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NASA turns to open-source problem-tracking databases

When the Space Shuttle Endeavour launches Friday afternoon, assuming it is not delayed, the astronauts onboard and the technicians on the ground at mission control will have at their disposal new software that could streamline the process of problem reporting and analysis.

The software, called the Problem Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action (PRACA) system, was created by the Human-Computer Interaction Group at NASA's Ames Research Center, and is designed to give a wide cross-section of people in the Space Shuttle ecosystem access to a single database package for tracking problems with the Shuttle and its associated infrastructure.

According to … Read more

Space Station residents to drink recycled urine

If you're the kind of person who wants to do research on the International Space Station, it appears that you may need to cross some boundaries of taste many of us wouldn't even consider.

According to a BBC News story Friday, the crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center on Friday afternoon, will be handing off to their Space Station colleagues a water regeneration system designed to, among other things, recycle urine for reuse as fresh water.

The system, which will ionize, filter, distill, and oxidize wastewater, "will … Read more

IEA: World's energy use is 'patently unsustainable'

The International Energy Agency raised the alarm Wednesday with the release of its annual report, emphasizing that a revolution in the energy business is required to maintain economic growth and stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

The IEA's World Energy Outlook 2008 report, written for policymakers, paints a troubling picture in terms of energy costs and global warming due to burning fossil fuels. It calls for "radical action" from governments at all levels and for a coordinated international response.

"Current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable--environmentally, economically and socially--they can and must be altered," … Read more

Seagate powers self-encrypting Dell PCs

UPDATED: Corrected the information that McAfee provides software security solution for Dell's self-encrypting PCs as previously suggested in the article.

According to credible sources, a notebook computer is stolen every 53 seconds--and 97 percent are never recovered. In most cases, the risk of losing data stored on the hard drive is much higher than the value of the notebook itself.

To address this issue, Seagate, Dell, and McAfee teamed up to announce on Monday data encryption solutions for PCs that work without you even having to know about it. The solutions include new self-encrypting hard drives, software managing systems, and computers that implements the two.

The new hard drives belong to the Seagate's Momentus FDE family. FDE stands for full-disk encryption, Seagate's self-encrypting method for 2.5-inch hard drives.

Dell is the PC vendor that implements the new hard drives in a variety of its business computers.

McAfee annouced that it has joined the list of security software providers that support Seagate hard drives' embedded hardware encryption. This offers customers another choice of enterprise management solutions required to secure notebook computers.

The new Momentus FDE notebook hard drives comes in two performance grades: one that spins at 5400rpm and the other at 7200rpm. Both are presently available in 320GB and 16GB storage capacities, with 500GB versions coming early next year. However, the 5400rpm Momentus FDE has only 8MB of cache as opposed to 16MB of the 7200rpm version.

These drives features SATA controller interface and built-in AES encryption, a government-grade encryption capable of encrypting a hard drive's entire content transparently and automatically. … Read more

Facebook's political squad looks overseas

Social network Facebook hopes to replicate the phenomenal success of its 2008 U.S. presidential election outreach and coverage in other countries, outreach and marketing director Randi Zuckerberg told CNET News on Thursday.

"This week is definitely all the post-election aftermath, but I'm definitely looking forward to jumping right into some of the international politics (and) international elections," said Zuckerberg (who is, in case you were wondering, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sister). "It's a little more fun to work on some of those because they don't draw out their elections for a year and … Read more

AT&T Offers International iPhone Data Usage Tips

In a recent email to AT&T's iPhone customers, the company offered a list of tips that are geared towards minimizing international data charges when you travel outside of the US. According to the message:

"AT&T knows that the mobile Internet on your Apple iPhone is indispensable to you. That's why we want to remind you that international data usage is not covered under your existing U.S. data plan.

"Your iPhone provides access to email, Visual Voicemail, Web browsing and other applications that can use a significant amount of data. It's … Read more

AOL's Platform-A comes to France

AOL's advertising product, Platform-A, is continuing its overseas expansion with Tuesday's launch of a French edition. In the past few weeks, AOL has launched Platform-A in the U.K. and Germany as well.

Platform-A already reaches 24 million people in France, AOL said in a release Tuesday. The technology serves ads on all AOL-owned sites as well as third-party participants in the Advertising.com network.

"Global advertisers are demanding online performance, and that's why Platform-A is aggressively extending its reach in both the United States and Europe so that marketers can generate results more quickly and … Read more

MySpace pulling out of the Netherlands?

MySpace is closing its office in the Netherlands after failing to adequately compete with homegrown rival Hyves, two Dutch news outlets reported.

Hyves is huge in the Netherlands. According to the Webwereld article published late last week, MySpace considered acquiring Hyves, but the plan fell through. MySpace said that this is untrue and that no acquisition talks went on.

Derek Fehmers, who handled MySpace's Dutch operations, told Entertainment Business that the News Corp.-owned company knew the Netherlands would be a difficult market. The decision to close the office came despite MySpace's 650,000 Dutch members, 250,000 … Read more

Cut your own french fries at home

I've never understood why there's such a big price difference between potatoes and those bags of frozen french fries in the freezer aisle. Frozen fries are the same thing as plain potatoes--they've just been sliced and frozen. But why can you get 10 pounds of potatoes for about the same price as one pound of french fries? Rather than worry too much about it, I've started making my own french fries at home. All you need is a vegetable cutter to help crank out the cut potatoes and a pan full of hot oil.

The Progressive International Vegetable/French Fry Cutter … Read more

Huge iPhone Data Bills If You Cancel Your International Plan

If you're planning to travel overseas and want to use your iPhone for data transfer with AT&T's international data plan, don't count on canceling the add-on plan as soon as you get back. Readers report that canceling the plan before 90 days after the transfer has occurred will trigger charges for data at the full, non-international-plan rate.

One iPhone Atlas reader writes:

"After receiving a huge international data roaming bill for my iPhone account -- even though I had added a sufficiently large International Data Roaming Plan before my trip -- I was informed … Read more