A collection of stories tagged 'space' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:43:44 EST NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26320 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9U45cEMu8Gg/article.pl Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:05:02 EST Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from the Guardian: "China is stealing sensitive information from American computer networks and stepping up its online espionage, according to a US congressional panel. Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarisation of outer space and lifting it into the 'commanding heights' of modern warfare, the advisory group claims. ... A summary of the study, released in advance, alleges that networks and databases used by the US government and American defence contractors are regularly targeted by Chinese hackers. 'China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks,' says Larry Wortzel, chairman of the commission set up by Congress in 2000 to investigate US-China issues." The full study addresses these issues and others relating to the US-China relationship (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26316 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/zhVROub0q2E/article.pl Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:05:04 EST In an effort to take on IE and make strong headway in its share of the browser market, Google is taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook and working on deals with PC OEMs to include Chrome in their devices. From the article: '[Google] is likely to pursue deals with major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to put Chrome on their computers and devices. ... If Mozilla could get aggressive about this too, we could see Internet Explorer facing more serious competition than ever. ... Google, much more so than Mozilla, has enough global brand recognition, money, and savvy to make a big deal of this. ... Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops. Chrome currently has just under one percent market share, according to NetApplications. That number could rise significantly through this effort. Mozilla doesn't have the kind of money required to get the significant deals in this space, but Google definitely does.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26315 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/b9GaSgCLkIc/article.pl Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:05:01 EST A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program was lost. Two arachnids were sent in order to know if spiders can survive and make webs in space, but now only one spider can be seen in the container. NASA isn't sure where the other spider could have gone. I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26289 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/f_21o0bM1hc/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:05:11 EST NASA is trying to decide between eight space exploration missions that include further exploring Venus and comet composition as well landing on an asteroid or examining the space around Jupiter. The space agency today began accepting solicitations for these space exploration opportunities and will ultimately pick one of them to begin perusing in 2009 with a launch date targeted at 2018. The solicitations and ultimate expedition are part of NASA's New Frontiers program, which has as its main objective to explore the solar system with medium-class spacecraft missions that will conduct high-quality, focused scientific investigations, NASA said. The first New Frontiers mission was selected in 2003 and will result in the launch of Juno, a Jupiter polar orbiter mission set to blast off in 2011."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26281 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/qqKyFsk7spY/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:05:01 EST The oldest genetically identifiable nuclear family met a violent death, according to analysis of remains from 4,600-year-old burials in Germany where the broken bones of these stone age people show they were killed in a struggle. Comparisons of DNA from one grave confirm it contained a mother, father, and their two children. 'We're really sure, based on hard biological facts not just supposing or assuming,' says Dr. Wolfgang Haak, from The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. The stone-age people are thought to belong to a group known as the Corded Ware Culture, signified by their pots decorated with impressions from twisted cords. The children and adult males had the same type of strontium in their teeth — which was also found locally, but the nearest match to the women's teeth was at least 50km away, suggesting they had moved to the area. 'They were definitely murdered, there are big holes in their heads, fingers and wrists are broken,' says Dr. Alistair Pike from Bristol University. He noted that one victim even had the tip of a stone weapon embedded in a vertebra. 'You feel some kind of sympathy for them, it's a human thing, somebody must have really cared for them. ... We don't know how hard daily life was back there and if there was any space for love,' added Dr. Haak."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26246 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/11trOMbGdpA/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:05:01 EST NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth. The store-and-forward protocol was designed by NASA in consultation with Vint Cerf. Here's a discussion from last July before the test began."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26241 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/wqH8M3f9FUE/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:05:01 EST Matt_dk writes to point out the upcoming tenth anniversary of the International Space Station in two days' time. "On 20 November 1998, a Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a historic mission: It was carrying the first module of the International Space Station ISS, named Zarya (Russian for 'dawn'). This cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes and is almost 13 meters long, provides electrical power, propulsion, flight path guidance and storage space. The launch of the module... heralded a new era in space exploration, as, for the first time ever, lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan. Over the next ten years, many other modules were brought into orbit, and ISS developed into the largest human outpost in space. Since that time, the building blocks, transported by Russian launch vehicles or the US Space Shuttle, have expanded the ISS to the size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26236 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ubKqKF26PvQ/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:05:07 EST Chinese-born physicist Shu Quan-Sheng Monday pleaded guilty before a US court to violating the Arms Export Control Act by illegally exporting American military space know-how to China. The 68-year-old naturalized US citizen, pictured here on his company profile, admitted handing over the design of fueling systems between 2003 and 2007. Also, in 2003 he illegally exported a document with the impossibly long name of 'Commercial Information, Technical Proposal and Budgetary Officer — Design, Supply, Engineering, Fabrication, Testing & Commissioning of 100m3 Liquid Hydrogen Tank and Various Special Cryogenic Pumps, Valves, Filters and Instruments.' This contained the design of liquid hydrogen tanks for space launch vehicles. He also admitted to a third charge of bribing Chinese officials to the tune of some 189,300 dollars for a French space technology firm." Here's the FBI press release regarding Shu's plea.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26232 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/7wANvRv8VWg/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:05:09 EST In the final report published by the Australian Senate inquiry into 'The Current State of Australia's Space Science & Industry Sector' entitled 'Lost in Space? Setting a new direction for Australia's space science and industry sector,' it calls for the formation of a 'Space Industry Advisory Council' to oversee the creation of a fully-fledged Australian Space Agency. Of the top 20 GDP nations, Australia is the only one without a Space Agency, which impacts on many aspects of ordinary life, not to mention Research and Engineering endeavors. Every satellite operated by Australia is owned by another party and the costs of this alone are comparable to that of a Space Agency. The report is a tidy piece that drew upon submissions form Andy Thomas, and an impressive collection of Australian Academics and Space Science entities frustrated by successive generations of government apathy. While this report is welcome, lethargic Government action in a climate of competing concerns is not expected to stem the flow of Space Science brain drain out of Australia any time soon."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26226 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/KdU_8SPlVi8/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:05:01 EST Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour are delivering a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if NASA is taking recycling too far. Among the ship's cargo is a water regeneration system that distills, filters, ionizes, and oxidizes wastewater — including urine — into fresh water for drinking or, as one astronaut puts it, 'will make yesterday's coffee into today's coffee.' The US space agency spent $250M for the water recycling equipment but with the space shuttles due to retire in two years, NASA needed to make sure the station crew would have a good supply of fresh water. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems uses a purification process called vapor compression distillation: urine is boiled until the water in it turns to steam. In space, there's an additional challenge: steam doesn't rise, so the entire distillation system is spun to create artificial gravity to separate the steam from the brine. The water has been thoroughly tested on Earth, including blind taste tests that pitted recycled urine with similarly treated tap water. 'Some people may think it's downright disgusting, but if it's done correctly, you process water that's purer than what you drink here on Earth,' said Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26222 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/et9m8s-slwA/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:05:08 EST Tombstone-f sent in a cool update on a project that I continue to keep an eye on. MythTV has become a dominant force in the do it yourself media mega box space, so any improvements to the UI matter significantly. "One of the biggest new features of the next version of MythTV (version .22) will be its new user interface. This new interface will offer many new features to MythTV, including animation, better interactivity, and faster and easier development for themers and developers alike." I think it still has a ways to go to compete with some of the more mainstream PVR boxes in terms of minimalism and good use of whitespace, but hopefully the improvements will get more people into the door.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26207 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Ie0PPGw6n9A/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:05:01 EST In moving to cut its current workforce by between 15% and 18% today, Sun is trying to stay ahead of a falling knife. And today's announcement made it clear that Sun officials are banking on the company's open-source strategy to help it pull through. A cut of up to 6,000 employees at Sun will hurt, but CEO Jonathan Schwartz contends users will be more inclined to try open-source products such as MySQL, OpenSolaris and Sun's GlassFish application server during a time of economic stress." Reader Barence also pointed out that Sun will begin to auction "branding space" in OpenOffice.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26176 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/zd6zzdIfLQk/article.pl Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:05:01 EST From delaying Project Constellation to an additional $2 billion in funding, Space.com looks at some immediate decisions the President Elect will have to make once he takes office in January. The biggest one will be the shuttle plan: do we retire the shuttle fleet or keep it on for more missions? If it is retired, we would have to rely on another country to bring our astronauts into space between 2010 and 2015 as a new fleet is built. Will Obama hold true on his $2 billion pledge to NASA?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26162 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/2D9UjzxdtJw/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:05:04 EST Ostracus writes to tell us that Wired has an interesting summary of some of the best fictional doomsday devices. These devices have featured heavily in movies, television, and fiction, their list includes favorites from Dr. Strangelove to Futurama. What devices have they missed? "By the time Futurama's sci-fi satire hit the scene, creator Matt Groening had the doomsday-device shtick down. Case in point: the Spheroboom. This highly explosive space/time-bending device isn't just the prized jewel of the show's mad scientist, professor Farnsworth. It also destroys anyone/anything not wearing a 'Doom-proof Platinum Vest.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26137 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ulwkdEmHrDE/article.pl Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:05:36 EST In a shocking update on the seemingly endless troubles plaguing NCSoft, Richard Garriott — the king of online games, creator of The Ultima Series (and consequentially Ultima Online), as well as the recently troubled Tabula Rasa — has announced that he would be stepping down from his position at NCSoft. Apparently motivated by his recent trip into space, perhaps he has found a higher purpose while orbiting so high above the earth."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26131 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/hoqyrIeFb5A/article.pl Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:05:23 EST SpuriousLogic sends in a sad note from the BBC: "NASA says its Phoenix lander on the surface of Mars has gone silent and is almost certainly dead. Engineers have not heard from the craft since Sunday 2 November when it made a brief communication with Earth. Phoenix, which landed on the planet's northern plains in May, had been struggling in the increasing cold and dark of an advancing winter. The US space agency says it will continue to try to contact the craft but does not expect to hear from it."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26086 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/BG-z_a6KyxA/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:05:05 EST After an 18-day journey, Chandrayaan-1, the moon mission of India, has entered Lunar orbit. The maneuver was described as crucial and critical by scientists, who pointed out that at least 30 per cent of similar moon missions had failed at this juncture, resulting in spacecraft lost to outer space. The lunar orbit insertion placed Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with its nearest point 400 to 500 kilometers away from the moon, and the farthest, 7,500 kilometers. By November 15, the spacecraft is expected to be orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 kilometers and sending back data and images (the camera was tested with shots looking back at Earth). The Chandrayaan-1 is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon's surface."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26047 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fsHPE5uA8fE/article.pl Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:05:08 EST With the release of this whitepaper, the FCC unanimously approved plans for a new technology with strong supporters and even stronger detractors. White Space Wi-Fi effectively allows manufacturers of wireless devices to incorporate transceivers that operate on unused DTV channels. Although the deregulation is new, the idea seems to have caught Google's interest recently as well. It seems that this has been rather rushed through the normally stagnant channels at the FCC. While some view it as interference in the already crowded spectrum, it seems the FCC Chairman really likes the idea of re-purposing dark parts of the newly allocated DTV bands once more." Update: 11/06 18:15 GMT by T : You may want to look at Tuesday's mention of the decision as well, but the additional links here are interesting.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26006 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lJ604WGiriw/article.pl Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:05:12 EST All invisibility cloaks to date work by hiding an object embedded inside them. Now a group of physicists have worked out how to remotely cloak objects that sit outside a cloaking material. The trick is to make the cloaking material with optical properties that are exactly complementary to the space outside them. Complementary means that the material reverses the effect the space has on a plane wave of light passing through it. To an observer this space would appear to vanish. The scientists say that to cloak an object sitting outside the cloaking material, first measure its optical properties and then embed a "complementary image" of the object within the cloak. So a plane wave is first distorted by the object but then restored to a plane by the complementary image of the object within the cloak (abstract). An observer sees nothing. This method has another benefit. Objects hidden in conventional cloaks are blinded because no light enters the cloaked region. But objects that are remotely cloaked like this should still be able to see their surroundings."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26001 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/5c-p8bIOqwk/article.pl Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:05:19 EST sidesh0w was one of a number of readers to alert us to the FCC's unanimous decision approving unlicensed devices to use the white spaces of the spectrum unused by television broadcasters, provided they take certain precautions not to interfere with licensed users. "Denying a tremendous last-minute lobbying effort by broadcasters, the vote on white space devices went ahead as planned today after a several-hour delay at FCC headquarters. When the vote came, though, it was unanimous. For the Democrats on the Commission, the devices are appealing because they offer a potential new avenue for broadband services, while the Republicans are pleased for the same reasons, but love the fact that this is a deregulatory order that focuses on less regulation and more competition."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25972 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9EplFKU2IEQ/article.pl Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:05:01 EST Someone more nostalgic than I am, and with a lot of time on their hands, had created a scripting language based on Commodore BASIC for Mac OS X. They recently finished a version that works on Windows and Linux. You can pass the text of a BASIC program as a parameter to the program. I found it odd that it took 1.8 MB of source code to compile to an interpreter that used to fit in 8K of ROM space. If this ever becomes popular, perhaps we'll see Obfuscated CBM BASIC contests." In a simliar vein, in the comments someone points out what is essentially an open source AmigaOS Classic.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25967 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/96u-Tq_2yNo/article.pl Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:05:01 EST Reader Ostracus informs us of research led by Michael Ehlers of Duke University that has identified a molecule, myosin Vb (five-b), that seems to be a critical component in the formation of memory. "A major puzzle for neurobiologists is how the brain can modify one... synapse at a time in a brain cell and not affect the thousands of other connections nearby. Plasticity, the ability of the brain to precisely rearrange the connections between its nerve cells, is the framework for learning and forming memories... The discovery of a molecule that moves new receptors to the synapse so that the neuron... can respond more strongly helps to explain several observations about [brain] plasticity... [The researchers] found that the myosin Vb molecule in hippocampal neurons responded to a flow of calcium ions from the synaptic space by popping up and into action. One end of the myosin is attached to meshlike actin filaments so it can 'walk' to the end of the nerve cells where receptors are. On its other end, it tows an endosome, a packet that contains new receptors. 'These endosomes are like little memories waiting to happen,' Ehlers said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25924 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/L2uUWlHLUqU/article.pl Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:05:09 EST A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening. The 1,400-pound object was deliberately jettisoned — by hand — from the ISS's robot arm in July 2007. Since the time of re-entry is uncertain, so is the location. "NASA expects up to 15 pieces of the tank to survive the searing hot temperatures of re-entry, ranging in size from about 1.4 ounces (40 grams) to nearly 40 pounds (17.5 kilograms). ... [T]he largest pieces could slam into the Earth's surface at about 100 mph (161 kph). ...'If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25920 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rAZ_BwbKJ50/article.pl Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:05:02 EDT An anonymous reader sends us to Science News, which is running a survey of recent strides in finding an answer to the age-old question: How many ways are there to tie your shoelaces? "Mathematicians have been puzzling over that question for a century or two, and the main thing they've discovered is that the question is really, really hard. In the last decade, though, they've developed some powerful new tools inspired by physics that have pried a few answers from the universe's clutches. Even more exciting is that the new tools seem to be the tip of a much larger theory that mathematicians are just beginning to uncover. That larger mathematical theory, if it exists, may help crack some of the hardest mathematical questions there are, questions about the mathematical structure of the three- and four-dimensional space where we live. ... Revealing the full... superstructure may be the work of a generation."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25918 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SIY9-h1k0v8/article.pl Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:05:02 EDT