On earth, people are beginning to use the sun's light to power their houses, office buildings, and even gadgets. Now, outside of our planet, the sun's energy is going to be utilized for something else--space travel.
If NASA can successfully implement solar sails, which have been referenced in some sci-fi books of the past, using the sun's energy for space exploration may become a reality this summer.
The NanoSail-D team shows off their solar sail, after a deployment test in April.
(Credit: Science@NASA)According to a report by NASA Science, the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Ames Research Center have teamed up to make history, by deploying its first solar sail, the NanoSail-D.
The solar sail, made of aluminum and space-age plastic, has the ability to harness the radiation of the sun for movement. Since outer space is frictionless, the sail could potentially accelerate forever, traveling much faster and much farther than a rocket running on fuel. Travel back to Earth would require a turn of the sail.
This technology isn't the first of its kind. In 2005, The Planetary Society launched a solar sail spacecraft, hoping to be the first successful launch. However, later that day, there was no confirmation that the craft, names Cosmos 1, had entered orbit, and the mission was deemed unsuccessful.
If NASA's spacecraft makes it into orbit, it will unfurl the solar sail from its pod, and "use solar pressure as a primary means of attitude control and orbital maneuvering," said Sandy Montgomery of the Marshall Space Flight Center, housed in Huntsville, Ala.
NASA said it means big things for space travel. According to Montgomery, the speed of the solar sail would make it feasible for a spacecraft to leave our solar system in a decade, instead of the 30 years it took for the Voyager missions to get to the edge of the solar system. In theory, rockets would be used for short missions and sails would be used for longer missions.
The power of the sun has also been used on NASA's recent mission to Mars. The Mars Phoenix Lander gets its energy to explore the planet from two solar panels built into the robot.
The NanoSail-D will travel to space onboard the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket, launching from the Pacific Ocean as early as July 29. It will be brought on board in a 10-pound suitcase, and if successfully unfurled, it will measure at 100 square feet.
The sails will not harness enough energy to carry passengers in space, but Montgomery said with solar sails at thousands of square feet, "a number of interesting scientific missions are possible."
A Missouri woman accused of contributing to a teenager's suicide by creating a fake MySpace account to taunt the girl pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday, according to Reuters and other media sources.
After she was implicated in the hoax aimed at harassing a teenage neighbor, Lori Drew of the St. Louis area was charged with conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.
The case captured the attention of the blogosphere and the world.
The story first broke in Drew's hometown paper, the St. Charles Journal, a year after the October 2006 death of 13-year-old Megan Meier.
It was a twisted tale of an adolescent girl who was tricked into believing a boy she met on MySpace was her boyfriend and was then crushed when he turned on her. The article said that one night comments by "Josh Evans" became increasingly cruel, and his statement to Meier that "the world would be a better place" without her may have led to her suicide that evening.
Prosecutors say Drew was behind the fictional MySpace account, which she created to find out what Meier was saying about her daughter. The girls had experienced a recent falling-out. Drew was a family friend of the Meiers' and was aware of the teenager's battle with depression, according to reports.
When the story hit national airwaves, angry bloggers got involved, outing Drew's name, address, and phone number on the Internet. While the online community fought their battle against Drew, Missouri prosecutors discovered there was no state law that applied to the case.
Now, state and federal legislatures are working to make so-called cyberbullying a crime. Although state laws didn't apply, Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury in May, months after MySpace and other witnesses were subpoenaed.
Drew will stand trial on July 26, and if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison.
MySpace continues to wage a legal war on alleged spammers.
An arbitrator has ordered Media Breakaway and Chief Executive Scott Richter to pay the social-networking giant $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in legal fees, according to legal filings. The company's employees were also ordered to stay off MySpace.
News Corp.'s MySpace accused Media Breakaway and Richter, who has been accused of spamming consumers in the past, of launching phishing attacks and sending unsolicited messages to MySpace users. Representatives from Media Breakaway were not immediately available for comment.
Richter is a noted and controversial Internet marketer. Two years ago, he paid $7 million to Microsoft to settle a lawsuit that accused him of sending illegal spam. Microsoft originally sued for $20 million.
The $6 million award is a fraction of the $234 million that the courts ordered Sanford Wallace, the so-called spam king, to pay MySpace last month after he failed to mount any kind of legal defense. The anti-spam judgment is believed to be the largest so far under the 2003 Can-Spam Act.
"MySpace has zero tolerance for illegal activity on our site," MySpace said in a statement, "and is committed to bringing to justice those who try to harm our members."
The reason Richter is paying so much less is that the arbitrator said it was unfair to hold Media Breakaway responsible for all the wrongdoing of the site's affiliates. Media Breakaway has loose ties with companies or individuals that send traffic to sites owned by advertisers who pay Media Breakaway for the leads or sales, according to court documents.
MySpace has traditionally been an easy target. Spammers could hit thousands of "friends" with messages with little effort, the records show.
The arbitrator in the case noted that Media Breakaway has made efforts to comply with the law, such as making affiliates sign anti-phishing agreements. Some of the affiliates either ignored or were not aware of the agreements, the arbitrator wrote.
But the arbitrator also found that Media Breakaway's affiliate managers were "deficient or that on more than a few occasions...consciously condoned and encouraged unlawful spamming activities."
Someone posts a fake profile of you on MySpace casting aspersion on your character. You may be justifiably angry, but unless you are willing to specify the defamations and provide proof they are untrue, don't expect to be able to unmask the profile author.
On Friday, Cicero, Ill., Town President Larry Dominick dropped his request for a court to force MySpace to identify the creator of several spoof profiles in his name that he claimed were defamatory. His petition filed last month (PDF) did not provided details about the profiles and exactly what was defamatory. The pages were removed after Dominick complained.
The profiles had photos and "questionable comments about his sexuality and ethics," according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a friend of the court brief last week arguing that fulfilling the request would violate the author's First Amendment right to remain anonymous unless Dominick could demonstrate a viable legal claim. The EFF also argued that the federal Stored Communications Act, which prohibits government entities--including Dominick acting in his official capacity as Cicero town president--from obtaining identifying customer information through the ordinary civil discovery process.
EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman says the organization doesn't oppose all claims of Internet defamation, only those that fail to provide details about the alleged defamation and proof that the statements aren't true, as well as those that don't provide notification to the person whose identity is being sought.
"It's far too easy for someone to go into court and simply ask a third party like MySpace or Facebook to turn this information over if there is no attempt to notify the person whose rights would be affected," he told CNET News.com.
The concern is that without First Amendment safeguards for anonymity people will use the courts merely to find the identity of people whose opinion or actions they disagree with and use that information to chill criticism.
Most of the time, the cases arise from postings made on blogs. But social network pages are increasingly being used for anonymous self expression.
For instance, a judge in Indiana ordered Facebook to name the person who created a fake profile for a high school dean last month.
NEW YORK--Google co-founder Sergey Brin has put down a $5 million deposit to book a flight into space with the space tourism company Space Adventures.
Sergey Brin, Google co-founder
(Credit: Google)The company announced Wednesday that Brin will be the founding member of its Orbital Mission Explorers Circle, a group of six individuals who will each make a $5 million down payment to book a seat on a future orbital space flight.
Google and its co-founder Brin have long support space exploration. The company has sponsored the Google Lunar X Prize, a $25 million competition to land an unmanned craft on the moon.
"I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space," Brin said in a statement.
Space Adventures' new club was formed to help kick-start a new effort by the company to fund its own rockets and missions to the International Space Station. Previously, Space Adventures, which has been around for 10 years, has bought seats aboard already scheduled Russian missions to the International Space Station for its clients. Now it will build its own rocket for its own missions. The inaugural flight with its own Russian-built Soyuz rocket is scheduled for 2011, Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, said at a press conference here Wednesday.
The company plans to launch one mission to the International Space Station per year after 2011. Eventually it hopes to allow its wealthy clients to take space walks while in orbit or even go to the moon.
Google's Brin, who has not announced when he plans to take his trip into space, could wait to schedule his trip when those options are available.
"It's entirely up to him," said Anderson. "When he chooses a date is when he will go. It could be in three years or it could be in five."
Even if Brin isn't on Space Adventures' first privately funded flight, it's likely that at least one of the two seats available will go to a yet-unnamed member of its Orbital Mission Explorers Circle.
The $5 million deposit made by the group's members will be credited to the cost of a future space flight and help fund the program. The exact cost of each trip will vary depending on when the flight is taken and the duration of the mission, Anderson said.
Space Adventures has already sent five individuals into space with trips costing between $20 million and $40 million. Anderson said future trips aboard its own Soyuz rocket are expected to cost more.
Richard Garriott talks about his scheduled flight into space at the Space Adventures press conference.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)Space Adventures has seats reserved for flights to the space station this October and April 2009. Richard Garriott, a well known computer game developer, will be on the October trip. Garriott paid $35 million for his seat.
Garriott's father Owen Garriott was a NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard Skylab in 1973 and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 in 1983. And Richard Garriott will be the first second generation astronaut to make it into space. Garriott has been training for his trip at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia since earlier this year and he has been keeping a blog of efforts here.
CNET News.com intern Holly Jackson is among the multitudes of space lovers sending their names into space with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
(Credit: NASA)If you want to make it to the moon but don't have the chops to be an astronaut, the deadline is approaching to at least send your name around Earth's orbiting rock.
June 27 marks the last day to enter your information on the Web to send your name to the moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Your name will be incorporated in a database and loaded onto a microchip built into the LRO spacecraft. The service is free and comes with a printable certificate assuring you that you are indeed a part of the LRO experience.
LRO is the first step in sending humans back to the moon, according to Cathy Peddie, deputy project manager for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The orbiter will scope out landing sites and resources, and also study the effects of lunar radiation on humans. The orbiter is slated to launch no earlier than November and will orbit for at least a year.
The idea of sending your name into the cosmos, among other items, isn't new.
In August 2006, commercial space company Up Aerospace sent 110 pounds of souvenirs and science projects into space for 30 minutes. The Planetary Society has partnered with NASA and Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory for the "Messages from Earth" project several times before.
The current resident of Mars, the Phoenix Lander, also contains names of people who signed up to be a part of the mission. The last orbiter of the moon, Selene, also included names on a microchip. According to its Web site, "The Planetary Society is committed to bringing you on board each and every mission launched into space from Earth."
And if all the people in the promo video for NASA are to be believed, this will be a popular trip. A day after I signed up to join the mission, Nancy Neal Jones of the Goddard Space Flight Center said the number has topped 784,000. She said the project has gone international, with names submitted from all over the planet.
Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan's private MySpace photos are all over the Internet now, thanks to a glitch in the bad APIs.
While the not-so-publicity-shy stars probably won't mind, and none of the photos are all that racy (except for the one of a fully dressed, provocatively posed Hilton in a tanning booth), there's a lesson for us all in this social network privacy flap du jour.
"Anything you upload to a public Web site is not private; it's public. Even if you think it is password protected," says Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer at White Hat Security, a Web application security company. "That's the bottom line."
The photos began making the rounds on Tuesday after computer technician Byron Ngo released them publicly, and gave Valleywag detailed instructions for his hack. Valleywag also has the photos here.
The problem has been fixed so don't bother trying to replicate it. But the breach resurrects the debate over whether the notion of privacy is outdated in a world where you party too much at an event and the next morning an embarrassing photo is up on your friend's Facebook page.
Valleywag blamed data portability, the concept underlying the sharing of data between social networks and other sites.
However, according to MySpace, it had nothing to do with data portability and everything to do with "deprecated APIs."
Grossman attributed it to "insufficient authorization," which he said are common on all types of Web sites, not just social-networking sites.
"MySpace and Yahoo are firmly committed to keeping all users as safe and secure as possible. Recently, MySpace and Yahoo were alerted to a vulnerability within the MySpace widget on the Yahoo mobile platform," MySpace and Yahoo said in a statement. "The functionality of the widget has currently been disabled as we work to roll out an immediate fix."
The man behind the expose' is none other than Byron Ng, a Vancouver-based computer technician who found a hole in Facebook and got to photos on founder Mark Zuckerberg's private page in March.
Ng also is credited with uncovering a digital version of most of the unreleased Harry Potter book last summer.
Ng, if you're out there, I'd love to talk to you.
On the left is an artist's rendition of the revised structure of the Milky Way galaxy; on the right is an earlier sketch, showing the four-armed structure. Since the 1950s, scientists have continued to revise their models of the Milky Way.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)Call it the Milky Way Light, a trimmed-down version of the galaxy we know and love.
Using new infrared imaging from the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA scientists say our spiraled Milky Way galaxy is actually made up of just two main arms. For years, astronomers have mapped out the galaxy with four primary arms. The two arms on the chopping block--Norma and Sagittarius--haven't disappeared entirely; they've just been demoted to the lowly status of minor arm, according to NASA.
Scientists have studied parts of the galaxy for many years, but say telescopes tuned to detect infrared light give them the best picture of its layout because they can penetrate through dust. Infrared images taken in the 1990s led them to discover the large bar of creamy nougat stars in the center of the galaxy. Spitzer's new infrared shots, coupled with software that measures stellar density, indicate that Norma and Sagittarius aren't as thick as astronomers had thought.
"We will keep revising our picture in the same way that early explorers sailing around the globe had to keep revising their maps," said Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, who presented the results at a press conference Tuesday.
Flip Video Mino
(Credit: Flip Video)Although it was recently outed by B&H, Wednesday marks the official unveiling of Pure Digital's Flip Video Mino, the latest camcorder from one of the leaders of the low-res, straight-to-Web capture pack. Thinner and smaller than its popular sibling, the Flip Video Ultra, the Mino crams similar technology into a more compact, more attractive package that can fit into a pants pocket.
Most of the Mino is about redesign. The USB connector now flips straight up, rather than to the side, for an overall more compact footprint that should fit better in a crowded USB environment. Though it has a slightly smaller LCD display--1.4 inches compared with 1.5 inches--the back navigation controls look a mite more sophisticated than before. Pure Digital has also punted the replaceable battery in favor of a nonremovable lithium ion model. The company claims you can shoot for four hours on a charge.
USB connector (left) and back (right)
(Credit: Pure Digital)Like the 60-minute version of the Ultra, the Mino comes equipped with 2GB of memory, capable of storing 60 minutes of its VGA-resolution video. The company has moved up to a later generation image-processing architecture. So in theory the Mino should provide a bit better image quality, and the company says that the camcorder includes an updated--more sensitive--microphone with improved signal processing. And, of course, it comes with in-camera software that provides the plug-in-and-upload simplicity which endears these camcorders to sharers on sites like YouTube and MySpace; the latter is a new partner for the company. In addition, the Mino now supports direct operation on a Mac, without requiring software installation. It also provides a TV-out connector for larger-scale enjoyment.
The company stresses that the Mino is not intended to replace the Ultra--it's a "social accessory for the YouTube/MySpace/Facebook generation to communicate and express themselves." A PR rep quotes market research saying this magic demographic wants it "thinner to fit in their pocket and that they would prefer rechargeable batteries (like an iPod) and a sleeker/cooler design."
Maybe I'm too old to understand why everyone wouldn't want a smaller, sleeker, and more functional--albeit slightly more expensive--version of the same product, regardless of their need to accessorize their social life.
The Mino is slated to ship via selected online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and directly from the company's TheFlip.com, and will go into wider distribution this fall. It costs $179.99.
Pure Digital also announced a make-your-own-DVD service; you upload up to an hour's worth of video, and they burn a DVD and distribute it to your family and friends. That will run you $19.99 a pop. The company also claims you can "keep your videos archived forever," but remember that "forever" doesn't mean the same thing to companies as it does to people. Can you say MSN Music?
On Sale Now: $119.99 - $205.00
View the latest prices for Flip Video Mino (black)
On Sale Now: $114.88 - $179.99
View the latest prices for Flip Video Mino (white)
One MySpace page gave the rock band Boston more than a feeling about an amateur singer. They ended up hiring the man as their new lead singer.
Tommy DeCarlo lands singer gig with Boston, thanks to MySpace page.
(Credit: BandBoston.com)For Tommy DeCarlo, a credit manager at a Home Depot in North Carolina, it was literally a dream come true. DeCarlo, 43, had been a fan of the band since his childhood, often singing along with CDs or the radio when songs came on the air.
When Boston lead singer Brad Delp committed suicide last year, DeCarlo recorded his own karaoke versions of Boston songs and uploaded the MP3s to his MySpace page as a tribute. A friend who heard the recordings later encouraged him to contact the band.
DeCarlo, who had never been in a band and whose recent singing experience consisted of performing for a couple of dozen bowlers in a bowling alley, wasn't too confident.
"I sent my MySpace page link to the Boston camp, and I also offered to sing my song at the tribute show, never thinking I'd get a reply," DeCarlo says on Boston's official Web site. "I did end up getting one about two weeks later thanking me for the offer, but at this point there were not going to be any additions to lineup."
And that was the end of DeCarlo's rock 'n' roll fantasy--for a few weeks, anyway. Boston founder Tom Scholz's wife was fiddling around on her PC when something caught her husband's ear.
"My wife was at her computer playing our tunes, and I asked whether it was us playing live," Scholz told USA Today. "She said, 'It's some guy in North Carolina singing your songs.' I said, 'I know Brad's voice, and that's Brad.'"
That was enough for Scholz. He dropped DeCarlo an e-mail and invited him to the tribute, where DeCarlo impressed the band with his covers (see a YouTube video clip of his performance below). He starts his new job on Friday when the band kicks off its summer tour in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
While it's a rather unorthodox way to replace a band member after a tragedy, the practice of a Web audition could become more common. The band Journey recently hired a new lead singer based on a video clip posted to YouTube.
