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 TECH TOPLINE Global Trends 2005 (BOOK!) Science Daily Space Imaging Galileo SpaceCraft Saturday December 11 1:12 AM ET Spacehab Plans to Put Internet in Space By Mark Egan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American company is planning to launch the Internet in space on board the International Space Station, allowing communication with astronauts and showing live feeds of their experiments. Spacehab Inc., which is providing astronaut quarters for the Space Station due to be completed in 2004, on Friday unveiled plans for the first permanent commercial presence in space through their Internet ``space portal''. Web-site broadcasts from the Space Station will ``offer a virtual trip to space'' and allow people sponsoring experiments to monitor the work and talk with the astronauts, said Spacehab chairman Shelley Harrison, who plans to sell advertising space on the Web site. ``This is a cross between the world of space and the world of the Internet,'' Harrison told a news conference. Spacehab's astronaut module, which could be in place within three years, is being built by partner RSC Energia, a Russian company involved in numerous Russian space projects from Sputnik to the Mir space station. The Washington D.C.-based company plans to spend $50 million on the project which it intends to raise through private placements, debt offerings and a possible sale of more of the company's share. Energia's module, designed to accommodate up to seven astronauts and named ``Enterprise'' after the ``Star Trek'' spacecraft, will be launched by the Russian Space Agency. It will be attached to the Russian side of the ISS and initially be manned by two Russians and one American. The International Space Station is a $60 billion venture by 16 nations being built 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth. It has been delayed repeatedly due to Russia's failure to complete work on its sections of the station, which will be a giant laboratory weighing almost a million pounds (450,000 kg) when it is finished in 2004. Spacehab is no stranger to space, having owned and operated habitable research modules on the Space Shuttle used for commercial experiments and research. The Enterprise will offer laboratory conditions in space for both short and long-term experiments, unlike the Shuttle which is only in space for days at a time. Harrison said one research subject companies may pursue was growth of protein crystals which pharmaceutical companies use to help identify potential new drugs. They grow with greater clarity and fewer imperfections in space. Spacehab, which has been losing money lately because of the stand-down of the Space Shuttle fleet and delays on the ISS, plans to build on a program it already runs on the Space Shuttle in which school children can have experiments they develop conducted by astronauts. Spacehab plans to broadcast live feeds of astronauts conducting experiments and give school children the chance to interact with them via the Internet. The company expects to make money from advertising and sponsorship. Harrison, who said he could also broadcast news and even have a deejay aboard the Enterprise, said he hoped the new Internet site would attract 50 million people. The company is in partnership talks with an established Internet company. But asked whether he would be able to offer trips to the Space Station, Harrison said: ``The best we can do is offer a virtual trip to space.'' ``We can do that with the Internet which is the best medium we can think of to give people a feel of actually doing things and being in space and interacting with the people up there.'' U.S. Gov't Builds Monster Linux Computer Charles Babcock, ZDNet The Department of Energy's Argonne National Lab has built its largest supercomputer system ever - a 256-node cluster that is to be based on Intel hardware and the Linux operating system. Dubbed Chiba City for the futuristic city described in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, the cluster will be open for use by researchers at other national labs, universities and even U.S. industry. Each node in the cluster is to be a dual processor server from VA Linux Systems, giving the cluster a total of 512 central processing units. IBM Netfinity servers will provide cluster management, file storage and data visualization capabilities. Consultants from both IBM and VA Linux Systems' new consulting unit helped the lab in constructing the supercomputer, spokesmen for the two companies said. Remy Evard, advanced computing manager at Argonne's computer science unit, said the two-day cooperative "barn raising" event used to build the supercomputer involved 50 Argonne scientists. The availability of tools for working with Linux and other examples of open source code makes it possible for many different participants to contribute to such a large scale project, Evard added. Larry Augustin, president of VA Linux Systems, said Chiba City represents "a milestone in large-scale Linux systems design" and illustrates a software product that VA Linux has been working on practically since the company was formed, the VA Cluster Manager. Tech HeadlinesSunday February 27 10:14 AM ET Internet Luminaries Herald Wireless Web World By Aaron Pressman NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - It's no surprise that Bill Gates, Steve Case and Jeff Bezos would be the headline speakers at an Internet industry conference. But this week the top executives of Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), America Online (NYSE:AOL - news) and Amazon.com (NasdaqNM:AMZN - news) will steal the limelight at the U.S. wireless telephone industry's annual gathering in New Orleans, overshadowing many of the cellular world's own executives. This is a sign that the arrival of a long-awaited wireless Internet market may be at hand, an event carriers have for several years predicted would boost their bottom lines. ``Data has always been the next thing, just around the corner,'' said Dennis Patrick, president of AOL's newly created wireless division. ``Now it's really true and the killer app is turning out to be the Internet.'' Internet firms and carriers alike plan to spend the week announcing new ventures and futuristic services, like mobile phones which can be used to buy stocks or movie tickets, read e-mail and even transmit video images. AOL wants to give its 21 million subscribers, and another 100 million users of its instant messaging software, the ability to connect no matter where they go. The No. 1 Internet service provider will be displaying those applications on wireless devices at this week's show. Overall, wireless carriers should collect about $1.5 billion this year from wireless data products and services, according to analyst Kevin Condon of Warburg Dillon Read. The market is growing at an explosive clip, however, and revenues should hit $31 billion by 2008, he says. AOL is making ``a pretty aggressive push'', as will other Internet providers, Condon said. Amazon is already selling books over the wireless Palm VII handheld computer and certain phones sold by Sprint PCS (NYSE:FON - news) (NYSE:PCS - news). One factor slowing the deployment of new services in the United States is the lack of digital-compatible phones. About two-thirds of the 80 million U.S. wireless phone users still carry old-fashioned analog phones, but the tide is slowly turning. A wireless Internet standards war that had threatened to erupt last year appears headed toward a peaceful conclusion. While some companies originally intended to build wireless devices that could read ordinary Web pages written in the lingua franca of the Net, hyper-text mark-up language or HTML, almost everyone now agrees a special, wireless-oriented standard called Wireless Application Protocol or WAP, is required. WAP will be included in wireless phones, handheld devices and other simple Internet appliances. ``Web sites will have to be specially coded to be accessed from WAP-enabled devices,'' said Scott Goldman, president of the WAP Forum, an industry standards-setting body. Such devices are different from personal computers used to access the Internet now, he said. At least for the next few years, they will have smaller screens, often without color, and will connect to the network at slower speeds. Already major phone vendors like Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - news), Ericsson (LMEb.ST) and Nokia (NOK1V.HE) have agreed to support WAP. At the CeBit show in Germany last week, Motorola announced deals with 19 content providers including Amazon to produce Web sites compatible with the protocol. ``It's a natural extension to have mobile shopping,'' said Amazon product manager Chuck Napier. Microsoft, which last year offered an Internet browser for cellular phones that could read old-fashioned HTML pages, now will incorporate WAP support as well. Company officials were mum about planned announcements chairman Gates might make. An internal company memo obtained by C-Net's news.com Web site said the software giant could announce distribution deals with major wireless carriers. MORE TechThursday December 2 8:04 AM ET AOL, Monster.com in 4-Year, $100 Million Alliance DULLES, Va. (Reuters) - Web career site Monster.com will become the exclusive provider of job-hunting information on America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) under a four-year, $100 million alliance, the companies said on Thursday. Monster.com, a unit of TMP Worldwide Inc. (NasdaqNM:TMPW - news), and AOL will create co-branded sites allowing AOL members and visitors to search for jobs, apply online, research companies and choose personalize geographic areas to help with their job searches, the companies said. Recruiters also can use the co-branded sites to post jobs, search through Monster.com's resumes, screen candidates and receive e-mails when matching resumes are posted, AOL and Monster.com said. The service will be available on seven AOL brands, including the over 19 million-member flagship AOL service and the over 2 million-member CompuServe, the companies said. The co-branded sites will be launched in the coming months, they said. |
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