Technically Speaking

NASA was just delivered its new comet exploring spacecraft named Deep Impact. This vessel will be launched on Dec. 30 of this year and if all goes well it will rendevouz with the comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. The spacecraft is designed to deliver a 820-lb hunk of copper, dubbed “hammer”, the size of a bathtub, to the commet at a velocity of 23,000 mph. The “hammer” is to expose the inner most materials of the comet so that scientists can discover the composition of it and also hopefully predict the comet’s past and origins.

If all goes well, an 820-pound copper “hammer” the size of a bathtub will separate from its mother ship and, 24 hours later, smash into the comet’s icy nucleus at about 23,000 mph.

“It’s bound to be a blast,” said Lucy McFadden, a University of Maryland astronomer and member of the Deep Impact team.

The high-speed impact will wallop the pickle-shaped comet with energy equivalent to 4.8 tons of TNT, said Michael A’Hearn, another UM astronomer and principal investigator on the $311 million mission.

Nobody’s sure what will happen next. There’s a small chance the impactor will blow the 2-½-mile-long comet to smithereens, or simply bore through it like a bullet through a snowball. More likely, scientists say, it will blast open a crater the size of a football stadium. It all depends on what Tempel 1 is made of, and how sturdily it is composed.

Which is exactly what scientists hope to learn.

The blast also will reveal the comet’s interior chemistry and nail down more precisely what conditions were like when it formed at the solar system’s birth more than 4.5 billion years ago.

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Mayo Clinic gynecologists have discovered a better, cheaper, and less evasive way to perform female sterilizations. The technique involves inserting a nickel-titanium and stainless steel springlike device into the fallopian tubes. The device will in turn cause the body to produce scar tissue at the site of the device and thus block the tube. The blockage will be complete in roughly 12 weeks. This method requires minimal sedation and no surgical incision, as the surgeon enters via the vagina. It also allows quick recovery.

“Patients love it,” says Abimbola Famuyide, M.B.B.S., Mayo Clinic gynecologic surgeon, who conducted the cost-comparison study. “There are minimal side effects. Patients typically leave the hospital within an hour, and they are back to work the next day.”

Dr. Famuyide and colleagues found that hysteroscopic sterilization costs patients approximately $500 less on their medical bills compared to the traditional method of female sterilization, laparoscopic tubal ligation, surgery requiring an abdominal incision with general anesthesia.

The study found the hysteroscopic method is less expensive due to the following factors:

* Quicker recovery — this method requires either no time in recovery or much less time in the hospital recovery room and/or the outpatient floor than laparoscopic tubal ligation, which also means less need for nursing care or ongoing pain control.

* Less expensive pharmacy charges — this method requires fewer drugs to administer.

The study was conducted retrospectively via a comparative cost analysis of the aforementioned two methods of female sterilization performed on women ages 27 to 45 who requested permanent sterilization at Mayo Clinic from January to December 2003. The analysis included 43 cases of hysteroscopic sterilization and 44 cases of laparoscopic tubal ligation. The investigators reviewed billing records using cost algorithms on data from Mayo Clinic’s Cost Data Warehouse. The average cost for the hysteroscopic sterilization was $2,314, versus $2,859 for the tubal ligation.

Dr. Famuyide expects that patients will be able to further increase their savings by choosing hysteroscopic sterilization in the future, as the procedure moves out of the hospital setting to the physician’s office.

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For more info visit MayoClinic.com.

A group of US scientists believe that they have found the scientific reason behind the ability of lizards to walk on water. The theory going into the study was that the lizard was exerting so much force with each step that the water gave back the same amount allowing the lizard to stay on top of the surface. But there is more to that… “What we didn’t expect to see was very large medio-lateral forces; forces pretty much to the side of the lizards.”

The study, which was reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals how a large upward force is produced every time the lizard slaps its foot down into the water.

This keeps the animal from sinking straight down into the liquid. But just like we tend to teeter forward when we run on a soft surface such as sand, the lizard would also stumble forward unless it had a mechanism for stabilising itself.

And this is where the sideways force comes in - and it is almost as strong as the initial slap down.

The findings are interesting because most of what we know about how animals with legs move is based on studies of them travelling across solid surfaces.

Animals that run on land with two legs, such as birds and humans, have little force directed out towards the sides. The basilisk lizard is very different.

“We were wondering why this is actually happening,” Dr Hsieh added.

“Our guess on this is that it appears to help maintain stability… as they’re running across water; they’re constantly tripping.

“It’s a matter of catching themselves and keeping themselves upright before they actually fall over.”

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The setup of the experiment is pretty interesting as well.

The experimental set-up used a small track, around a metre in length, with small, silver-covered reflective particles dropped in the test-tank water.

A laser light was then shone through the water, making the particles reflect. This allowed the scientists to visualise fluid flow induced by foot movements and to calculate the forces the lizards were producing.

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It is amazing what they can do with lasers these days, heh?

Edward C Baig of USA TODAY fame, lists his top picks for gadgets, gizmos and software for 2004. To no surprise Apple, Google and Mozilla all have made the list with Apple and Google having two products each in it. Most of the items listed in the complete list would make great holiday presents, provided that they are in your budget. The software is free so you can’t beat that.

•Apple iMac. This is the most exquisite Mac yet, and that’s saying a lot. The whole computer, not just the display, appears to float on an aluminum stand. That’s because the guts of the machine - 80-gigabyte or 160-gigabyte hard drive, memory, robust “G5″ processor, etc. - are inside a 2-inch flat-panel display. There are two vibrant wide-screen display models, 17 or 20 inches. You can twist or tilt the display to any reasonable viewing angle.

Also hidden inside: a drive for handling CDs or DVDs. Disks are loaded into a slot on the side of the display. The back of the computer is equally elegant. You can loosen three screws to remove the cover to add, say, extra memory or a wireless networking card. All the connectors you’d need are neatly aligned on the outside. To reduce clutter, the power cord slips through a hole on the back of the aluminum stand. And you can tuck the keyboard under the display and out of the way. Cost: $1,299 to $1,899.

•Apple iPod Photo. How do you make the best-of-breed portable digital music player even better? Add up to 25,000 pictures (and in some instances album art) to the mix. The latest iPod Photo models include a cable that lets you view slide shows on a TV, backed by a soundtrack. Or you can peek on the device’s crisp 2-inch color display while scrolling through images by sliding your finger across a click wheel. There are a few drawbacks, including price ($499 to $599, for 40-GB and 60-GB versions) and the fact that you cannot directly transfer pictures from a digital camera or memory card to the iPod.

•Google Desktop Search. Funny how Google’s “beta,” or not-quite-finished, products outshine “final” offerings from most other companies. Example No. 1 is Google’s Desktop Search. Anyone who is anyone leans on Google for Web searches. But what about searching your hard drive? Google’s free Desktop Search tool, also in beta, can perform the task quickly.

When first downloaded, Google’s Desktop Search software “indexes” compatible files, e-mail and any Web pages you previously viewed in Internet Explorer. Later, when Google spits out search results, you can view these Web pages again, even if you are offline or the page is no longer available. That’s because the pages and other files Google indexes are stored, or “cached.” Google can search plain text, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, along with Outlook (and Outlook Express) mail and AOL Instant Messenger chat sessions. Other file types are in the works.

•Google Gmail. The beauty of Google’s free, and invitation-only (while in “beta”), Web-based Gmail service is the amount of storage you get - a humongous 1,000 megabytes (or 1 GB), about 500 times the capacity of Microsoft’s rival Hotmail e-mail service when Gmail first arrived. (Perhaps in response, Hotmail and Yahoo recently beefed up storage capacities to 250 MB.) That means you’ll likely never have to discard any old mail. Also, messages are grouped with all their replies, making them easier to find.

Be aware of the tradeoff: You’ll have to put up with targeted advertising, though there are no pop-ups. Google recently added free POP e-mail access. You can now view Gmail messages using an e-mail program such as Microsoft Outlook or a handheld device such as a BlackBerry.

•Mozilla Firefox. The cyber-rogues who unleash viruses at your computer often attack vulnerabilities inside Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser. That’s why alternative browsers are looking so good. Among the best: Firefox, from the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It was built with security in mind. This sly fox is fast (switching programs is a breeze), free and uncluttered.

Among the available features are “extensions” and “themes” - custom add-ons that boost functionality and alter the browser’s look and feel. Still, you might run into cases where the sites you visit want you to use IE.

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The Google Scholar site is a new search tool Google released yesterday. The tool’s purpose is to help search academic research filed within Google’s massive index. Through specialized algorithms this is the first attempt to separate out specific content in Google’s system. If the beta site is successful, Google could start offering custom search sites on specified topics in the very near future.

Although Google already had been indexing the reams of academic research online, the company hadn’t been able to separate the scholarly content from commercial Web sites.

By focusing on the citations contained in academic papers, Google also engineered its new system to provide a list of potentially helpful material available at libraries and other offline sources.

The scholarly search effort continues Google’s effort to probe even deeper into content available online and offline. Last month, Google expanded a program that invites publishers to scan their books into the search engine’s index, enabling people to peek at the contents online before deciding whether to buy a copy.

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The word on the street is that AOL, last owners of Netscape’s technology, has restarted the browser’s development. The newest version will be based on Firefox. A prototype of the new Netscape will debut on November 30, but only a handful of beta testers will be able to review it.

…

But Firefox’s surging popularity has breathed new life into Netscape. Although AOL could not yet comment on what to expect in the prototype, the revamped browser will likely extend Firefox’s feature set with Netscape-specific extensions and retain Netscape’s traditional green user interface.

AOL announced the upcoming prototype in a message to Netscape users, even taking a swipe at Internet Explorer for its recent security woes.

“While other browsers have seen little improvement over recent years — except frequent patches for security leaks — we have consistently added new features to save you time and to make the most out your time online,” the Netscape product team wrote. “As a part of our next evolutionary step, we have developed this new Browser Prototype, which could change the way the world masters the web.”

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Users interested in testing the Netscape prototype can pre-register by visiting netscape.com and entering the registration code: prototype1104.

After a days delay, NASA was able to conduct thier unmanned flight test of the X-43A scramjet. The was to prove that the engine could propel the aircraft to the speed of Mach 10, Mach 9.8 was acheived in this test. Theoritically the technology may be able to reach speeds of Mach 15.

NASA’s X-43A research vehicle screamed into the record books today, demonstrating an air-breathing engine can fly at nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Preliminary data from the scramjet-powered research vehicle show its revolutionary engine worked successfully at approximately Mach 10, nearly 7000 mph, as it flew at an altitude of approximately 110,000 feet.

The flight took place in restricted airspace over the Pacific Ocean northwest of Los Angeles. The flight was the last and fastest of three unpiloted tests in NASA’s Hyper-X Program. The program’s purpose was to explore an alternative to rocket power for space access vehicles.

“This flight is a key milestone and a major step toward the future possibilities for producing boosters for sending large and critical payloads into space in a reliable, safe, inexpensive manner,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “These developments will also help us advance the Vision for Space Exploration, while helping to advance commercial aviation technology,” Administrator O’Keefe said.

Supersonic combustion ramjets (scramjets) promise more airplane-like operations for increased affordability, flexibility and safety in ultra high-speed flights within the atmosphere and for the first stage to Earth orbit. The scramjet advantage is once it accelerates to approximately Mach 4 by a conventional jet engine or booster rocket, it can fly at supersonic speeds, possibly as fast as Mach 15, without carrying heavy oxygen tanks, as rockets must.

The design of the engine, which has no moving parts, compresses the air passing through it, so it can ignite the fuel. Another advantage is scramjets can be throttled back and flown more like an airplane, unlike rockets, which tend to produce nearly or full thrust all the time.

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On the way to work this morning I had the pleasure of trying to keep up with a BMW 645 CI Convertible. Don’t worry, it was bumper to bumper traffic so most of the time I was just sitting behind the vehicle admiring it. This is the first one I have seen off the pages of a magazine. It looks a lot meaner in person than it does in picture. So of course I had to look it up. First thing to notice is that the sticker price is $76,300(Base MSRP). After adding all the special packages and the gold or platinum markings, I sure the price will hover around $100,000. So of course I have to put this little luxury item on my “things to buy when I win the lottery” list. Here are a few words from some critics about this car.

•“Handling is precise, with a superb self-centering feel to the steering. It goes around high-speed turns like it’s on rails.”

— New Car Test Drive

•“Powered
by the same 4.4-liter V8 found in the flagship 7 Series, the 645i has
more than enough power to keep pace with its rivals.”

— Edmunds.com

•“BMW’s
much maligned iDrive system controls the car’s various functions while
classic analog gauges provide the more pertinent information.”

— Edmunds.com

•“The seats are comfortable and supportive, more comfortable than the ultra-firm seats found in some of BMW’s sports packages.”

— New Car Test Drive

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I think I will have to take one of these for a test drive one day.

Checkout the specs. (more…)

Bill Gates announced, at the Microsoft IT Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, that biometric and smart cards will be the direction of the future for security authentication. He has decreed the change to smart cards for his company and believes that this is a good thing because, “We’re finally seeing leading edge customers taking that step,” said Gates.

“A major problem for identity systems is the weakness of passwords,” Gates said. “Unfortunately, with the type of critical information (protected by) these systems, we aren’t going to be able to rely on passwords. Moving to biometric and smart cards is a wave that is coming, and we see our leading customers doing this.”

Gates added that Microsoft plans to issue smart cards to its employees for accessing the company building and their computers. The system will be based on Microsoft’s .Net technology.

“In time, we will completely replace passwords,” Gates said. “Having the .Net capability, we are very excited to see smart cards moving into this framework.”

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Microsoft shaping the future again, any bets on how it will eventually turn out?

Yahoo Sports reports that the NBA has laid the law down to Vince Carter regarding his iPod use during the warmup period before games. According to the NBA, there shall be no iPod usage during that period.

The Toronto Raptors star was informed by the NBA that he no longer can listen to music on his iPod during the 20-minute warmup period before each game. Carter recently started listening to the music on his headphones, a violation of the league’s rules on proper attire.

When the NBA heard about it, the league called the Raptors.

“We informed them that he can no longer do that,” NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre said Tuesday.

Carter has said he listens to the music in order to focus before a game.

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I’m not really sure of the motives behind the decision, but it might have to do with some type legalese (sponsorship), safety, NBA’s image, who knows? But it looks as if they want to control this behavior before they have half the NBA listening to their own music before the game. I wonder what the penalty is for this offense.

The European Space Agency has successfully navigated a ion propulsion vehicle into orbit around the moon. This is the first craft of such type to accomplish the feat.

The s-called SMART-1 spacecraft blasted off from Kourou, French Guiana, Sept. 27, 2003, on top of an Ariane 5 rocket, the Washington Post reported.

Since then its ion propulsion engine has been slowly moving the spacecraft by expelling positively charged atoms, or ions, of the gas xenon, accelerated by an electrical field inside the spacecraft’s engine.

The engine does not combust fuel; rather it splits atoms with electricity to get ions, accelerates them at high speed, and then ejects them, driving the spacecraft forward. SMART-1 generates its electricity by converting sunlight with outsize solar arrays that give the spacecraft a 45-foot wingspan.

Although ion propulsion does not generate much thrust, nothing slows it down in space so it constantly accelerates. Now that it has entered Moon orbit it will use the ion engine to slow down and study the lunar surface.

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NASA reports that they had to delay a planned flight of an unmanned hypersonic jet designed to reach a record speed of Mach 10, or 7,000 mph. The delay is due to a problem with the planes avionics and the flight is set to resume today.

Just 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, the X-43A jet is mounted on a modified Pegasus rocket designed to be carried aloft by a B-52 aircraft and released at 40,000 feet. The rocket will carry the X-43A to 110,000 feet and separate, allowing the craft to fly for about 10 seconds with its supersonic combustion jet operating.

The X-43A will then become a glider and perform maneuvers until it splashes into the ocean. The craft was designed to sink and will not be recovered.

The first X-43A flight failed in 2001 when the booster rocket veered off course and had to be destroyed. The second X-43A flew in March and reached Mach 6.83, or nearly 5,000 mph, a record for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine.

Scramjet technology may be used in developing hypersonic missiles and airplanes or reusable space launch vehicles, with a potential for offering speeds of at least Mach 15. Unlike rockets, scramjets would not have to carry heavy oxidizer necessary to allow fuel to burn because they can scoop oxygen out of the atmosphere.

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Their is a newly released Windows version of Skype’s VOIP software, 1.0.0.100, and in it Skype addressed the “highly critical” bug that allows a remote attacker to take control of the Skype user’s computer. Be sure to update to the latest version, it can be found on the Skype website.

An advisory from Secunia based on the bug report from Skype calls the bug “highly critical.” It states that the bug is caused by an error in the handling of command-line arguments. The problem may be induced by a browser link utilizing the “callto:” URI handler, installed by Skype.

Such a link would only function for Skype users, and the problem only affects versions 1.0.*.95 through 1.0.*.98, but successful exploitation could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a user’s system.

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Via Space.com, Astronomers have discovered another black hole near the center of the Milky Way. This finding proves earlier speculation that black holes come in three sizes, small, medium and large. This new one, named GCIRS 13E, happens to be a medium size black hole.

Intermediate mass black holes ought to exist, some theorists say, because they should have been the building blocks of supermassive black holes. A few should be left scattered around any respectable galaxy. But attempts to discover them — data suggest two others exist in our galaxy — have so far proved inconclusive.

Black holes can’t be seen, because everything that falls into them, including light, is trapped. But the swift motions of gas and stars near an otherwise invisible object allows astronomers to calculate that it’s a black hole and even to estimate its mass.

If the newfound object, catalogued as GCIRS 13E, is indeed a middleweight black hole, it is likely a rare variety, perhaps one of kind, that formed farther out and has been lured to the galactic center. It is now less than 1.5 light-years from the fringes of the known supermassive black hole. That’s much closer than our Sun is to the next nearest star.

Orbiting the presumed middleweight are seven stars, each of which in its prime was more than 40 times the mass of the Sun. Even as corpses they contain five to 10 solar masses. The whole setup is racing around the galactic center at 626,300 mph (280 kilometers per second).

Theory holds that these stars could not have formed in their present location, because the gravity of the nearby supermassive black hole wouldn’t have allowed a gas cloud to contract into a star, says study leader Jean-Pierre Maillard of the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris.

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Rumors are now circling the web about Apple’s possible new line of iPods. Word is that in “December will begin manufacturing a third variant of its flagship iPod music player, which will be based on solid-state flash memory”. This news comes from AppleInsider and they claim that the rumor has been confirmed through a reliable source of theirs.

According to contacts in Asia, the computer company will build a stock-pile of approximately 2 million flash iPods before the product begins shipping world-wide in late-January or early February. The new players are slated to be announced at the annual Macworld trade show in San Francisco during the second week of January.

Though precise specifications were not readily available, the flash iPod will reportedly use controller chips from Austin, TX-based SigmaTel, and feature a storage capacity in the range of 256 Megabytes to 1 Gigabyte. Sources were unable to confirm if the player would be released in more than one configuration.

The iPod flash will retail for below (US)$200 and sport a similar user interface to the company’s ubiquitous iPod and iPod mini.

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This just may put a bigger piece of the market share in their lap. Good move!

America’s first hydrogen filling station online yesterday. It looks like all other filling stations but this one will get minimal use for a while. There are only 6 vehicles that will be refueling here for the time being.

Shell executives, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) and District of Columbia Mayor Anthony A. Williams unveiled the technology, which the Bush administration hopes will help reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil.

“This will be, in fact, the first step toward the real transition in the economy from the carbon-based economies of the past to a hydrogen economy of the future,” Abraham said.

The pump services only six minivans which General Motors Corp. uses to demonstrate the technology. But with 80,000 vehicles passing by every weekday, Shell officials hope it’ll get a lot of attention — and, eventually, use.

GM hopes to sell affordable hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2010, and Shell envisions building on the number of stations and having mass-market penetration between 2015 and 2025.

The minivans are equipped with fuel cell stacks which turn hydrogen into electricity to power the vehicle. The only emission is water vapor.

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If you are one of the lucky ones using Gmail, you may be happy to know that they are in the process of adding POP3 access to the service for free. I have been using Gmail for some time now and I must say that the only main feature that I really wanted was POP3 access. The initial plan for POP3 service was that it would be added in an upgraded pay account type of setup. I guess that idea has changed at least for the meantime.

* Over the next several weeks, we are introducing POP access to all of our users. To make sure the feature is fully stable, we’re giving users access to POP in phases. Once POP access is available to you, a ‘New Features!’ link appears at the top of your account, along with a ‘Forwarding and POP’ tab on your ‘Settings’ page.

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The list is out and for the first time in a long while, Earth Simulator isn’t at the top of it. I posted a synopsis of the first ten on the list below. To see them all checkout the full listing.

Highlights from the Top 10:

• The list shows a major shake-up of the TOP10
• The new #1 is DOE’s IBM BlueGene/L beta system
  currently assembled and tested at the IBM Rochester site with a Linpack
  performance of 70.72 TFlop/s. This system ,once completed, will be
  moved to the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• The Columbia system at NASA/Ames built by SGI gained the #2 spot, with an equally impressive 51.87 Tflop/s.
• The Earth Simulator, built by NEC and which held the #1 spot for 5 lists, is now #3.
• The #4 spot was captured by the new MareNostrum system at the Barcelona Supercomputer Center. It is an IBM BladeCenter JS20 based system with a Myrinet connection network and achieved 20.53 Tflop/s.
• The “SuperMac” is
  also back. The upgraded X-System at Virginia Tech built using Apple’s
  XServe boxes is at #7 now, with 12.25 Tflop/s performance.
• The entry level for the TOP10 approaches 10 Tflop/s - only
  one system with less than 10-TFlop/s Linpack performance is in the
  TOP10.

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The date is set. Everybody get set for some worry free browsing!

The expected Release Date: May 19, 2005 and we now have the first glimpse of some teaser footage. (Real Player)