nasa

'When We Left Earth' series to take off on Discovery Channel

NEW YORK--On Tuesday night, the Discovery Channel hosted a few hundred guests at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium for a preview of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, filling the audience up with cocktails called "The Liftoff" (a tequila sunrise in a rocket-like champagne glass) and then packing us all into the planetarium's theater to watch some cool retro space visuals.

The miniseries got its start when Discovery embarked upon a project to archive old NASA footage in a high-definition format as a commemoration of the agency's 50th anniversary. It evolved, … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 720: Lovin' Out Loud

Announcing the launch of our new dating podcast, Lovin' Out Loud! Also, Microsoft may or may not build content filtering into the Zune, by which we mean "probably will." Also, should judges decide the intent of technology in awarding boffo-size judgments against P2P search engines? And on that note, we're off to order some pizza online. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 720

Revoked NSL aimed at Internet Archive shows need for reform http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080508-revoked-nsl-aimed-at-internet-archive-shows-need-for-reform.html http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/07/211255

Zune to build copyright … Read more

NASA, Intel, SGI launch supercomputer project

NASA, Intel, and SGI announced today that they are collaborating on a groundbreaking initiative that promises to vastly improve performance of the space agency's supercomputer operations, "enabling them to push the limits of scientific discovery."

Under a joint project dubbed "Pleiades," the three partners plan to develop a modeling and simulation system of unprecedented speed and capacity in the nation's space program. Specifically, they hope to produce computational performance of 1 petaflop (a quadrillion operations per second) by 2009 and 10 petaflops by 2012.

What does that mean, exactly? A task that would take … Read more

NASA 'nanosats' to form smart network in space

NASA Ames Research Center said Thursday that it has teamed with M2Mi to develop tiny satellites called nanosats that will go into building new low-Earth orbit telecommunications systems for use in the commercial sector.

"NASA wants to work with companies to develop a new economy in space," Ames Center Director Pete Worden said in a statement.

NASA signed its third official research and development agreement with M2Mi, a software and GPS sensor company that has an office at NASA's Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. But the space agency has been working with M2Mi for at least … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 705: Why court the pwnage?

In the news today, Safari saves your bacon with a hole-patching update, and NASA says it's better at math than teenagers (which we fervently hope is true). Yahoo and Google get closer to a deal, which we fervently hope is just going to happen, already, so we can quit speculating, and we're planning our summer road trip to Pittsburgh. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 705

NASA statement on student asteroid calculations http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/apr/ HQ_08103_student_asteroid_calculations.html

Yahoo-Google deal advances http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9920997-7.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120839839184321833.html… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 704: Monster in Blue Jeans

I have never had so much fun reading a legal response than I did the note from the head of Blue Jeans Cables to Monster Cable. See the episode for the full story. We also determine that politicians across the world are nuts, and I'm not good math. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 704

Comcast to spearhead creation of P2P Bill of Rights http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080415-comcast-to-spearhead-creation-of-p2p-bill-of-rights.html

Defiant Psystar back selling Leopard computers http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9919432-37.html

So exactly who or what is Psystar? We dig a little http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/04/15/ so_exactly_who_or_what_is_psystar_we_dig_a_little.html… Read more

Semiautonomous orbs rock Yuri's Night

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Corey Fro is chasing a large metal orb across the pavement at the NASA Ames Research Center here. He is desperately trying to make sure that the orb doesn't crush a nearby robot.

The orb in question is being remotely directed by a kid wielding an Xbox-like wireless controller, but it's the kid's first time using the device, and he really doesn't have any idea what he's doing.

And that's why the orb has rolled away and is bearing down rapidly on the unsuspecting and defenseless robot a few yards away. … Read more

NASA Ames' director talks Yuri's Night, Google, and more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.--In April 2006, NASA announced that it was bringing in University of Arizona astronomy professor and former brigadier general Simon "Pete" Worden to be the director of its NASA Ames Research Center here.

Since then, Worden has brought a fresh perspective to the helm of one of NASA's most important research facilities, demonstrated through initiatives such as giving a keynote address to the International Space Development Conference from the virtual world Second Life. (Note: My wife works at Second Life publisher Linden Lab).

But along with administrators at several other NASA facilities, Worden has … Read more

Correction: Etsy artists will not go into space, but their artwork will

OK, this makes more sense.

CNET News.com reported earlier on a collaboration between crafts site Etsy and the NASA Ames Research Center on a new contest that encourages members of the Etsy community to design NASA-inspired handmade goods. The announcement was made at the PSFK Conference in New York during a panel discussion featuring NASA's Andrew Hoppin and Etsy founder Robert Kalin.

In an unintended verbal gaffe, Kalin said, "We'll send the two winners into space." The audience, along with this reporter, assumed he meant that the Etsy crafters who won the contest would get … Read more