space

A device made to find and use open areas of the spectrum band has received a failing grade from the Federal Communications Commission.

The companies involved likely don't feel too bad, after all, it was the FCC's idea to begin with. Last December, the commission called for suggestions for wireless devices that would sniff out and use the portions of the spectrum not utilized by TV broadcasters. Thus, the White Space Coalition was born, which includes Dell, EarthLink, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft and Philips Electronics.

Apparently the prototype the coalition submitted didn't cut it. Not only did … Read more

NASA is allowing the public to view a real-time video and audio feed of the upcoming launch of the Endeavour mission.

According to the agency's latest update, the crew is on board, the hatch is closed, and the agency is more or less waiting to begin the countdown to launch.

You can find the feed by going here and following the link for NASA TV. The shuttle is scheduled to launch at 6:36 p.m. Eastern time.

NB: The original title of this post, "Google To Acquire Controlling Stake in Microsoft," never made it past the draft stages.

Expect an onslaught of emo jokes: Satire publication The Onion will be providing audio, video, and print content to social-networking site MySpace through a partnership announced on Tuesday night. There is now a branded Onion page on MySpace, with article and blog content as well as audio podcasts; additionally, content from the publication's online video hub, the Onion News Network, is now available on the MySpaceTV portal.

The press release issued by the New York-based Onion (… Read more

In a move to replace manual inspection, NASA has built wireless scanners to automatically detect cracks or imperfections in the thousands of heat tiles that protect the space shuttle.

The space agency said on Tuesday that it will use the wireless scanners for its first mission Wednesday, when Endeavour launches from the Kennedy Space Center.

Thermal heat shields are critical to space flight. The space shuttle Columbia, for example, exploded during re-entry into the atmosphere in February 2003, when a hole in its outer surface caused the craft to break apart under extreme temperatures.

In the past, NASA said its … Read more

My, my, Lonelygirl15 sure has come a long way. Not so long ago, everyone thought the too-cute videoblogger was, well, a too-cute videoblogger. Then some online video fans with a shocking amount of time on their hands deduced that she was likely an actress in a staged series of video episodes. (They were right.) Now, leading lady "Bree" (played by Jessica Rose) has gone all professional on us--the new MySpaceTV video portal will be hosting Lonelygirl15's season finale.

Season finale?

On Friday, MySpaceTV--which launched in June and has been rolling out content deals ever since--will broadcast the … Read more

Let the hand wringing begin: Rupert's in charge.

As we are now aware, a $5 billion buyout bid from News Corp. for Dow Jones, parent of The Wall Street Journal, appears to have enough support from factions of the Bancroft family, which holds a majority stake in the company, apparently putting the coda on this three-month saga.

But we're only in the early innings when it comes to the grieving over the pending acquisition by Rupert Murdoch of one of the world's best newspapers. Normally, I'd let this story pass, but by virtue of News Corp.'… Read more

Statistics house ComScore released some numbers on Tuesday pertaining to how quickly a handful of popular social-networking sites are growing worldwide, and which ones dominate in which regions of the globe. There's nothing all too notable here, as the global reach of various social-networking sites has been well-documented already--and even mapped. But it's always cool to see numbers, which I suppose is why companies like ComScore exist in the first place.

The main set of numbers tracks worldwide social-networking growth, with June 2006 and June 2007 as the benchmarks, for seven services: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Friendster, … Read more

Want to emulate that neat collage look you get when you get photos printed out? There's a service called Collagr that does it for you pulling in photos from Flickr. If you've got shots on there, just fill in your username and Collagr will do its magic. The result is a square array that may look a little small in the preview, but if you save it to your hard drive you'll notice it's 1,400x1,025, which is larger than the average desktop wallpaper. The recommended use, however, is for MySpace profiles--you know, the kind … Read more

Amy Tiemann asks, in light of MySpace's announcement that it has recently removed the pages of 29,000 registered sex offenders from its site, "What does this news mean for parents?"

Call it knee jerk, but it means that my kids will not be using MySpace. Sure, 29,000 is a "drop in the bucket" compared to the 80 million registered pages on MySpace, but just as I'm careful where I live (yes, we checked the sex offender list before we moved into our home and continue to monitor it), I'm also careful where I go online. We teach the same principle to our kids.

I don't want my kids to be anywhere where 29,000 registered sex offenders feel comfortable signing up for pages using their real names. Period. How many others register under pseudonyms?

Amy suggests:… Read more