space

If this scientist is right, the first human words spoken from Mars could be Russian. The director of the Russian Space Research Institute, Lev Zelyony, said that his country could land a cosmonaut on the Red Planet as early as 2025. Current U.S. plans call for a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s.

Read the full story on Breitbart.com: " Russia says it is ahead in race to put man on Mars".

No, it's not Daft Punk, but the robot-suit-clad techno heroes' influence is evident in the choices of artists for MySpace.com's second concert tour.

The tour, produced by concert powerhouse Live Nation, is slated to take place in March in a number of U.S. and Canadian cities. Headlining the tour will be French electronic duo Justice. Joining that act on select nights will be a combination of the electronic and hip-hop acts Diplo, DJ Medhi, Chromeo, Busy P, and Fancy.

The first show will kick off on March 3 in Austin, Texas, and will hit a total … Read more

A project to develop the world's most powerful telescope on a mountaintop in Chile has received a $30 million infusion from Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi. In the last week, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project, a public-private venture to build a telescope to detect dark matter and dark energy that's accelerating the universe's expansion, said it received a $20 million gift from Simonyi's Fund for Arts and Sciences and another $10 million from Gates.

The LSST, expected to be completed in 2014, will include three large mirrors and a … Read more

I wanted to touch on two Facebook apps this afternoon that are highly useful for people with a lot of friends. One is to keep an eye on them, while the other is simply a means of extending your presence on multiple networks at the same time.

The first is called Unfriender, and it's been kicking around since last month. Once installed and given access to your data, it'll keep an eye on people you've added as friends and let you know if they've removed you as a friend later down the line. As a reason … Read more

Iowa what?

Amid the frenzied press coverage over Thursday's too-close-to-call caucuses in the Hawkeye State, 153,226 MySpace.com users have already cast their (unofficial) votes.

In a set of "virtual primaries" held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Republican Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama were declared the winners of the News Corp.-owned social-networking site's polls.

The poll was conducted entirely through MySpace's Impact political site. And for those who have been following Election 2008 on the Web, neither "victory" is particularly surprising.

On the Democratic side, MySpace users selected Obama … Read more

I've been writing (parent.thesis) for about six months now, and the New Year seems like a good time to reflect on the themes that have developed. I love technology, and at the same time, I am cautious when it comes to kids and tech. Here are the three issues that are really bugging me right now:

• Disconnect between product design and online safety • Commercialization of kids online • Information control, privacy, and data mining

… Read more

During this past year, a number of oddities emerged in the world of tech. First, Microsoft was forced to live through an unbridled flop, Apple was enjoying its meteoric rise as the most successful company of the year and social networks gained even more steam. On the back of that, the world's favorite social network, MySpace, quickly gave ground to Facebook and companies like the ill-fated Netscape tried to take on Digg.

And it's that site -- Digg.com -- that emerged this year, not necessarily as the most popular social site (it's tough to call it a full-fledged social networking company in the vein of a Facebook or MySpace), but as the best destination for people surfing the Web.

Don't believe me? Let's take a look at some other social networking sites to see why they couldn't make the cut.… Read more

Move over Rudolph. Santa will likely get more help guiding his sleigh tonight from Mars than from your red nose.

The red planet will be about as close and as bright to Earth as it ever gets, which means it will be brighter than the brightest star in the sky.

Read the full story at ABC News. "Red planet outshines red nose"

Astronauts will probably miss out on the luxurious quarters and gourmet meals planned for space tourists, but moon living may be cushier than expected.

Luna Gaia, a habitat designed by an international team of scientists, engineers and graduate students, provides up to a dozen astronauts with fresh vegetables, fish, spacious rooms and clean drinking water (albeit recycled from their own urine).

Read the full report at Popular Science: "The Green Side of the Moon"