space

Gossip sheet: Is MySpace about to join OpenSocial?

The Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka reported Thursday morning that he heard MySpace will be announcing a partnership with Google's new social-networking project, OpenSocial--potentially before the end of the day.

MySpace, which already has its search and advertising functions powered by Google, has not yet responded to requests for comment.

If true, this would probably be a good thing for MySpace, which has lost its place in the social media spotlight to Facebook (though it still leads in traffic and membership) and is struggling to play catch-up by working on a developer platform strategy that may not see … Read more

Gasp! MySpace founder is a grandpa

My faith in humanity has crumbled today. Newsweek has outed MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson for faking his age. While trying to appear young and hip at the juvenile age of 27, Tom was actually (the heavens weep at the lie!) 32 when he started the company, and is 37 now.

A grandpa by any standard. (I am, by the way, only 19.)

Whether you're a MySpace addict or a Luddite who logged on once to see what all the fuss was about, you've likely met Tom. As the public face of MySpace, cofounder Tom Anderson has become a celebrity since the site launched in 2003 because he's every user's first "friend": when you join MySpace, your profile is automatically linked to his. But it turns out that Tom, who, along with cofounder Chris DeWolfe, made a fortune when News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005, may have a secret: his real age.… Read more

NASA institute to study moon science

NASA said Tuesday that it plans to establish a new lunar science institute, in the hopes of laying the groundwork for future missions to the moon.

Called the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), the institute will open March 1, 2008, at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, but it will draw on work from teams across the country. (Ames similarly runs the distributed Astrobiology Institute.) The goal is to build an interdisciplinary study of the moon, building on other scientific research products funded by NASA.

NASA plans to form four or five teams to research areas including lunar science … Read more

Report: 'MySpace Tom' lied about his age. Yawn.

Following rumors that MySpace co-founder and "everybody's friend" Tom Anderson was lying about his age on his profile, Newsweek did a little digging. According to "professional license information, voter registration and utility and telephone service applications," Anderson is actually 36, not 32.

Which means that he was 31, not 27, when he co-founded MySpace, and apparently he was either self-conscious or sketched out (or both) about being in his 30s when he founded a youth-oriented social network.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington expressed concern, saying that "the fact that MySpace and News Corp. had knowledge … Read more

Digital Home Leopard coverage: Spaces

Spaces was one of the wild cards in Leopard that I wasn't too sure about going in. But now I can say, after using it for the past twenty-four hours, that it is one of the most useful and logical additions to Leopard. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Spaces is my new favorite app on Mac OS X.… Read more

3Guppies' Facebook app sends photos to phone

The only things you need to send a Facebook photo to any cell phone is 3Guppies' (review) Facebook app and a working US or Canadian phone number. The app does a curious thing, pulling up all the photos in your friends' albums as well as your own. Grabbing the photo previews it in a mobile screen frame, though you needn't worry too much about it fitting--3Guppies Mobile automatically scales photos on the destination phone.

You can crop, title, and tag the image and choose to store a copy in the 3Guppies locker for later reference if you have or sign up for an account. Once the photo has landed on the phone, it can be downloaded or sent on its way to sunnier pastures. 3Guppies has hustled behind the scenes, striking compatibility deals with 28 carriers for 1,200 phones in North America.… Read more

3Guppies' Facebook app sends photos to phone

The only things you need to send a Facebook photo to any cell phone are 3Guppies' (review) Facebook app and a working U.S. or Canadian phone number. The app does a curious thing, pulling up all the photos in your friends' albums as well as your own. Grabbing the photo previews it in a mobile screen frame, though you needn't worry too much about it fitting--3Guppies Mobile automatically scales photos on the destination phone.

You can crop, title, and tag the image and choose to store a copy in the 3Guppies locker for later reference if you … Read more

Google's Cerf: Deep space Web decades out

Internet visionary Vint Cerf predicted on Wednesday that in the coming decades, scientists will have developed an interplanetary Web, or a common set of communications protocols that will allow sensors on spacecraft, satellites and planets to transmit information to each other and back to Earth. Google, of course, would be the search engine to organize all that data.

"I think were going to end up with an interplanetary backbone over the next 20, 30, 40 years..." Cerf said during a talk at Google's analyst day in Mountain View, Calif. We'll have "data coming back from … Read more

'Roommates' on MySpace.com: A review

Roommates, the new MySpace TV original Web series, has all the plot dexterity, acting ability, and subtlety of a low-budget porno flick, without any of the payoff. Parents, the chances of your child encountering an actual sexual predator or engaging in actual criminal activity on MySpace.com are pretty low, statistically speaking. But if your kids are watching Roommates, you want to put a stop to that pronto. This is some psychologically damaging stuff.

The premise of the "show," which launched yesterday, is that four aspiring model/actresses...er, recent college grads...are living together in a house … Read more