launch

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Thirty-one early stage entrepreneurs pitched 31 start-ups today at the 500 Startups event. (See news of previous 500 Startups launches.) The company I was most interested to see pitch: LaunchRock. It's a service that enables small companies to quickly put up "coming soon" pages. It collects e-mails and looks professional.

It's a fine service. But, really, from the outside it looks like just a feature. Is it a company?

I talked with co-founder Thomas Knoll about the venture, and there is, thankfully, more behind it. In addition to sending e-mail addresses to customers, … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--NASA's $2.4 billion Mars Science Laboratory has completed an exhaustive series of functional tests to verify the car-size rover's readiness for launch in November on an eight-and-a-half-month voyage to the Red Planet and a dramatic rocket-powered "sky crane" descent to the surface, officials said today.

Engineers now plan to carefully fold up the rover's robot arm, camera mast, wheels, and suspension so it can be packed inside a protective aeroshell that, in turn, will be attached to the bottom of a rocket-powered descent stage. The entire spacecraft then will be … Read more

Angry Birds Seasons lets you play the popular birds vs. pigs game, but with themes that match every season. You can play among jack-o'-lanterns and white-sheet ghosts in the fall; snowmen and Santa-capped pigs during the winter; or brightly colored eggs and bunny hats when it gets close to Easter. You can play whichever season you want right away--you won't need to unlock every level in order to unlock new themed worlds. With that said, the gameplay is no different than you've come to expect with Angry Birds, but maybe that's a good thing--most people love … Read more

Nokia will not be launching its anticipated N9 smartphone in the U.S., a new report from Engadget claims.

"After the very positive reception to the launch of the Nokia N9, the product is now being rolled out in countries around the world," Nokia reportedly wrote to Engadget. "At this time we will not be making it available in the U.S."

Nokia did not immediately respond to CNET's request for confirmation of Engadget's report.

Nokia announced the N9 in June. The device comes with a 3.9-inch AMOLED touch display and offers versions with storage of 16GB and 64GB. The smartphone comes in three colors--black, cyan, and magenta--and boasts an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and "HD-quality video capture."… Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket roared to life today and launched NASA's solar-powered Juno space probe on a five-year voyage to Jupiter, the first step in a $1.1 billion mission to look for clues about the origins of the solar system in the hidden heart of its largest planet.

"What we're really going after are some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system--how Jupiter formed, how it evolved, what really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us and the terrestrial planets," said Scott Bolton, the principal investigator. "These are really basic questions: who are we, where did we come from, how did we get here?

"We're kind of going after this recipe of how planets are made. We're getting the ingredients of Jupiter, we're going to understand what the structure is like inside, how was it built, and that will give us guidance as to what happened in that early time that eventually led to us."

The towering 197-foot-tall Atlas 5, equipped with five solid-fuel strap-on boosters for extra power, ignited with a ground-shaking roar at 12:25 p.m. EDT, generating 2.5 million pounds of thrust and instantly pushing the spacecraft away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was only the second launch of a five strap-on Atlas 5, the most powerful version offered by United Launch Alliance.

Liftoff was delayed 51 minutes to resolve two technical issues and to make sure a boat that strayed into the launch danger zone cleared the area.

Climbing away atop a brilliant plume of fiery exhaust, the rocket accelerated through the sound barrier 34 seconds after liftoff, arcing away to the east and putting on a spectacular lunchtime show for tourists and area residents. The strap-on boosters burned out and peeled off about a minute later and the first stage shut down and fell away as planned four and a half minutes after launch.

The rocket's hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage then carried out a six-minute burn to boost the spacecraft into a temporary parking orbit. A second nine-minute Centaur firing 31 minutes later accelerated Juno to 25,000 mph, or 7 miles per second--interplanetary escape velocity--and three minutes later, the 4-ton spacecraft separated from the Centaur to fly on its own.… Read more

Boeing will use United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets for initial test flights of the company's proposed CST-100 manned spacecraft, a seven-seat capsule being developed for commercial missions to and from government and private-sector space stations in low-Earth orbit, company officials announced today.

John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Boeing commercial crew transportation systems, said four test flights of the CST-100 spacecraft are envisioned, assuming continued NASA funding, including an on-the-launch-pad abort test in 2014 that will not require a booster.

The other three flights will use a version of the Atlas 5 that includes one solid-fuel … Read more

Ahead of a full release this fall, Apple has pushed the Web front end to iCloud live for developers to kick the tires on.

The new site, which resides at iCloud.com, features a similar front-end to Me.com, which will be shuttered next year with Apple's MobileMe service. Visitors can view Web e-mail, manage contacts, view and edit calendar events, and access the Find My iPhone tool. A new entrant to the bunch is a Web app for iWork, which outlines iCloud's file storage for documents created in Apple's Keynote, Pages and Numbers iOS applications.

One … Read more

One of the frustrating aspects of using a graphical user interface such as OS X is that when you launch a new application, the system assumes that is the application you wish to bring to the forefront. If you launch multiple applications, sometimes they may take a few moments to load and if you decide to switch focus to another program in the meantime then you chance having the program you launched grab your focus and place windows above those of the application you are working in.

These behaviors can be exceptionally frustrating, and while the basic remedy is to … Read more

Apple has unveiled what it calls the "world's first Thunderbolt display."

As one might expect, the 27-inch display allows users to connect their Macs via Thunderbolt. According to Apple, the display is designed for Mac notebook users who want a larger screen and extra ports to connect to additional peripherals.

The Thunderbolt-equipped display comes with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 178-degree viewing angle. Its built-in camera allows users to engage in HD FaceTime video conferencing. The display also comes with a 2.1-speaker audio system built-in and a MagSafe charger to power up the Mac notebooks. Three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, and a Gigabit Ethernet port are also included. According to Apple, users will be able to daisy-chain up to five other Thunderbolt devices with the display.… Read more