying it would deliver better performance-per-watt and better system performance through its QuickPath Interconnect system architecture. Nehalem chips will also include an integrated memory controller and improved communication links between system components.

Technorati : 45nm Chip Production

The sensation of space travel

Space travel :

Off-planet travel is an experience like no other, say those that have already travelled into orbit. And that's just what ticketed, still-to-fly customers for future suborbital treks want to hear.

Space travelers - those that have flown, as well as patrons-in-waiting for commercial spaceline operations to begin - spoke at the 2007 International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight (ISPS), held here October 24-25.

Reda Anderson, the first customer to sign up for a suborbital sendoff courtesy of Rocketplane Global, Inc., listed the "three R's" of commercial personal spaceflight: Risk, Reward, and Responsibility.

Anderson doesn't see herself as a tourist.

"That's because they are not serving coffee on this flight. I see myself as a pioneer ... one of, say, the first 100 people that certainly are pioneers, maybe the first 500," she said.

"We are the ones who'll begin this movement," Anderson added. "Darn right I know I could die there."

Opening up the market

For Craig Willan, a future passenger on Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner: "I'm not worthy to be called an astronaut or an astronaut candidate. I'm a space traveler ... that's basically it." His official job here on Earth is President of Omega Research and Engineering, Inc. of Justin, Texas.

Like Anderson, Willan also said that he readily accepts the risks associated with public space travel.

As for the current price tag to fly aboard the suborbital SpaceShipTwo, now being built for Virgin Galactic, Willan's seat into space is costing $200,000. He'll be one of the first 100 to ride that vessel and believes that, potentially, ticket prices are going to come down - way, way down in the future.

Earlier in the day, Alex Tai, Chief Operation Officer for Virgin Galactic, noted that the company now has $31 million in deposits from future suborbital space travelers. "When we start flying people from Spaceport America here, and we show people exactly how wonderful it is to go to space and the wonderful experience you can have ... the market is really going to open up," he said.

Like a dream

There are two things you'll remember about being in space, explained Michael Lopez-Alegria, a veteran NASA spaceflyer with 10 spacewalks to his credit, as well as a stint aboard the International Space Station.

"The first is that it's better than you ever imagined. And the second is that you can't go back in your mind ... it's like a dream, like a parallel existence that you just can't get your arms around," Lopez-Alegria said. He said that once you've lived in space, the experience you'd like to bottle up so you can take a sniff of it every once in a while.

"Space is very addicting ... so be ready for that," Lopez-Alegria suggested to the audience. Launch and the speed needed to reach Earth orbit are truly amazing events, he said.

The sensation of floating - whether you equate that to a fish or a bird - "it doesn't matter. The sensation is unbelievable ... and the amazing thing is that it just never stops," Lopez-Alegria said.

In viewing the Earth from space, Lopez-Alegria said that our planet takes on many faces. "It looks fragile. It looks sturdy. It looks inviting. It looks hostile," he suggested.

From a spacewalker's perspective, with the freedom of looking at the sky during a night part of an orbit around the Earth, Lopez-Alegria pointed out: "Instead of seeing a black sky with pinpoints of light, it's almost as if you see a white sky with pinpoints of black. That's how many stars there are," he said.

Exceeds all expectations

A little over a year ago, Anousheh Ansari, attracted worldwide notice as the first female private space explorer to board the International Space Station. The high-tech businesswoman and co-founder of Prodea Systems of Plano, Texas paid some $20 million for her orbital adventure in September 2006.

The actual experience "exceeds all expectations" and is something that's hard to put to words, Ansari advised. "A lot of people say that diving is the closest thing to being weightless. It comes close, but still, it's not the same."

Ansari's suggestion, for those taking suborbital flights of short duration, is that future travelers need to make the whole journey the experience - and not just focus on the moment of weightlessness or the moment you see Earth. The entire preparation and mental preparedness is part of the journey, she said.

"There are a lot of new sensations that you'll be introduced to, and you need to mentally be prepared for that," Ansari said.

In her mission into Earth orbit, being able to observe the Earth from space had an impact on her. "It sort of reduces things to a size that you think everything is manageable. All these things that may seem big and impossible ... we can do this. Peace on Earth - no problem. It gives people that type of energy ... that type of power, and I have experienced that."

Stellar-traveling species

Retired NASA astronaut, Dan Barry, has a trio of spaceflights under his flight helmet. His take home message regarding the importance of taking risk in order to fly through space boiled down to one word: adaptation.

"Life is something that modifies its environment ... changes things around in order to succeed," Barry explained. The obvious adaptation of the human race to all of the issues that are confronting us on the planet is to leave - to develop a spacefaring society, he said.

Mars is Barry's object of choice in regards to human expansion outward, on the drive to eventually become a stellar-traveling species.

"It is more than just nice. It's an obligation for us to get off this planet - to make it no longer possible to wipe out the species with a single event, an asteroid, or a crazy virus or an ecological runaway," Barry said. "It becomes not a destiny, but an absolute necessity for us to establish a place on Mars that is permanent, independent ... and capable of sustaining the species without Earth."

Technorati : space travel

Updates :Google adds IMAP support to Gmail

Google is updating continuously their services , No doubt they are playing the keyroll of global technology development.

Google announced today at Interop New York that Gmail will now support IMAP along with POP3 for synchronizing email across multiple mobile devices and computers. This new addition to the popular free email service allows users to download and organize emails on any one interface including online, through their mobile device or on their computer and instantly see the changes on the other interfaces.

IMAP is not a new technology but is new and a welcomed upgrade to Gmail. The IMAP support was presented by Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise who announced users could begin using IMAP immediately, however according to the Gmail site Google will be rolling this out to everyone over the next few days, so if you don't see it right away it's probably coming to your account soon. Google has a video that describes how to configure your Gmail account to turn enable IMAP and how to configure your iPhone with the service which is available after the jump.

The feature will work with many email clients including Outlook Express, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Apple Mail, Windows Mail, and Thunderbird 2.0. It will also work with BlackBerry's but is not yet compatible with VersaMail for Palm. A list of supported IMAP clients along with directions can be found on the Gmail Help Center.

Technorati : google update

Behind Asia's moon race?

China launched its first lunar probe Wednesday. Japan sent an orbiter up last month. India is close behind. It's an economic competition with military undertones.

As the rocket carrying China's first lunar probe blasted off Wednesday evening, it left in its wake a vapor trail of questions about the nature of Asia's new space race.

The continent's giants are jockeying for position beyond the earth's atmosphere. Japan launched its own moon orbiter last month. India plans to send a similar satellite up next year. The dawn of the Asian space age, however, has been darkened by suspicion, instead of cooperation.

"This means more competition because of the lingering security concerns all three countries have about one another," says Bates Gill, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "Because of the military relevance of space missions and technology, real cooperation will be difficult."

The moon shots, all designed to learn more about the lunar atmosphere and surface, have no military purpose, officials in the three new space powers are quick to point out. But in a field where civilian technological advances can easily be put to military use, nations closely scrutinize each of their neighbors' steps forward.

India is nervous about China's intentions, especialy in the wake of Beijing's test of an antisatellite missile last January. China worries that Japan's missile defense cooperation with the US might threaten its interests, and resents Washington's determination to remain the world's dominant space power. Japan is rattled by North Korea's ballistic-missile capability.

Against that background, Dr. Gill adds, "an Asian NASA sounds a bit far-fetched."

That, argues Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the US Naval War College in Newport, R.I., is because the Asian nations' space programs are largely driven by "technonationalism; they generate pride domestically and they demonstrate prowess internationally."

The chief scientist for China's moon program, Ouyang Ziyuan, said in an interview earlier this year with the official People's Daily: "Lunar exploration is a reflection of a country's comprehensive national power and is significant for raising our international prestige and increasing our people's cohesion."

Space programs also boost high-tech skills. "China needs its lunar and manned flight projects to nurture the aerospace industry and bring along a cadre of young engineers who will develop its space industry, GPS, Earth observation, and communications, along with military applications," says Gregory Kulacki, a China analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

"The main meaning [of the Chinese moon program] on the industrial side is that we have to set up many new abilities in satellitemaking, long-range telemetry, and so on," says Zhang Wei, a senior official with the Chinese National Space Administration.

Such challenges are important, too, in India, where the scientific community is seeking new frontiers now that New Delhi's nuclear program is mature. "The only other avenue for growth and development of scientific technology is space technology," says Swapna Kona, an analyst at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi.

In Japan, space exploration holds out the promise of autonomy. "Japan needs to secure its own means of launching a satellite," says Akinori Hashimoto, a spokesman for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. "Now, we cannot launch one whenever we want to and we are concerned about information leakage."

China, Japan, and India are all focusing on the moon, says Dr. Kulacki, because it is "close, doable" and a logical first step in interplanetary exploration. Some officials see practical rewards beyond the scientific knowledge to be gleaned by mapping and analyzing the lunar surface. The moon is thought to be rich in Helium-3, for example, which could one day be used for nuclear fusion to create energy.

India's Chandrayaan probe will search for Helium-3, the head of India's space research organization said last year. China's Chang'e I orbiter will also sniff for it. "Mineral resources and energy ... will be a very important field that humans will compete for," Mr. Ouyang told the People's Daily.

The 1979 UN Moon Agreement bans ownership of lunar resources, but none of the nations launching lunar satellites, including the US, have ratified it, although India has signed it.

India has also been one of the most vociferous opponents of allowing weapons in space. Officials reacted with disquiet to China's destruction of an old weather satellite last January, proving that Beijing could threaten US and other satellites in space warfare. "We are treading a thin line between current defense-related uses of space and its actual weaponization," warned Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee soon after the Chinese missile test. He called on all states to "redouble efforts" toward a treaty guaranteeing the peaceful use of space.

China, too, has long called for such a treaty, which Washington rejects, but some analysts now doubt Beijing's sincerity. "Having recognized the futility of trying to get the US on board, and recognizing how weapons in space could be of benefit to China, that has dulled their enthusiasm," suggests Gill.

Japan, meanwhile, is shifting its approach to space-based defenses in the face of threats from North Korea. A ballistic-missile test in 1998 over its territory jolted Japan's space program into new life. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is seeking to redefine the current "peaceful" use of space to mean "non-aggressive" rather than "nonmilitary," as is currently the case.

The "Basic Space" bill enshrining this change is expected to pass by next March, freeing the Japanese Defense Ministry to launch spy satellites.

Technorati : moon race

MIT seeks ways to meet India's urban challenges

24hoursnews

MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ) has teamed up with an Indian institution to organise an international competition for the best research paper on innovative responses to India's new urban challenges.

Part of the MIT's India Programme, the competition organised jointly with the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai, is designed to highlight usually overlooked cases of innovation and success in response to rapid urbanisation.

While the transformations in the Indian economy and polity are well documented and studied, very little work has been done in the study of institutional responses at city and state levels to challenges brought about by rapid urbanisation, MIT said.

These responses include some cities developing unconventional modes of resource generation. Some cities are succeeding in linking asset formation to asset maintenance. Others are making progress in renewing land uses in response to economic growth pressures without hurting the urban poor.

Some cities have been successful in incorporating citizen participation in decision-making without unduly delaying the implementation of projects and policies.

The competition anticipates that the crafting and implementation of new approaches will require planners who are not constrained by orthodox theories and ideological biases.

The cultivation of such a new heterodox mindset requires new teaching material for professional education, which is the ultimate purpose of this competition, MIT said.

Three best entries to the competition will get awards of Rs.100,000 (approx $2,500), Rs.75,000, and Rs.50,000.

The papers will also be published in an edited volume, which will include specially commissioned chapters written by prominent academics and practitioners.

Publication of the book will be followed by a conference, jointly organised by the Special Programme in Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at MIT and the Centre for Development Finance at IFMR, to disseminate the research findings.

The winners of the competition will be invited to present their work to the conference participants. Since the ultimate objective of the competition is to create new teaching material for professional education, winners of the competition will be offered the opportunity to develop their research papers into case studies appropriate for teaching purposes.

The first prize winner will be invited as a visiting fellow to MIT to present the case study in a manner suitable for inclusion on MIT's OpenCourseWare.

Technorati : Indian Urban plan, MIT

Next generation Internet : Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet

(24hoursnews ) A picture of the web in 2030, and it is very powerful - and very smart - indeed

In the heart of Silicon Valley, at what is referred to, somewhat romantically, as the 'web's edge', something is stirring.

A new type of internet is being imagined, far more powerful that the one which lets you link up with your friends or watch a video uploaded by a stranger.

Facebook, YouTube and the other social networks and blogs that fall within the scope of 'Web 2.0' may be beginning to penetrate the mainstream, but to those whose Cassandra-like vision lets them see the web in 2020 and beyond, they are but a pixel in a much larger picture.

In a little over a decade, according to the engineers building the internet of tomorrow, the web will be able to connect every aspect of our digital lives - be it a website, an e-mail, or a file on our PC - to every other aspect. It will know, for instance, when you are typing an e-mail, what the subject of the e-mail is, and be able to suggest websites and books as well as documents, photos and videos you have saved that may be relevant to that topic
It will be achieve this by virtue of the inherent 'intelligence' in the underlying architecture of the internet, they say. In other words, the web is becoming smart.

Nova Spivack is an evangelist of the next phase of the web's development - what Silicon Valley, with its expansionist zeal, has taken to calling Web 3.0, or 'the semantic web'.

Broadly speaking, Mr Spivack says, Web 3.0 refers to the attempt by technologists to overhaul radically the basic platform of the internet so that it 'understands' the near infinite pieces of information that reside on it and draws connections between them.

If Web 2.0 was all about harnessing the collective intelligence of crowds to give information a value - lots of people liked this story so you might too (Digg.com), people who like Madonna also like this artist (last.fm), lots of people linked to this site so that makes it the most relevant (Google's basic PageRank algorithm) - then Web 3.0 is about giving the internet itself a brain.

For those still a bit lost, Mr Spivack, the founder of Radar Networks, a leading Web 3.0 company, says it's useful to think about the web's development in ten-year cycles.

"We have had the first decade of the web, or Web 1.0," he says, which was about the development of the basic platform of the internet and the ability to make huge amounts of information widely accessible, "and we're nearing the end of the second decade - Web 2.0 - which was all about the user interface" and enabling users to connect with one another.

"Now we're about to enter the third decade - Web 3.0 - which is about making the web much smarter."

Each decade in turn corresponds to an engineering focus on either 'the front end' or 'back end' of the web. Web 1.0 was a back-end decade, focusing on the web's basic platform, its link structure and navigation system. Web 2.0 was front end, with a heavy focus on users and usability, clean-looking sites, and people making connections with one another.

In Web 3.0, the emphasis will revert to the back end, with a renewal of the web's key index - the essential data that is catalogued by search engines like Google. That in turn, Mr Spivack says, will make way for Web 4.0, another 'front-end decade', only with more advanced programs than the likes of Facebook.

A prime example of a Web 3.0 technology is 'natural-language search', which refers to the ability of search engines to answer full questions such as 'Which US Presidents died of disease?'. In some cases, the sites that appear in the results do not reference the original search terms, reflecting the fact that the web knows, for instance, that Reagan was a US President, and that Alzheimer's is a disease.

"Our engine reads every page of the web sentence by sentence and returns results by drawing on a general knowledge of language and what specific concepts in the world mean, and their relationship with one another," said Barney Pell, chief executive of Powerset, which is developing natural-language technology. The firm, based at the prestigious Palo Alto Research Centre, in California, is sometimes talked about as a Google-killer, should its offering - which is not yet widely available - become popular.

It's not just search that will be overhauled in the web of the future, however. One of the recurrent themes in the presentations at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco was 'open platforms', the idea that a website or device, like a mobile phone, should be able to accommodate whichever features or applications its user wants. Think of the iPhone as a folder into which an owner could 'drag and drop' any application - a weather forecaster, an e-mail service - without Apple having to approve such an action.

Some of the world's largest technology companies - Nokia, Apple and MySpace - all made announcements embracing the idea of open platforms, suggesting that the web will become a place where much more mixing and matching of different services will be permitted.

Alongside this will come tmore mature virtual worlds, or what Silicon Valley's faithful - perhaps to get away from connotations of the computer game - have started referring to as 'immersive environments'.

"The web is going to be a much more immersive, a much more multi-dimensional environment," said John Doerr, one of the founding board members at Google and a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which invests heavily in the tech sector.

Mr Doerr's presentation touched on a range of areas that would be affected by the web, in particular green technologies and the energy sector, as well as disease therapy, and he gave stark warning to any firm that was not willing to embrace emerging trends. "In any real revolution there are winners and losers. The internet wasn't some kind of 'kum ba ya' thing," he said.

When the time came to pack up the projects and exchange the last business cards, there was a sense - as there was seven years ago - that Silicon Valley was riding a wave of seemingly limitless investor confidence, begging an obvious question.

"Are we officially in a bubble yet?" one of the conference moderators asked, repeatedly.

No one was willing to answer. In the meantime, the vast sums of money to be made and the new services to change people's lives, radically and everywhere, were both things to be celebrated.

Technorati : Web 3.0

New Invention :New algorithms : Copper Broadband now 200x Faster by Dr John Papandriopoulos

24hournews :Copper Broadband now 200x Faster by Dr John Papandriopoulos

"People have been trying to push up the speeds of broadband to as fast as possible by pushing the actual bandwidth limits," Papandriopoulos tells Image and Data Manager Online. "The underlying problem is really one of interference, in effect your neighbor is interfering with your speed," he said. A bit more from the report:

An Australian PhD student has devised a way of getting extra bandwidth out of copper. Dr John Papandriopoulos, who is waiting for patents to get processed on his technology, says it could provide speeds up to 250Mbps over traditional copper lines. The article, which offers scant technical specifics, says the technology "uses mathematic modeling to reduce the interference that slows down downloading."

"Winner of Melbourne University's Chancellor's Prize for Excellence, Dr John Papandriopoulos could soon find himself the focus of a number of networking companies and government agencies interested in wringing more performance from existing network infrastructure. Dr John developed a set of algorithms (US and Aussie patents pending) that reduce the impact of cross talk on data streams sharing the same physical copper line, taking less than a year to achieve the breakthrough. It is claimed that the algorithms can produce up to 200x improvement over existing copper broadband performance (quoted as being between one and 25 mbit/sec), with up to 200 mbit/sec apparently being deliverable. If the mathematical theories are within even an order of magnitude of the actual gains achieved, Dr John's work is likely to have widespread implications for future bandwidth availability across the globe."

According to Dr John,

the technology could be installed directly into existing modems as a software upgrade or be shipped in new modems depending on the ability of the particular modem type. In addition to this there would be a further installation required at the DSLAM in your telephone exchange which would then start cutting down the interference. Don't expect to see the offering on your local PC store shelves anytime soon though, as Dr John hopes it will be available within 3-4 years.

Researcher Information - Dr John Papandriopoulos

Personal Details
Name Dr John Papandriopoulos
Affiliation Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Melbourne
Contact Details CUBIN, Dept. of EEE, University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Vic
Phone: +61 3 8344 3810
Email: jpap@ee.unimelb.edu.au
(this email address is displayed using a Javascript function with the aim of stopping email collectors)
Website http://ulos.org

Biography

John Papandriopoulos was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1978. He received the combined B.E. degree in communications engineering and B.App.Sci. degree in computer science from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), Australia, in 2001 and was awarded the J. N. McNicol Prize (University Medal) in 2002.

He completed his Ph.D. in 2006 within the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include non-linear (non)convex optimization techniques and applications, particularly in the cross-layer design of wireless networks and resource allocation in CDMA and OFDM-based networks.

John has worked with Telstra, Agilent Technologies, and the 3G Mobile R&D Division of NEC Australia. He has also served two years as the Chairperson of the University of Melbourne IEEE Student Branch from 2003.

Areas of Expertise
Research Areas Communications Theory; Signal Processing; Mobile Networking; Broadband Access;
Application Areas Mobile Communications; Wireless Data Communications; Broadband Communications;

Technorati : Copper Broadband 200x Faster

Astronauts board U.S. space shuttle ahead of launch :Hatch Closed and Locked

The seven astronauts on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery scrambled aboard their spaceship on Tuesday to await blastoff on a construction mission to the International Space Station.

Liftoff remained targeted for 11:38 a.m. (1538 GMT) although forecasters predicted a 60 percent chance of a delay due to clouds and rain.

Discovery is carrying a connection hub to the space station so NASA can attach laboratories owned by Europe and Japan to the orbital outpost. The new module, called Harmony, will be the first expansion to the station's living space since 2001.

If Discovery's 14-day mission unfolds with few problems, NASA plans to launch the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory on December 6.

Earlier Tuesday, technicians filled Discovery's fuel tank with 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to feed the ship's three main engines during the 8.5-minute climb to orbit.

NASA then dispatched a team of inspectors to survey Discovery for signs of ice or cracks in the tank's foam insulation.

"There are no technical issues that would preclude launch at this time," said launch commentator Mike Curie.

Both ice and foam pose a threat to the shuttle if pieces fly off during liftoff, as happened during Columbia's launch in 2003.
The impact damaged the ship's heat shield, which failed during the descent through Earth's atmosphere for landing, causing the shuttle's breakup and the deaths of seven astronauts.

For Discovery's flight, NASA carved an hour off the amount of time the tank is filled before launch in the hope of minimizing ice buildups.

After Discovery's mission, NASA has 11 construction flights to the station remaining and two resupply flights before the $100 billion outpost is finished.

NASA needs to have the work completed within three years when the shuttle fleet is due to be retired.

Image Above: STS-120 commander Pamela Meroy gets strapped into space shuttle Discovery. Image credit: NASA TV

---

Technicians working at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have closed the hatch, or doorway, leading into space shuttle Discovery's crew compartment. The shuttle's seven astronauts are running through pre-launch tests and checks. Technicians are putting the finishing touches on the white room itself so it can safely fold away from Discovery in the last few minutes before launch.

The countdown is proceeding towards an 11:38 a.m. EDT liftoff.

Technorati : Astronauts, U.S., ahead, board, launch, shuttle, space

Space Shuttle Discovery is Ready; Weather Remains a Concern

The countdown to launch of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-120 mission is proceeding smoothly at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Test Director Steve Payne announced at this morning's countdown status briefing.

"At this point in the count, we're on schedule, our systems are all good and we're in great shape," Payne said, adding that the launch team is not tracking any technical issues.

Image Above: Space shuttle Discovery stands at Launch Pad 39A, where it is undergoing final preparations for launch on the STS-120 mission. The shuttle is protected by the pad's rotating service structure. Image credit: NASA TV

---

However, the weather forecast for Tuesday continues to pose a threat to NASA's launch plans. Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters reported that the seabreeze could begin developing by the 11:38 a.m. EDT launch time. There is a 60-percent chance that cumulus clouds, showers and a low cloud ceiling could keep Discovery grounded.

Because launch times are earlier each day, the forecast improves slightly for Wednesday and Thursday, with a 40-percent probability of weather prohibiting liftoff.

Discovery's crew of seven astronauts arrived in Florida on Friday and have been going through final checklists and preparations for Tuesday's liftoff.

Discovery is scheduled to return to Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 4:47 a.m. Nov. 6.

Technorati : Space Shuttle

Sandisk Sansa TakeTV : getting your PC's video content onto your television

Really Exiting

San Jose (24hoursnews) - Sandisk, best known for its USB flash drives and low-cost MP3 players, has announced that its next project will be a portable media hub that users can use to transfer video from a PC to a TV.
Now that the wireless and streaming media extender market is starting to take root, SanDisk has a thought: "What's so great about wireless?" The company is taking a different, simpler approach to getting your PC's video content onto your television: a USB drive that plugs into a dock that connects to your television. And loading the device is as simple as dragging and dropping files onto the drive. Forget about HD content, surround (or even 2.1-channel) sound, or a ton of storage space. The TakeTV is pretty inexpensive, though-$100 for 4G of storage and $150 for 8GB-compared with Apple TV's entry-level price of $300. For those who don't do iTunes (or even those who like the selection at Fanfare.com, SanDisk's source for video content), the TakeTV is a cheap, simple, and quick way to get content from your PC to your TV.

TakeTV's minimalist design won't blow your mind, but it won't eat up a lot of desk or table space, either. When the removable USB drive is plugged into the powered dock (which connects via cables to your television), the unit is roughly 5.6 by 1.5 by 0.5 inches. With the kickstand on the dock down-essential if you want your remote control to work-the unit's 0.5-inch depth becomes about 1.5 inches. Also included is a power adapter for the dock and a hardwired audio/video cable that sends sound and images from the dock to your TV (and/or stereo receiver). Not only is the cable pretty short (it's no easy feat connecting one end of the cable to your TV and the other to your stereo receiver since they spring from the same outlet on the dock), but it doesn't support surround (or even 2.1-channel) sound. It's simply left and right channels, so a lot of the rumble and audio ado in movie and television mixes is lost. A simple digital optical out would have fixed that. For video, there are S-Video and composite-out connectors.

The remote is oddly shaped, but works well, despite the cheap-feeling membrane buttons. A large Play button dominates the top of the remote. Below that are smaller buttons for menu navigation, power, video information, screen set-up, subtitle control, and viewing mode (that is, pan and scan, fill screen, or letterbox). There's also an onscreen menu, where you can change items as granular as subtitle font type. For the most part, I found menu and remote navigation straightforward. The interface isn't beautiful, but it's executed well enough that you won't embarrass yourself scrolling endlessly through menus when friends are over.

TakeTV supports DivX, Xvid, and MPEG-4 video files. The device is Vista and XP compatible-there's no support for Macs here. It's a breeze to load the drive with video content from your PC. Just drag and drop files as you would with any other USB drive, then attach the drive to the dock connected to your TV, and you're set. Given that, I was surprised that I couldn't load music or photos onto the drive and play them on my TV/stereo system (it is, after all, a USB drive). SanDisk has hinted that this functionality is in the works for sometime in the future.

Getting content from Fanfare.com, SanDisk's video content site, is also simple. You just need to create a log-in and password on the site (it's free.) Once you've done this, every time you plug in the TakeTV's USB drive, Fanfare.com launches. The selection at Fanfare is pretty limited right now, but the site is still in beta. Currently, users can download TV shows for free from Showtime and CBS like Dexter and CSI: Miami, as well as download content from TV Guide, The Weather Channel, and Smithsonian Networks. Eventually, premium offerings from Showtime will go for $1.99 or more, or users can choose free content that will feature advertisements. Until Fanfare expands its content, the service is merely a bonus. That said, the quality of the available clips on Fanfare, though not HD, is certainly watchable. TakeTV's playback resolution is 720 by 576. Transfer time for the videos from Fanfare is fairly quick, but obviously the more content you download at one time or the slower your connection, the longer things take-you can expect transfer times comparable with those from the iTunes Store. If SanDisk does manage to expand its video collection, the site could be an attractive alternative to iTunes and Amazon's Unbox.

TakeTV is an easy way to grab the tons of BitTorrent files, er, video content from your PC to watch on your TV. Sure, the omission of 2.1-channel-or-better audio connections is a letdown. But the lack of wireless streaming isn't that much of a bummer. Wireless video streaming can be affected by network hiccups and bandwidth issues, and transferring files wirelessly isn't always speedy. Plus, the device is affordable, and that alone, considering it works so well, makes TakeTV worth checking out.

For tech support, call SanDisk at 1-866-SanDisk (1-866-726-3475), or fill out an on-line support

request at http://www.sandisk.com/retail/support.asp.

Technorati : Sandisk, Sansa

Google’s Purchase of Jaiku : develops New Privacy Issues

Google's acquisition of Jaiku, a small Finnish start-up active in the obscure field of microblogging - a word most often associated with the better-known company Twitter - might not appear to be an earth-shaking event.

But the deal, announced this month, has much of the tech-tracking blogosphere abuzz. Some claim it is the harbinger of a new, truly interconnected world, where a chunk of our existence will migrate online.

To begin with, the reasoning goes, Jaiku is not really about microblogging - those minimessages submitted by text or e-mail that made Twitter famous. Jaiku is "a mobile company in the business of creating smarter presence applications," and therefore "a leader in a category most people haven't fully grasped yet," Tim O'Reilly, a technology conference promoter credited with the phrase Web 2.0, wrote in his blog.

Petteri Koponen, one of the two founders of Jaiku, described the service as a "holistic view of a person's life," rather than just short posts. "We extract a lot of information automatically, especially from mobile phones," Mr. Koponen said from Mountain View, Calif., where the company is being integrated into Google. "This kind of information paints a picture of what a person is thinking or doing."

In practical terms, Jaiku's mobile application allows users to broadcast not only their whereabouts, but how the phone is being used, even what kind of music it is playing.

The information opens up a world of new mobile services for regular users, beyond the world of early adapters familiar with Jaiku.

Mr. O'Reilly's example is the Web 2.0 address book, where the old address book is made into a live diary, constantly updated so that we can see, on our cellphones, where our contacts are and what they are doing.

Chris Messina, an open-source entrepreneur and founder of the consulting firm Citizen Agency, takes it a step further. In a blog post after the Jaiku deal was announced, he said that he envisioned a world where all information had migrated online, where the address book "lives in Googleland," indicating presence in a way similar to the buddy lists on instant messaging programs, "and the data never grows old and never goes stale."

"Instead of just seeing someone's inert photo when you bring up their record in your address book," he wrote, "you see all manner of social and presence data."

One might, he suggested, "even get a picture of their current location."

Some industry analysts have speculated that the acquisition is part of a strategy in which Google will introduce its own phone, but most think the company will focus on advanced applications for its information services, like Google Maps.

All this opens serious questions about privacy, and about whether people are prepared to be constantly traceable, even if only by friends. Mr. Koponen said Jaiku was aware of this and was working hard to allow users to limit the information they share, without making the service too complicated.

"To date, many people still maintain their illusion of privacy," he said in an e-mail message.

Adapting will take time.

"For iPhone users who use the Google Maps application, it's already a pain to have to type in your current location," he said. "'Why doesn't my phone just tell Google where I am?' you invariably ask."

When the time is right and frustrations like this are unpalatable enough, Mr. Messina said, "Google will have a ready answer to the problem."

From Jaiku

While it's too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now.

But fear not, all our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition.

Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

While it's too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now.

But fear not, all our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition.

Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

Technorati : Jaiku, google

World Solar Challenge 2007 started

24hoursnews (Australia) - 41 solar cars on their way competing in the World Solar Challenge 2007 in Australia.

The race, started on Sunday, takes the participating teams on an 1870 mile journey from Darwin, a town on the north end of the Northern Territory, south through the Outback, ending in Adelaide, South Australia. The race will officially end on October 28, while first cars are expected to cross the finish line as early as October 25.

The organizers describe the race, which was first organized by Danish adventurer Hans Thostrup in 1987, as an "energy efficiency challenge", which requires a balance between sustainable speed and endurance, energy management and strategic planning. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the challenge has been held in 3-year intervals until 1999 and since then has been held every two years. The last race was won by Dutch Nuon team from the Technical University of Delft, whose Nuon III car crossed the finish line after a race time of 29 hours and 11 minutes. The average speed achieved by Nuon III was 64.3 mph.
The current event is separated in two classes of vehicles - the "Adventure Class", which includes veteran solar cars, as well as the "Challenge Class", which has stricter regulations, including upright seating and solar panels that do not exceed a total area of six square meters.

Among the 41 teams are four US teams: The University of Oregon and the University of Michigan have entrants in the Challenge Class, while Stanford University and the Houston Solar Car Race Team from the Houston Vocational Center, Mississippi, are competing in the Adventure Class.

Technorati : solar power compitition

Windows gets a 'Mini-Me'

24 hoursnews :A distinguished Microsoft engineer, was on hand last week to give a preview of upcoming virtualization techniques, hypervisors and the like. However, one of the more interesting aspects of the presentation was a short segment on Windows 7, the next generation of Windows (after Vista). The demo showed a slimmed down core operating system without graphics, one using only 33 MB of memory

It's rare that anyone at Microsoft talks publicly about Windows 7, the next version of Windows. It's even rarer that anyone provides actual information about what might be inside the operating system, which is still in the planning stages.

However, Microsoft has posted a video of a recent university lecture given by Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut in which he talks about, among other things, a new, slimmed down kernel known as MinWin that was created as part of the Windows 7 development process.

The kernel, which lacks Vista's bells and whistles or even a graphics system at all, takes up just 25MB on disk as compared with 4GB that the full Windows Vista takes up. And while people would need far more than MinWin to run even a basic Web server, Traut said it shows that Windows, at its heart, does not have to be a monster resource hog.

"That's kind of proof that there is actually a nice little core inside of Windows," Traut said. "A lot of people think of Windows as this really large, bloated operating system and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit. It is large. It contains a lot of stuff in it, but at its core, the kernel and the components that make up the very core of the operating system actually are pretty streamlined."

Traut stressed that MinWin, though it uses the Windows 7 code base, probably won't be used on its own.

"This is an internal only (thing)," Traut said in the video. "You won't see us productizing this, but you can imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future.

He did hint at some of the possibilities.

"We're definitely going to be using this internally to build all of the products that are based on Windows," he said. "We build a lot of products based on this kernel."

Beyond powering laptops and desktops, Traut notes that the Windows core powers servers, media centers and smaller embedded devices. "This will provide us the ability to move into even more areas," he said.

The full video runs quite long and talks a lot about hypervisors and other stuff, but blogger Long Zheng posted a clip of just the relevant part of the talk on his istartedsomething site. Even if you are not interested in Windows kernels and all that, the first part of the clip is worth watching just for the demos of early Windows versions, like version 1 and 2.

When asked for more info, Microsoft returned to its position of near-silence on the topic.

"As a company we're always exploring new ways to innovate Windows, using customer feedback as a guide," the company said in a statement e-mailed to CNET News.com. "The video posted to Channel 8 is a reflection of our commitment to platform innovation. No decisions have been made--it's still an ongoing discussion for now. We have no new information to share on future versions of the operating system at this time."

Technorati : Mini me

Join a tour of Nanotechnology Island in Second Life

Second life Provides an online society within a 3D world, where users can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy.You might have heard of Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world that has received quite a bit of media attention over the past year. A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another. Companies and other organizations have set up a virtual presence in Second Life; Sweden has even opened an embassy.
Now there is a nanotechnology presence as well - Nanotechnology Island has launched in Second Life with the goal to establish a place for the Nano Science and Technology communities to come together and to bring key ideas and research into public discussion

Second Life: Your World. Your Imagination.

Technorati : Nanotechnology Island in Second Life, second life