I had bought a 65litre backpack in December for my trip which also had a 15litre day sack attached that you zip on and off. I seem to have collected quite a lot along the way so when I was in Cambodia I bought an extra day sack to stop my backpack from splitting. After routing through my stuff this morning I realised how much I could do without so to lighten the load I decided to pay for a cou
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Sawat dii kha from Bangkok
First things first we read all the books and heeded all the warnings about the likelihood of being scammed and robbed as soon as we stepped off the plane at Bangkok and so determined it wouldnrsquot happen to us we headed to the taxi rank outside of the airport and managed to get all the way to the Khao San Road without anything untoward happening to us. Good start we thought but we certainl
Bhuj
13210The earthquake in 1819 maybe a bit far to remembered but it did changed the course of the Indus River and left behind this salt desert in Kutch. And again another earthquake in 2001 collapsed many of the buildings killed more than 10 thousands people in its capital city Bhuj120m. Love this place as soon as I arrived. Row of food stands lined the busy street not the standard samosa
Het land van de reizende zon
NihaoOp veler verzoek dan nu deel si chinese uitspraak 'sz' en voor de nuchtere hollander 4.Na het soepele verloop van het visum in KL waren de verwachtingen van het grote China toch een beetje hoog gespannen. In aanloop naar ons vertrek kopen in het holst van de nacht voordat we op het vliegtuig stappen op KL international airport van onze laatste ringits een fingertip chinese woordenboekje
Phuket
HelloThe overnight bus was smooth although they randomly decided to stop at a service station at 1am in the morning We were alo impressed with Bangkok bus station which was more like an airport with a huge complex of shops and restaurants.The bus dropped us off in Phuket town and from there we got a shuttle bus to Kata beach the nicest of the numerous beaches down the Phuket western coast. An
Wat More
A really early start today to see the sunrise at Angkor wat. We arrived in almost pitch darkness although there was already considerable activity at the site. Walking across the causeway was a little hazardous but having successfully negotiated that we parked ourselves at one of the templersquos libraries away from the main buildings and sat in near silence as dawn gradually lit up the sky. It w
Hindu Temples at their most glorious
Over the past 3 days we have travelled through towns and cities of South India and seen the most spectacular Hindu temples. Their age character and beauty is breathtaking. Hopefully the pictures will give you some idea of their splendour.
Climate Change News You May Have Missed
Photo: Omar Sobhani
Afghans arrive to search for bodies in the snow after avalanches killed at least 157 people in Salang tunnel in Parwan province, February 10, 2010. Afghan rescue workers searched for survivors for the third day on Wednesday in the avalanche-stricken mountain pass, fearing that dozens of people were still buried under snow.-World Environment News
Most of the world is fed up with winter, despite the fact that the Winter Olympics just started. The Olympics are even being put in jeopardy by lack of snow and events are being pushed up due to rain. However, winter weather here and there does not in any way disprove climate change, despite what the denialists would have you believe. Check out the latest Climate Files podcast for more on that. More news:
Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse Possibly Triggered by Ocean Waves
(Feb. 12, 2010) — Depicting a cause-and-effect scenario that spans thousands of miles, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and his collaborators discovered that ocean waves originating along the Pacific coasts of North and South America impact Antarctic ice shelves and could play a role in their catastrophic collapse.
Meteorologists See Future of Increasingly Extreme Weather Events
February 1, 2006 — Harder Rain, More Snow–While raising average global temperatures, climate change could also bring more snow, harder rain, or heat waves, meteorologists say. Computer models based on climate data from nine countries indicate every place on the planet will be hit with extreme weather events, including coastal storms and floods.
The Right’s Inability to Grasp Climate Change May Be Funny, But It’s Also Very Dangerous
The so-called Snowpocalypse has brought out the funny bone in the right-wing media, but their inability to correctly draw causal connections is very dangerous. Climate change conspiracies are hardly new, but the so-called Snowpocalypse in Washington D.C. has returned them front-and-center to every single right-wing media outlet. A Fox News anchor smugly claimed that the record snow had not only buried people’s cars — it was also “burying” global warming theories.
What Does Winter Weather Reveal about Global Warming?
Sadly, climate change won’t save you from bundling up, or shoveling. Even in a much warmer world, there will still be colder than average winters. What’s worse, U.S. government scientists predicted last year that global warming will actually increase snowstorms, thanks to the potent combination of more moisture in the atmosphere from warmer average temperatures paired with the usual cold of winter. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted the same in 2007. In short, winter storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with stronger winds.
The endangered climate act of 2010
by Nancy Sutley
The Endangered Species Act, as written and as restored by the Obama administration shortly after coming in to office, effectively requires federal agencies to study the effects of proposed projects on endangered species. The administration is now poised to expand the National Environmental Policy Act to require government [...]
Do we really need a religious bill of rights? | Bad Astronomy
In the United States, we need a religious bill of rights about as much as we need a white people’s bill of rights, or a men’s bill of rights. That is, not at all: when 90+ percent of the country claims to be religious, you pretty much run the joint anyway. Worse, we hardly need something like this for public schools. There already are pretty clear laws about how religion can and cannot be treated in the schools.
Still, that hasn’t stopped people in Colorado from proposing just such a bill for public schools in the state legislature, a bill which may be presented to the Judiciary Committee as early as Monday, today. Note that this bill represents an act and not a law. Nothing in it is legally enforceable, as far as I can tell. Good thing, too.
The bill is ridiculous in a lot of ways, but two things stand out: one is that it simply isn’t needed — most of the rights it seems so concerned over are already guaranteed and under no threat at all — and the other is that it oversteps the bounds maintained by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Below are some choice bits of the bill, with what I think is my more reality-based opinion on them. The bill itself IS IN ALL CAPS, so you can read it as if the person is shouting at you if you’d like. I won’t bother debunking the basis claimed for the need for such a bill — they claim religion is under attack in this country, which is patently ridiculous. Instead, here is an example of a bit that is unneeded:
THE RELIGIOUS BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS OR GUARDIANS SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NEED NOT BE LIMITED TO, A DECLARATION THAT A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT HAS AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO:
(I) EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS OR AT A SCHOOL-SPONSORED EVENT TO THE SAME EXTENT AS HE OR SHE MAY EXPRESS A PERSONAL SECULAR VIEWPOINT;
There are many such statements in the bill, and I’m cool with them, since all of them fall under a student’s Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. Stating this is like stating they should be allowed to breathe or have their heart beat. By putting that up front and center, the bill crafters make it seem like this freedom is in jeopardy. It isn’t.
However, if a teacher or other school official were to do this, that would be a different matter entirely. As we’ll see below.
[Students also have the inalienable right to] WEAR RELIGIOUS GARB ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CLOTHING WITH A RELIGIOUS MESSAGE;
Now this one’s interesting! I wonder how the folks sponsoring this bill would feel if a kid wore a "Satan rules my soul!" shirt to class. Or a turban.
Anyway, here’s where it gets sticky:
[A student may] EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR SELECT RELIGIOUS MATERIALS WHEN RESPONDING TO A SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT IF HIS OR HER RESPONSE REASONABLY MEETS THE EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT;
Yeah, that word "reasonably" opens a can of worms. What happens when a creationist kid doesn’t want to say anything about evolution or the Big Bang? If I were a science teacher and a student said the Universe is 6000 years old, I would mark that answer as wrong (why? Because it is). That will lead to some fun with the parents, no doubt. Now again, the student already has the ability to do this. But this somewhat amplifies the situation, and will lead to students thinking they have a right to not be marked down for wrong answers if they are religiously-based. Think I’m overly extrapolating this? Think again.
But the biggest grievance I have with this ridiculous declaration is this one:
[A teacher shall] NOT BE REQUIRED TO TEACH A TOPIC THAT VIOLATES HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND NOT BE DISCIPLINED FOR REFUSING TO TEACH THE TOPIC;
To be blunt, this is unacceptable. If you are a biology teacher and refuse to teach evolution, then you should be disciplined at the very least. If you still refuse to teach it, then you can either be given a different class to teach, or face termination. Teachers are obligated by their job duties to teach standards-based curricula, and if they refuse, they are in dereliction of their duty as teachers.
Teachers have certain religious rights, of course, but don’t have the right to not teach a kid something that is true because of their own religion. There are religions that teach that women are inferior, that blacks are inferior. Will a history teacher refuse to teach about the women’s rights movement, or the civil rights movement, because of their own beliefs? Some religions — I won’t name names here — believe that sexual education is eeevil. If you’re a health teacher and refuse to teach about reproductive health, then in my opinion you should face the consequences of your decision.
This is where I think declarations of rights like this are dangerous. It’s a slippery slope, and a steep one. And the most pernicious part of all this is it’s clear that the motivation behind this bill is not in the name of religious freedom and tolerance, it’s in the name of freedom and tolerance for one specific religion. As I point out above, I don’t think a radical Muslim would be treated the same way under this declaration as a Christian would. While that may be outside the scope of the bill, it’s important to keep in mind.
In the end, this bill doesn’t have the weight of law, but by simply proposing it — and enacting it, which will take time and materials — it’s a waste of taxpayer money, especially when the vast majority of what it’s stating is already within the existing legislation. If the religious groups are so worried about this sort of thing, then they should pay for this effort on their own time, and give out flyers in church. Doing this through the legislative branch — and, in fact, the whole bill itself — is a bad idea.
If this bill gets out of the Judiciary Committee it will be presented to the Senate for debate and eventually a vote. I’ve already contacted my local Senator about this. If you live in Colorado, I urge you to do likewise.
Remember:
Tip o’ the wall o’ separation to the Boulder Atheists
Insights from the Paul Offit Interview, Part I: Waking the Silent Majority | The Intersection
(If you haven’t yet heard the first episode of the new Point of Inquiry, you can listen here, and I also strongly encourage you to subscribe via iTunes from the same page.)
There were many aspects of my interview with Paul Offit that I found very informative, even surprising, and I thought I would highlight some of them here on the blog this week. Perhaps the first was Dr. Offit’s response to my second question–when I asked him, around minute 6, about all the hate mail he receives (including some death threats). I was expecting dire tales of the extremism that had been directed at my guest; but instead, Offit opened up about the incredibly positive response his book has received:
When I wrote the book, I assumed it would merely galvanize those who didn’t agree with my point of view, and who would angrily write to me, hatefully–but that wasn’t true. I think what surprised me with this book, after I wrote it, is that I have received hundreds of emails, probably about 800 emails, from parents of children with autism, including severe autism, that have said, “Thank you, I never thought it was vaccines, Jenny McCarthy presumes to represent me, but she doesn’t.” This book is going to be coming out in paperback in April, and in the introduction, the revised introduction as a preface to the new paperback edition, I basically apologize to parents; I feel like, whenever I heard a parent of a child with autism I would sort of cringe at some level, thinking they would be anti-vaccine. That’s not true. I think frankly, most of them don’t feel that way at all.
Offit went on to talk about the “silent majority out there of parents that don’t buy into this vaccine-autism debate, and frankly are angry about it.” To me, it’s just another sign that the worm is turning on vaccine-autism claims. The movement may even be courting some serious backlash at this point.
In any case, that’s the first of many insights from the Offit interview, and I’ll be blogging more of them this week. Once again, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe here. And don’t forget to buy Paul Offit’s book, Autism’s False Prophets, if you don’t already own it: Just follow the link below:
Windows Phone 7: First Video [Windows Phone 7]
As we see in this first ever video, the Windows Phone 7 interface is filled with simple, beautiful animations not so dissimilar to the Zune HD. (We'll be updating this post as Microsoft shows us more.)
Book Excerpt: The Great Transformation
Karen Armstrong on compassion as an essential practice of the religions that developed during the Axial Age from 800 - 2000 BCE.
Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now [Windows Phone 7]
It's astounding that until this moment, three years after the iPhone, the biggest software company in the world basically didn't compete in mobile. Windows Phone 7 Series is more than the Microsoft smartphone we've been waiting for. Everything's different now.
Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is publicly previewing Windows Phone 7 for the first time. The brand new, totally fresh operating system will appear in phones this year, but not until the holidays. All of the major wireless carriers and every likely hardware maker are backing it, and they'd be stupid not to. It's awesome. Further details are forthcoming, but here is what you need to know:
The name—Windows Phone 7 Series—is a mouthful, and unfortunately, the epitome of Microsoft's worst naming instincts, belying the simple fact that it's the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone. It's the phone Microsoft should've made three years ago. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could've dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.
Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. Windows Mobile isn't just dead, the body's been dumped, buried and paved over by a rainbow brick road.
The Interface
It's different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4x4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid.
If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it's gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There's an incredible sense of joie de vivre that's just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in.
Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm's webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it's even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you've pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.
The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They're kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn't just your contacts, but it's also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we're sure will be remedied by ship date.)
As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD's software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.
A piece of interface that's shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you'd think it'd be Microsoft, but they're actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you'll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune client.
Hello, Connected World
The People hub might be the best social networking implementation yet on a phone: It's a single place to see all of your friends' status updates from multiple services in a single stream, and to update your own Facebook and Windows Live status. Needs. Twitter support. Badly. But you have neat things going on, like the aforementioned live tiles—if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they're posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service.
All of your contacts are synced and backed up over-the-air, Android and webOS style, and can be pulled from multiple sources, like Windows Live, Exchange, etc. Makes certain other phones seem a little antiquated with their out-of-the-box Contacts situation.
Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!
Microsoft's vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It's an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It's just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it's like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora too built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).
Pictures is a little different though, and gets its very own hub. That's because it's intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they're kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and scrolling stuff too.
Xbox, on a Phone
I'll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you're not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It's tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.
If Microsoft's got an ace-in-hole with Windows Phone 7, it's Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time. (Okay, and it sucked.) The DS and PSP are the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone, and now that just got a lot more interesting.
Browser and Email
Yes, the browser is Internet Exploder. And yes, the rumor's true: It won't be as fast as Mobile Safari. Not to start. But it's not bad! Hey, least it's got multitouch powers right out of the box. Naturally, you've got multiple browser windows, and you can pin web pages to the Start screen, like any other decent mobile browser.
The Outlook email app makes me question how people read email on a BlackBerry. It is stunning. I never thought I'd call a mail app "stunning," but, well, it kind of is. It's the best looking mobile mail app around. Text is huge. Gorgeous. Ultrareadable. Of course, it's got Exchange support too.
Apps, Office and Marketplace
Remember what I said earlier about Windows Mobile being dead? So are all the apps. They won't work on WP7. Sorry Windows Mobile developers, it's for the best. Deep down, we all knew a clean break was the only way Windows Phone wasn't going to suck total balls.
The Marketplace is where you'll buy apps. Since we've got like 6 months 'til Windows Phone 7 launches and people should be excited to develop for it, hopefully there'll be plenty of stuff to buy there on day one. Apps have some standardized interface elements, like the app bar on the bottom for common commands.
Naturally, Bing and Bing Maps are built into the phone as the default search and maps services. They're nice. Bing's also used for universal search on the phone, via a dedicated Bing button. Bing Maps is multitouchable, with pinch-to-zoom. It's rich, with built-in listings with reviews and clever ways of searching for stuff. And yeah, Office! It's connected to that cloud thing, for OTA syncing and such. Business people should be happy.
Hardware and Partnahs
Another way the old Windows Mobile is dead is how Microsoft's handling partners and hardware situation. With Windows Mobile, a phonemaker handed Microsoft their monies, and Microsoft tossed them a software kit, and that was that. Which is why a lot of Windows Mobile phones felt and ran like crap. And why it took HTC like two years to produce the HD2, the most genuinely usable rendition of Windows Mobile ever.
Microsoft's not building their own phones, but they're going to be picky, to say the least, with Windows Phone 7. There's a strict set of minimum hardware requirements—a capacitive, multitouchable screen, for example—and benchmarks that have to be met. Every phone will have a Bing button and an FM radio. Custom skins, like the minor miracles HTC worked, are now banned. The message to hardware makers is clear: It's a Windows Phone, you're just putting it together. Basically, phonemakers get to decide the shape and whether or not there's a keyboard.
One other word on hardware, in a manner of speaking. Hardware it won't work with? Macs. Which is kind of stupid to us—a lot of the people Microsoft wants to use Windows Phone 7, like college students, have been going Mac in droves. You wanna lure them back Microsoft? Let them use your phone with any OS.
The Big Picture
Windows Phone 7 Series is, from what we've seen, exactly what Microsoft's phone should be. It's actually good. But there's a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series…phone—goddamn that is a stupid name—won't hit until the end of this year. That's more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, hell, even a year after Palm, the industry's sickly but persistent dwarf.
History is on Microsoft's side here—we know what happened the last time Apple had a massive head start. Microsoft is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Remember the first Xbox? Back when it was crazy that Microsoft was getting into videogames? It's cost them about a billion dollars and taken nearly 10 years, but now, with Xbox Live, Project Natal and their massive software ecosystem, they arguably have the most impressive gaming console you can buy. That was a pet project. Now, mobile is the future of computing. What do you think Microsoft will sink into that?
The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominant desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.
NSS at Crossroads?
NSS's Annual ISDC: A good barometer of Society's health, Guest post by Ian Malone
One of the premier space exploration advocacy groups is the National Space Society, (NSS). Formed in 1987, the NSS has established chapters across the country and around the globe. For much of its history the NSS has been a powerful force promoting manned spaceflight. However, much like NASA's Public Affairs Office, the NSS has lost touch with the people it is supposed to represent. The NSS's upper echelons until recently were massively instrumental in guiding the future of manned spaceflight.
Under the leadership of George Whitesides, the National Space Society was a vibrant organization that sponsored many outreach efforts and no member was treated as being "too-small to talk to". With Whitesides' departure for NASA, the NSS seems to be drifting away from its roots, outreach has lessened and members are looked down upon.
To gauge these two periods, one should compare two of its International Space Development Conferences, (ISDC). The ISDC, held annually, gathers together many heads of the space community and allows the space community to direct its efforts and to promote the exchange of ideas.
The 2005 ISDC was held in Washington D.C., had spectacular plenary sessions and a gala in the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center, (right next to the famed SR-71 Blackbird and in sight of the space shuttle Enterprise)! Its guest speakers included NASA Chief Scientist James Garvin, Mars Exploration Rovers Principal Investigator Steven Squyres, Burt Rutan and astronauts Jim Voss and Rusty Schweickart among others. There were tours available, one of these was to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.
ISDC 2009 by comparison was a non-event. Although ISDC 2009 had a few astronauts, it had little of the "star-power" from just four years earlier. A special package to allow guests' entry to Kennedy Space Center was not made available and appears to have been actively suppressed. The rationale to have the '09 conference in Orlando was to allow guests to enjoy the area's rich space history. Plans to allow guests to see the new Star Trek movie on IMAX met a similar fate. Worst of all, initial reports had the gala for the '09 ISDC held at the Saturn V building at Kennedy Space Center. This would have been comparable to the '05 ISDC. Instead? The '09 gala was held in a spare room at the hotel. Guests should have been given more opportunities than the average sunburned tourist fresh out of Disney World - but were not. ISDC '09 was far from the shining success of ISDC '05 and a glaring indictment of those in charge. A person on the committee said the following,
"I knew someone that I thought would make a great speaker, but the folks in charge said he'd never attend, turns out that wasn't the case at all, his company covered his expenses if I hadn't pressed the conference would have even less than it already did."
Some of the problems might have fallen on the committee heads themselves, the public outreach seemed to be done last minute with few press releases to let the general public know what was happening. There was supposed to be an optional tour to see the recent Star Trek film in IMAX, this was squashed by conference organizers as was most everything else of interest. As one person who was initially involved with the conference put it:
"It seemed to me that it was poorly orchestrated and poorly managed, there was a lot of potential with this conference that wasn't allowed to materialize."
The Space Exploration Alliance, (SEA) was announced in 2004, shortly after the Vision for Space Exploration was released. It included the National Space Society and twelve other space and aeronautical groups. It, like the NSS, held great promise to back future manned exploration of the solar system. However, with the current leadership in place, it has not achieved its potential. Under Whitesides the NSS was a powerful force for change, if members had an idea or event to propose they would be helped in any way possible, good luck getting so much as an e-mail out of the current leadership.
The NSS is not a lost cause. Its ranks are filled with loyal spacers that truly believe in the dream of manned spaceflight. The problem seems to reside in the current leadership who have become arrogant and view members as merely a source of revenue. If the NSS can turn itself around, it could excite and lead the other members of the SEA, and resume the course it has spear-headed for so long. More importantly than leading the SEA, the NSS could continue to inspire, direct and support its members. It would not take much, the NSS has been there before, and it can be there again.
Watch Steve Ballmer Announce, Then Ravage, Windows Phone 7 [Windows Phone 7]
Steve Ballmer. Aggressive. Unpredictable. Highly territorial. He'll be unveiling Windows Phone 7 today, Microsoft's smartphone that looks every bit as bold as Ballmer. And you can watch the press conference live starting at 9am Eastern right here:
[Microsoft Livestream and Image]
Video of Airborne Laser Destroying a Ballistic Missile [Weapons]
At last, the Missile Defense Agency Airborne Laser has killed an actual ballistic missile in mid-air. The best part: They recorded it in video. This is not Star Wars pew-pew. It actually looks like the Enterprise's phasers.
It happened February 11, 8:44 Pacific Standard Time, at the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off the central California coast. The missile—representing a SCUD—launched from a platform at sea. Second later, the Airborne Laser Test Bed's sensors—flying on a Boeing 747-400F—detected the launch, tracking its trajectory with a low-energy tracking laser. A second laser was focused ont he missile to measure the atmospheric disturbance, gathering data to achieve the perfect firing solution.
Seconds later, the ALTC unleashed its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, causing a massive structural failure in the missile as it was rising in the sky. In other words: Boom. The engagement took only two minutes, demonstrating that this weapon will be extremely useful in destroying waves of missiles, one after the other. Like Missile Command, but from the air. [Boeing and Lockheed Martin]
Bug Labs Build-Your-Own-Gadget System 2.0: Hello, Android [BugLabs]
BUG 2.0, the second version of Bug Labs' Lego set for hardware hobbyists, is here, and it's two things the first one wasn't: blazing fast—and powerful as a Droid, to be specific—and ready for Android.
The newest version of the BUGBase, the brain and nerve center of any and all BUG-based Frankengadgets, has been upgraded to TI's OMAP 3 platform, bringing the base up to speed, in terms of processing power, with the likes of the Droid and Palm Pre. Now that the BUGBase has the power of a high-end smartphone, it's only appropriate that it'd support Android, which it does, and which gives any BUG device the potential, if not immediate access, to tap into the endless potential of the App Market.
There's no release date or price on the new BUGbase yet, but the transition should be seamless—though it'll replace your old BUGbase complete, any other BUG modules, be they touch displays, WI-Fi radios, GPS receivers or speakers, will work straight away. [Bug Labs via Crunchgear]
Samsung Wave Seems Like a Very Bad Joke [Smartphone]
When Samsung first announced their Bada OS cellphone operating system I thought they were crazy. After seeing their flagship Bada OS phone—the Samsung Wave—in action, I don't think they are crazy anymore. They are suicidal.
I will have to try it myself, but just looking at this hands on is making me cringe. [Mobile Review]
Two Dozen Telecoms Unite to Form Apple App Store Rival [Apps]
AT&T, Orange, Telefónica, China Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and several more carriers have announced the formation of the Wholesale Applications Community, which aims to create a viable alternative to Apple's walled-garden approach to apps.
They'll be joined on the hardware side by LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson as they attempt to create an open system for app development and distribution. What they lack in momentum they make up for in mass: combined, the alliance services more than three billion customers worldwide.
There's no question that apps are big business, especially for Apple, but to date it's been largely limited to Apple and, to a lesser extent, the Android Market. The Wholesale Applications Community plans to initially use JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements to work towards a common standard within a year. Eventually, they hope to establish a common standard where apps can be ported across mobile platforms.
The amount of fragmentation in the app world has only been increasing, so it should be a relief to developers and consumers to see an effort to streamline the process while at the same time opening it up. It'll be interesting, though, to see how quickly and effectively they can pull actual standards together. With that many chefs, it can be hard not to spoil the soup.
Leading Operators Unite to Unleash Global Apps Potential
Wholesale Applications Community to push apps market to over 3 billion customers with strong support by world-leading device manufacturers
BARCELONA, Spain—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Twenty-four leading telecommunications operators have formed the Wholesale Applications Community, an alliance to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users.
"This approach is completely in line with the principles of the GSMA, and in fact leverages the work we have already undertaken on open network APIs (OneAPI). This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyse the development of a range of innovative cross-device, cross-operator applications."
América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom austria group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind are committed to create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications irrespective of device or technology.
Together, these operators have access to over three billion customers around the world. The GSMA and three of the world's largest device manufacturers – LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – also support this initiative.
The Wholesale Applications Community aims to unite a fragmented marketplace and create an open industry platform that benefits everybody – from applications developers and network operators to mobile phone users themselves.
The alliance's stated goal is to create a wholesale applications ecosystem that – from day one – will establish a simple route to market for developers to deliver the latest innovative applications and services to the widest possible base of customers around the world. In the immediate future the alliance will seek to unite members' developer communities and create a single, harmonised point of entry to make it easy for developers to join.
"The GSMA is fully supportive the Wholesale Applications Community, which will build a new, open ecosystem to spur the creation of applications that can be used regardless of device, operating system or operator," said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board, GSMA. "This approach is completely in line with the principles of the GSMA, and in fact leverages the work we have already undertaken on open network APIs (OneAPI). This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyse the development of a range of innovative cross-device, cross-operator applications."
Jonathan Arber, Senior Research Analyst at independent analyst house, IDC, said: "Attracting and retaining developers is vital for any application store offering to succeed. However, mobile application developers currently face a high level of fragmentation in the industry, in terms of both technology platforms, and individual operators' working practices. Developers want to meet the largest possible addressable market, as efficiently and painlessly as possible, and the Wholesale Applications Community initiative can meet these criteria by providing a simple, single point of access to a large number of operator storefronts. The initiative should also help to drive uptake of existing, open standards among developers, operators and manufacturers, thereby reducing fragmentation and benefiting the whole industry."
The alliance plans to initially use both the JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements, evolving these standards into a common standard within the next 12 months. Ultimately, we will collectively work with the W3C for a common standard based on our converged solution to truly ensure developers can create applications that port across mobile device platforms, and in the future between fixed and mobile devices.
The alliance will serve as one point of contact for the industry and is open to all relevant parties – from telecommunications operators and device manufacturers to internet service providers and application software developers. For more information go to http://www.wholesaleappcommunity.com or email info@wholesaleappcommunity.com.
nHD DLP Pico: Pico Projectos Shrink to Phone-Worthy Sizes [Guts]
If you've seen one of those tiny pico projectors, chances are, Texas Instruments' DLP tech is inside. And their latest version, the mHD DLP Pico, may be the first to squeeze into a cellphone that's humiliating to use.
The new, low power chipset drives an optical module that's 20% thinner and 50% smaller than TI's last pico projector, which was notably 20% thinner than its predecessor.
Resolution has taken a hit in this smaller form factor, dropping from DVD quality to 640x360. But the system claims a 1000:1 contrast ratio (that's LCD monitor territory) and a wider color gamut thanks to RGB LEDs. Of course, brightness will probably still be the chief issue.
TI's latest pico hardware is planned for production starting in Q2 of this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if it popped up in some handset at MWC this week. [SlashGear]
