Mother updated Twitter as her son, two, lay dying

By Paul Thompson

Shellie Ross has caused outrage for tweeting as paramedics tried to save her dying son


A mother posted messages on Twitter as rescue workers tried to save her dying son.

Shellie Ross, who is in her 30s, sent out ‘tweets’ to the social networking site just minutes after two-year-old Bryson was found floating face down in the family’s swimming pool.

As paramedics tried to revive him, Ross, who used the online name ‘Military-Mom’, posted the note: ‘Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.’

Five hours later, after he was pronounced dead from drowning, she wrote, ‘Remembering my million dollar baby’.

She then uploaded photos of Bryson to be viewed by her 5,000 followers. But her actions have provoked anger from fellow bloggers and Twitter users, and raised questions about the sharing of private information over the internet.

One user, Madison McGraw, wrote: ‘The first thing I thought when I saw the tweet was that it was very sad. I just thought, “Who would tweet that her son just drowned?” I couldn’t believe it.


Ms Ross, who used the tweet name 'Military-Mom', has defended the use of Twitter to announce her son's death


The person that I have compassion for is her son who might still be alive if Ross interacted with her son like she interacted with people on Twitter.

‘It shows the repercussions for social media gone awry.’

Yesterday, a police spokesman said Ross’s 11-year-old son, who had been cleaning out the chicken coup at the family’s home in Merritt Island, Florida, had called an ambulance after noticing his brother had fallen into the water.

Ross sent her first tweet at 10.22pm British time on Monday – just a minute before the 999 call was made.

Records show an ambulance arrived at the house at 10.38pm and Ross posted another message 34 minutes later.

Yesterday, Ross defended the use of Twitter to announce her son’s death, saying no one ‘had a right to question my actions’. ‘I didn’t tweet-by-tweet the accident,’ she said.

Trisha Haas, who founded the website Momdot.com where Ross worked, defended her friend’s actions, saying: ‘She twitters a lot and was close friends with people in the blogging community’.

Ross and her husband Steven, who is in the U.S. Air Force, have asked to be left in private so they can mourn their son.


source: dailymail

'Google phone set for launch': Videos emerge of new Nexus One mobile dubbed 'iPhone-killer'

Two videos have emerged of Google's first ever phone called Nexus One.

The mobile is still unofficial but reports suggest it will be launched in the New Year in a bid to take on Apple iPhone.

A technology website has released two short teaser clips of the phone in action. The first video showed the animation on the start up screen, incorporating the colours of Google's logo. The second appeared to show an animated wallpaper.

The phone, also nicknamed 'Passion', will feature Google's own Android 2.1 software and will be manufactured by Taiwan-based manufacturer HTC.

This picture of the Nexus One was one of many that have appeared on Twitter over the weekend

The internet giant is planning to sell two handsets. One will be available with a T-Mobile contract.

The other handset will be sold unlocked directly to customers via its website. This means Google can partly avoid having to tie itself to any particular carrier.

In Britain, iPhones were originally only available to 02 customers. The handsets are now also available on the Orange network.

Google decided to road-test the device by handing them to its own employees over the weekend.

Technology blog Engadget reported that device boasts microSD expansion, WiFi and Bluetooth. It will also use Qualcomm’s super-fast Snapdragon processing chip

The company's mobile phone blog cryptically admitted a phone had been produced with a posting over the weekend.

It said: 'We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with

'Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.'

The Google phone will come loaded with Google Navigation and Google Goggles according to Engadget

The phone is thinner than an iPhone and features a similar touch-screen configuration but with the addition of a Blackberry-style track ball.

The Nexus One has not been officially released but the name has already stirred by controversy. Some commentators have speculated that the name is inspired by Nexus series of androids in the film Blade Runner. However creator Philip K. Dick's daughter, Isa, said: 'We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn't grant any sort of permissions.'

Google has created two other 'Googlephones' in the past: the so-called 'Dev Phone 1', which was an unlocked phone the company sold online; and the Ion.

Both were 'Google' handsets, both were given out to employees early on and both were built by HTC.

The internet firm's Android operating system has also been installed on phones manufactured by Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Customers would still need to have a contract or pay-as-you-go agreement to use it.

Ben Schachter, an analyst at San Francisco-based Broadpoint AmTech Inc, said: ‘If all of a sudden everyone is getting on the internet via their mobile device, Google needs to make sure it has an influence on that.

‘They need to make sure they have influence on how the mobile web will develop.’
Experts believe aim of the launch is to gain access to valuable consumer data that can be used to sell ads at premium prices, rather than to make money from direct hardware sales.

Google said that it had given out handsets for staff to test, so they could ‘experiment with new mobile features and capabilities’ and give quick feedback on the new technology.

Mario Querioz, Google’s London-based vice president of product management, wrote in his blog on Saturday:

‘At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements.

‘We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities.'

Rumours of a so-called 'Googlephone' have appeared regularly ever since the internet company bought a Californian mobile software startup company, also called Android, in 2005.

Watch the two new clips of the Google phone below:






source: dailymail

U.S. Allows New Stem-Cell Lines for Research

By Alice Park

President Obama looks at brain cells through a microscope with Dr. Marston Linehan as he tours the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., before making a major announcement regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty

Nobody likes a busy signal. And for U.S. stem-cell researchers, none has been more frustrating than the one on the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry home page. That's where the government agency lists all of the embryonic-stem-cell lines that scientists are allowed to study using taxpayer dollars. For months, the page has been depressingly static. "None are available at this time," it read. "Please check back later."

That message changed Dec. 2 at 12:30 p.m. ET, when the government finally made available the first 13 stem-cell lines that researchers can study with federal funds. Researchers had been awaiting the announcement since March 9, when President Obama signed an Executive Order lifting the ban that former President George W. Bush had placed on government support of human-embryonic-stem-cell research. The previous Administration had restricted federally funded studies to only the dozen or so stem-cell lines that had been created before Aug. 9, 2001. The new policy allows scientists to experiment with any existing stem-cell line, regardless of when it was created, as long it meets specific criteria showing it was derived in an ethically and scientifically responsible manner.

Already, the Federal Government has given out 31 grants totaling about $21 million for research involving the larger pool of human embryonic stem cells. But the recipients of that money have been waiting to use it since September, when the NIH, charged with establishing and applying the stem-cell vetting criteria, began reviewing potentially eligible cells. In addition to the 13 lines approved on Wednesday, another 96 lines are waiting for the green light, 20 of which may get it by Friday.

"It's exciting to be able to say that, after what clearly has been a time of frustration on the part of the scientific community over their inability to gain access to federally funded cell lines, that's now changing," Dr. Francis Collins, director of NIH, told reporters during a telephone briefing. "Because the vast majority of basic biomedical research that goes on in the U.S. is supported by NIH, the fact that researchers who are our grantees could not work on the new lines was seen by many people as a significant deterrent to rapid progress in the field."

Progress will certainly accelerate as more stem-cell lines are added to the government registry. A larger pool of available stem cells is a more accurate reflection not only of the diversity of the population but also of the variety of forms that treatable diseases can take. That translates into more opportunities for researchers to study basic human development and disease development, screen new drugs for their effectiveness against disease and create entirely new therapies. The ultimate goal is to use stem cells, which can morph into any of the body's hundreds of different cell types, to cure disease by repairing or even replacing damaged or defective cells.

Of the 13 newly approved lines, 11 came from the lab of Dr. George Daley, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston and a member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute; the other two came from Dr. Ali Brivanlou, an embryologist at Rockefeller University. Daley's submission for NIH review was 130 pages long, he says, including a 16-page informed-consent document signed by each of the donors of the embryos from which the stem-cell lines were derived, ensuring that the donors were aware of where their embryos were going and what they would be used for. "Our documents were very exhaustive," Daley says. "Probably too exhaustive. But I stand behind that process. I think it does need to be scrupulous and done with great care."

That kind of meticulousness probably helped expedite the NIH's approval of the new lines, a process that involves applying a checklist of criteria spelled out by the agency and providing documentation that the cells meet all of the requirements exactly. This review, says Collins, boils down to NIH staff agreeing that all the necessary criteria for inclusion have been met. Approval of some lines may be less straightforward if certain requirements have not been met to the letter. For instance, since stem-cell lines are drawn from unused embryos donated to research by couples undergoing the IVF procedure, researchers must offer proof that each couple was fully informed of all their options for discarding excess embryos. If the proper documentation doesn't exist, an NIH working group would have to determine whether the spirit of the requirement was met.

Some experts worry that the stringent vetting and documentation processes may place an undue burden on labs that have painstakingly created human-embryonic-stem-cell lines using their own hard-earned private funds. (Researchers are still prohibited from using federal money to create new stem-cell lines because of a congressional ban on harming or destroying embryos.) According to some estimates, as many as 780 such lines may exist worldwide, but not all labs may be willing to subject themselves to the scrutiny and administrative hassle of registering their lines with the NIH. Even among the handful of stem-cell lines that were eligible for federally funded study under President Bush, only one has so far been resubmitted for NIH review and inclusion in the government registry.

In many cases, researchers studying existing stem-cell lines do so free of any monetary strings, which means they are also entitled to any potential commercial windfall that may come from the application of the cells to a treatment or therapy. "Any discoveries they make using the lines will be theirs," says Amy Wilkerson, associate vice president for research support at Rockefeller University, who oversaw the submission of the university's lines.

But despite the relatively slow start for American stem-cell research, Rockefeller's Brivanlou is hopeful that the NIH approvals mark the beginning of a new era in our understanding of human development. "I consider it a shame that at the beginning of the 21st century, we know more about how development works in the worm, the fruit fly and the mouse than we know about our own development. And it's not because of scientific limitations or technological limitations," he says. "It would be nice if someday people are allowed to ask basic questions simply about where we come from as human beings. I'm optimistic that we are experiencing the first steps in the right direction."


source: Time.com

Man Can Control Robotic Hand with Thoughts

By AP / ARIEL DAVID

Amputee Pierpaolo Petruzziello touches a robotic hand during a press conference in Rome, Dec. 2, 2009

(ROME) — An Italian who lost his left forearm in a car crash was successfully linked to a robotic hand, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts, scientists said Wednesday.

During a one-month experiment conducted last year, 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello felt like his lost arm had grown back again, although he was only controlling a robotic hand that was not even attached to his body.

"It's a matter of mind, of concentration," Petruzziello said. "When you think of it as your hand and forearm, it all becomes easier."

Though similar experiments have been successful before, the European scientists who led the project say this was the first time a patient has been able to make such complex movements using his mind to control a biomechanic hand connected to his nervous system.

The challenge for scientists now will be to create a system that can connect a patient's nervous system and a prosthetic limb for years, not just a month.

The Italy-based team said at a news conference in Rome on Wednesday that in 2008 it implanted electrodes into the nerves located in what remained of Petruzziello's left arm, which was cut off in a crash some three years ago.

The prosthetic was not implanted on the patient, only connected through the electrodes. During the news conference, video was shown of Petruzziello as he concentrated to give orders to the hand placed next to him.

During the month he had the electrodes connected, he learned to wiggle the robotic fingers independently, make a fist, grab objects and make other movements.

"Some of the gestures cannot be disclosed because they were quite vulgar," joked Paolo Maria Rossini, a neurologist who led the team working at Rome's Campus Bio-Medico, a university and hospital that specializes in health sciences.

The euro2 million ($3 million) project, funded by the European Union, took five years to complete and produced several scientific papers that have been submitted to top journals, including Science Translational Medicine and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rossini said.

After Petruzziello recovered from the microsurgery he underwent to implant the electrodes in his arm, it only took him a few days to master use of the robotic hand, Rossini said. By the time the experiment was over, the hand obeyed the commands it received from the man's brain in 95 percent of cases.

Petruzziello, an Italian who lives in Brazil, said the feedback he got from the hand was amazingly accurate.

"It felt almost the same as a real hand. They stimulated me a lot, even with needles ... you can't imagine what they did to me," he joked with reporters.

While the "LifeHand" experiment lasted only a month, this was the longest time electrodes had remained connected to a human nervous system in such an experiment, said Silvestro Micera, one of the engineers on the team. Similar, shorter-term experiments in 2004-2005 hooked up amputees to a less-advanced robotic arm with a pliers-shaped end, and patients were only able to make basic movements, he said.

Experts not involved in the study told The Associated Press the experiment was an important step forward in creating a viable interface between the nervous system and prosthetic limbs, but the challenge now is ensuring that such a system can remain in the patient for years and not just a month.

"It's an important advancement on the work that was done in the mid-2000s," said Dustin Tyler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University and biomedical engineer at the VA Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. "The important piece that remains is how long beyond a month we can keep the electrodes in."

Experts around the world have developed other thought-controlled prostheses. One approach used in the United States involves surgery to graft shoulder nerves onto pectoral muscles and then learning to use those muscles to control a bionic arm.

While that approach is necessary when the whole arm has been lost, if a stump survives doctors could opt for the less invasive method proposed by the Italians, connecting the prosthesis to the same system the brain uses to send and receive signals.

"The approach we followed is natural," Rossini said. The patient "didn't have to learn to use muscles that do a different job to move a prosthesis, he just had to concentrate and send to the robotic hand the same messages he used to send to his own hand."

It will take at least two or three years before scientists try to replicate the experiment with a more long-term prosthesis, the experts said. First they need to study if the hair-thin electrodes can be kept in longer.

Results from the experiment are encouraging, as the electrodes removed from Petruzziello showed no damage and could well stay in longer, said Klaus-Peter Hoffmann, a biomedical expert at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the German research institute that developed the electrodes.

More must also be done to miniaturize the technology on the arm and the bulky machines that translate neural and digital signals between the robot and the patient.

Key steps forward are already being made, Rossini said. While working with Petruzziello, the Italian scientists also were collaborating on a parallel EU-funded project called "SmartHand," which has developed a robotic arm that can be directly implanted on the patient.


source: Time.com

Jet-powered Ford guns for 300 mph

By Keith Barry
Owner Joe Wilkins hopes to fire up this car on the Bonneville Salt Flats after he attaches a spoiler to the back

(Wired) -- Joe Wilkins knew there was only one way to give his supercharged, alcohol-injected Hemi-engined hot rod more power: Put a jet engine in the trunk.

"It started as a hobby and turned into a monster," said Joe Wilkins, the motor madman behind what might be the wildest 1939 Ford ever built. He's an inventor and defense department contractor, and the idea of goosing the Ford's ability to turn heads and shred tires came when he bought a used gas turbine engine.

"I got hooked on the simplicity and power that this thing produced, and I decided one day I want to put it in a car."

Luckily for us, he did. The Hemi Jet -- Wilkins has copyrighted the name -- fires up this weekend at the Houston AutoRama, and Wilkins plans to attempt a land speed record in the near future.

In the meantime, he's tooling around Navasota, Texas, in what he says is the ultimate sleeper when the jet engine's tucked away in the trunk.

Most people say "Nice car" and assume he's got the obligatory small-block Chevrolet engine under the hood. Little do they know.

"I can drive it up to the store and get a gallon of milk if I want to," he told Autopia.

The car is an amalgamation of the Big Three, with a Chrysler engine, Chevrolet drivetrain and Ford body. Wilkins says the jet engine was probably used as an APU and weighs 110 pounds.

He claims the car is street legal so long as the jet stays stowed. He fires it up from time to time to show off, and he plans to run it flat-out at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

"We want to be the fastest street legal car in the world," he said.

He's got some intense competition. The Bugatti Veyron tops out at 253 mph and the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero TT does 255. And then there's Red Vector One, that crazy Vauxhall that does zero to 60 in under a second. Record, schmecord -- we just want to see the video.

"I'm more than certain the car will go over 300," Wilkins said. "We've still got a ways to go [before Bonneville], but not a long way. We'll have to experiment in some wind tunnels and end up with a spoiler on the back to keep the front end on the ground."

Sadly, Wilkins won't be behind the wheel during the car's test run.

"I turned 61 last Sunday. I just don't think I'm going to be able to handle it [without] the reflexes I had 20 or 30 years ago," he said. "I know several people who would be more than interested."

So do we, and we even suggested Wilkins give the job to fellow jet-junkie Bob Maddox. After jumping from a plane with a pulse jet strapped to his chest, we suspect Maddox would welcome the opportunity to stay on the ground.


source: cnn.com

Jet-Propelled 'Fusion Man' to Attempt New Record-Breaking Flight

The pilot known as 'jetman' is confident he will make aviation history once again Wednesday.

Yves Rossy is hoping to become the first person to make an intercontinental flight with a jet pack by crossing the Straits of Gibraltar.

The Swiss airline pilot and aviation inventor told a news conference: "It's going to be historic" before adding "no one has ever done this before."

Rossy will launch his record attempt from the skies above Tangier in Morocco.

He will start by jumping out of a light airplane when it reaches a height 6,500 feet above the ground.

Once airborne he will unleash his wings and fire up his engines.

He hopes to land safely on a beach in southern Spain about 15 minutes later.

The wing itself — which was designed by Rossy — is made of carbon fiber.

With fuel it weighs around 132 pounds, and because of the dangers involved, he wears a flame retardant suit.

When flying, Rossy looks like a comic book hero with the contraption propelling him at a speed of more than 180 mph.

May 14, 2008: Yves Rossy, known as the 'Fusion Man,' flies with a jet-powered single wing over the Alps in Bex, Switzerland.

He will be followed throughout the attempt by a team of paramedics in a helicopter.

They are on hand should anything go wrong in the skies above the turbulent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Rossey has made a number of successful record-breaking attempts in the past.

Last year, he flew from Calais to Dover crossing the English Channel.


source: foxnews.com

Shuttle Atlantis Closing in on Space Station

By Tariq Malik

NASA's space shuttle Atlantis is closing in on the International Space Station and on track to link up with the orbiting laboratory later today.

Atlantis and its crew of six astronauts are due to arrive at the space station at about 11:53 a.m. EST to deliver tons of vital spare parts and other bulky gear that only NASA's shuttles can haul.

"We're ready to get to station tomorrow," shuttle commander Charlie Hobaugh radioed Mission Control in Houston late Tuesday. "See you then."

• SLIDESHOW: Space Shuttle Atlantis launch

• SLIDESHOW: Ready for takeoff — The crew prepares for lift-off

An early look at data from a Tuesday inspection of the heat shield panels lining Atlantis' nose cap and wing edges has found no immediate cause for concern. NASA experts will continue to analyze that data, as well as the images from today's photo session, to be sure.

"Preliminarily, we don't have any significant issues," said LeRoy Cain, head of Atlantis' mission management team. NASA has kept a close watch on the health of its shuttles since the tragic loss of shuttle Columbia and its astronaut crew in 2003 due to heat shield damage.

Atlantis launched Monday and is hauling more than 27,000 pounds of cargo to the space station, including a pair of massive carrier platforms laden with large spare parts for the orbiting laboratory. The spares, which include huge gyroscopes, pumps and other gear, will be installed at the station during three spacewalks planned for the 11-day space mission.

The shuttle will also ferry NASA astronaut Nicole Stott back home from the space station.

Stott has been living aboard the station since late August as part of the outpost's six-person crew. She will return home on Atlantis and is currently the last astronaut planned to be rotated on and off the station using a NASA shuttle before the fleet is retired in the next year or so.

Stott and her crewmates have been tackling some glitches with the station's systems.

A 150-pound device used to distill astronaut urine into pure drinking water is broken and will have to be returned to Earth on Atlantis. The stations' water processing assembly is also experiencing problems.

Neither glitch is expected to pose any concern to Atlantis' week-long stay at the space station, Cain said.

Mission Control roused the Atlantis astronauts at 4:28 a.m. EST with the song "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder, a tune specially selected for mission specialist Bobby Satcher, who is making his first spaceflight.

"We're looking forward to a good day," Satcher said.


source: Foxnews.com

In today's space race, watch out for China

By Adam Levine, CNN
China's first lunar probe blasted off from its launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on October 24, 2007.

Washington (CNN) -- When China decided to test an anti-satellite missile in 2007, the impact shattered not just the target satellite but any illusions that China did not have military intentions in space and the capabilities to achieve them.

The United States is still ahead in space development, but China has been making impressive progress in expanding its own program -- and it has not gone unnoticed.

"I think anyone who's familiar with the space business, and particularly the history, our history in the space business over the years, would have to be absolutely amazed at the advancements that China has made in such a short period of time," said Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of the military's space operations.

"They certainly are on a fast track to improve their capabilities," Chilton said in early November. "They're to be commended for the achievements that they've done in such a short period of time."

China's intentions in space are a matter of great interest to the United States.

The Pentagon is trying to encourage more transparency by the communist country and last month hosted a delegation that included Gen. Xu Caihou of China's Central Military Commission. Xu met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and toured various U.S. installations, including STRATCOM, which oversees space, cyberspace and nuclear military operations.

"Where they're heading, I think, is one of the things that a lot of people would like to understand better," Chilton said. He would not speak in detail about any of the discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials.

Any hope for transparency will be tough to come by. China itself may not have a handle on its intentions, said Roger Cliff, a Chinese military analyst at RAND, a global policy think tank. Cliff said there is an internal struggle within the Chinese military for who will control the space mission.

China's president has said its space efforts are "peaceful." But a top Chinese military official spoke of offensive and defensive capabilities in space because "only power could protect peace," Chinese air force Cmdr. Xu Quiliang told the Xinhua news agency.

"It is not clear, and in part the reason for that is because China isn't clear where it is going in space, because they are still arguing it out," Cliff said.

Also, transparency is in the eye of the beholder, Cliff noted. For China, transparency "is a luxury of the superior military power."

What has become increasingly apparent is that China views having a powerful presence in space as crucial to both its military and its commercial interests.

China has launched satellites for communications, reconnaissance and global positioning systems. It is on track to launch more satellites in 2009 than the United States.

It has performed a spacewalk and aims to land a rover on the moon in 2012 and place a manned space station in orbit by 2020, according to a Defense Department report to Congress about China's military capabilities. It also is testing the Long March V Rocket, the world's largest, to lift heavy payloads into space and double its current capabilities.

China is also developing microsatellites that weigh less than 100 kilograms.

China has the ability to conduct some space military operations. As it showed in 2007, the country can attack low orbiting satellites.

China is also developing more advanced weapons like "lasers, high-powered microwave, and particle beam" capabilities to interfere with satellites and is developing its ability to track and identify satellites, "a prerequisite for effective, precise counterspace operations," the Defense Department report concluded.

"China views the development of space and counterspace capabilities as bolstering national prestige and, like nuclear weapons, demonstrating the attributes of a great power," the report explained.

The country is also thinking about "co-orbital" anti-satellite systems, Cliff said. The intent is to have a satellite that can catch up to and destroy or jam another satellite.

China's push into space is part of its efforts in the "global commons" of space, maritime and cyberspace, explained David Finklestein, director of China studies at CNA, a nonprofit research organization. Finklestein said the country is aggressive in expanding not just in space but also in cyberspace and at sea, areas not controlled by any specific country.

The United States and China have had confrontations at sea and in cyberspace. Chinese ships have harassed U.S. naval ships in international waters, and the United States has accused China of trying to hack into government computers.

"When you consider that they have taken the old Gemini and Apollo programs and leapfrogged and condensed that into the last decade or so, it is impressive," Finklestein said. "Outer space, like the high seas, is incredibly important global commons where the Chinese and other nations need to work to find common ways to avoid problems."

Space, to the Chinese, is a matter of national prestige.

"There is tremendous excitement in China about the space program. Most Americans take the space program for granted. A shuttle goes up, and everyone yawns," Finklestein said.

But for all its advances, China has come to realize that it must demonstrate it's a responsible global citizen. Cliff said the 2007 anti-satellite test also showed China that progress comes with risks.

The international outcry that followed put China on the defensive. The resulting debris field in orbit was potentially harmful as well.

"Smashing things in space and creating debris, your own satellites can suffer damage as well," Cliff said. That's why China is working to develop other anti-satellite capabilities, "realizing it is better not to smash things up in space and develop debris fields that last hundreds of years," he added.


source: Cnn.com

Texas Woman Sues Facebook for Privacy Violations

Worried about your privacy online? So is a woman from Texas, who's suing Facebook and Blockbuster for posting too much information about her on the Web.

Cathryn Harris found out after the fact that Facebook added a note every time she rented a movie from Blockbuster — a note that contained her full name and the name of the movie she was renting.

"I wasn't renting any movies that I'm ashamed of, but what if I had been? It's nobody's business," Harris told MyFoxDFW. "They need to follow the laws and respect their customers' privacy and not try to go behind the curtain."

The 25-year-old homemaker from Dallas County, Texas, said she made the discovery last year when she rented the 1985 adventure film "The Jewel of the Nile," starring Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. She said an alert appeared on her Facebook profile detailing the transaction.

As a result, Harris filed two lawsuits — one against Blockbuster last year and one against Facebook last month. The suits claim a partnership between the two companies allowed Blockbuster to send Harris' movie-renting habits to Facebook without fair opportunity to opt out.

At the heart of the suit is Facebook's controversial Beacon system, essentially a tracking flag that follows you across a network of sites and reports back to Facebook on your activity. For consumers, it's a way to share more information about your daily activity; for advertisers, it's a way to learn a great deal more about an individual.

Following public outcry over the system in late 2007, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly apologized for the Beacon system, noting that "the problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends."

Facebook's policy has been changed, but Harris' lawsuit alleges that whether a consumer opts in or out, Beacon is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act. That piece of law prevents a company from disclosing information about a customer's rental habits without their knowledge; the suit alleges that Beacon still transfers information, it just doesn't display it.

Harris initially sued Blockbuster, arguing that the company is responsible for her privacy. But Blockbuster disagrees. A spokesman for the company said "…any information we send our customers is done in accordance with all privacy laws … a customer with a Facebook account is in control of whether they elect to keep their Facebook information private or disclose it to others."

In the meantime, the online social networking giant is settling a similar California lawsuit and has agreed to discontinue the Beacon advertising program. In response to the case, Facebook said it learned "how critical it is to provide extensive user control over how information is shared."

The outcome of the California case could determine whether Harris can move forward with a class-action lawsuit.

source: foxnews.com

Social networks and kids: How young is too young?

By Doug Gross, CNN

(CNN) -- Status updates, photo tagging and FarmVille aren't just for adults or even teenagers anymore.

Researchers say a growing number of children are flouting age requirements on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, or using social-networking sites designed just for them.

Facebook and MySpace require users to be at least 13. But they have no practical way to verify ages, and many young users pretend to be older when signing up.

Some scientists worry that pre-adolescent use of the sites, which some therapists have linked to Internet addiction among adults, could be damaging to children's relationships and brains.

But many other experts say there's not any solid research to back that up and that most children seem to use social-media sites in moderation, and in positive ways.

"For the most part, although there's so much press about all the bad things they're doing, much of what they do on these sites is stuff they would be doing anyway," said Kaveri Subrahmanyam, a professor of psychology at California State University-Los Angeles.

In two surveys reported this year by Pew Internet Research -- of 700 and 935 teens, respectively -- 38 percent of respondents ages 12 to 14 said they had an online profile of some sort.

Sixty-one percent of those in the study, ages 12 to 17, said they use social-networking sites to send messages to friends, and 42 percent said they do so every day.

The data in the study was from 2006, so it's not a stretch to assume those numbers are higher this year. Research on younger children is limited, but anecdotal evidence shows that many of them are also logging on.

CNN iReport: How much do you let your kids reveal on social networking sites?

"Of course they are," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at Pew and one of the report's authors. "They're using them because that's where their social world is. Because there's no effective way to age-verify ... children very quickly realize, 'I just say I'm 14 years old, and they'll let me use this.' "

Marc Bigbie, a software salesman who lives near Savannah, Georgia, said he has three children -- 14, 12 and 11 -- who all have accounts on at least one social-networking site.

His oldest daughter, then 11, was the first in the family to create an account, on MySpace. And it was without her parents' permission.

"It was kind of a negative thing at first," he said. "We kind of took it away from her. But, finally, we said, 'You can have it, but we need the password so we can be on there at any time.' "

Since then, all three of the kids have gotten Facebook accounts, with their parents even agreeing to fudge their ages.

Bigbie said he makes sure his children's accounts are set to provide as little personal information as possible, and they allow their activity to be seen only by confirmed friends. He and his wife monitor the pages to make sure they know the friends that their children have added.

He said the oldest daughter is the only one who uses the account almost every day, while the younger children log on briefly every now and then.

In the past couple of years, some scientists have voiced concerns that children are spending too much on these sites and that such online socializing could have lasting negative effects as they mature.

"My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment," Susan Greenfield, an Oxford University neurocientist and director of Britain's Royal Institution, told London's Daily Mail in February.

"I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier [online] screen dialogues," she said.

Other scientists criticized Greenfield's comments, calling them speculation, not science.

Subrahmaynam said a study of high school students showed that in most cases, the people they interact with most often online are people they also socialize with in person.

Children today have spent their whole lives on computers, and their brains are better adapted than those of adults to integrate online activities with their offline lives, she said.

"You'll always have the small minority of kids who are not using it appropriately," she said. "I do think you're going to have a few people that are doing things that kids probably couldn't do with telephones a generation ago.

"But we don't want to get swept away by the general fear. It's here, and it's pretty harmless."

Many parents also worry that younger users of social sites could be targets for online predators. While there are some concerns that kids aren't mature enough to make good decisions about their privacy, Subrahmaynam and Lenhart said most are savvy enough by their early teens to know what, and who, to avoid. Younger children, they say, need more parental supervision.

Alternately, a growing number of networking sites are geared specifically toward younger users. Sites such as Disney's Club Penguin -- mainly a game site, but with limited social functions -- WebKinz and Whyville feature more restricted and supervised networking.

Such kids-oriented sites are "sort of a training ground" for future use of mainstream social networks, Lenhart said.

Children as young as 5 have accounts at KidSwirl, a kids' social-networking site patterned loosely on Facebook, said creator Toby Clark.

Clark said the average user spends about five minutes on the site per visit -- far less than Facebook's average of more than 20 minutes.

He said he limits the amount of time his two children, 9 and 6, spend on the site, but that any parent who bans their children from such sites isn't facing the facts.

"The reality is that we're a technology-driven generation," said Clark, who launched the site in February and said it has about 10,000 users. "That's not going to change."

So what long-term effect will social networking have on children? Scientists say it may be hard to know for sure.

"We've lost the control group," Subrahmanyam said. "How do you find a group of kids that are not using the computer?"

source: cnn.com

Twitter lists and real-time journalism

By Pete Cashmore, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Pete Cashmore is founder and CEO of Mashable, a popular blog about social media. He is writing a weekly column about social networking and tech for CNN.com.

London, England (CNN) -- The Twitter community is abuzz this week about the site's new "Lists" feature, which allows users to create collections of interesting people to follow on the micro-messaging service.

From lists of sports stars to comedians to political pundits, Twitter has provided its members with the tools required to splice a torrent of updates into a series of relevant, topic-based streams.

In doing so, the social networking startup may have hit upon the long-overdue cure to information overload and birthed a new breed of editor: the real-time Web curator.

Drowning in data

Approximately 25 million Tweets are posted every day; more than 5 billion have been created since Twitter's launch.

Facebook users are even more prolific in aggregate: Forty-five million updates are posted there daily. In May, the last date for which we have data, YouTube announced that 20 hours of video is uploaded to its servers every minute. That's more than three years of content being uploaded to YouTube daily.

As the barriers to media production fall -- cameras in virtually every cell phone, video cameras in iPods, text messaging as a publishing platform -- this content tsunami is growing ever taller.

The friend filter

An obvious antidote: use your friends as a filter.

Google's new Social Search allows users to add their social networking profiles to a Google account and see search results filtered and prioritized based on their circle of friends.

Through integration with Facebook, meanwhile, Web sites are allowing users to create personalized experiences. Connect your Facebook account with social news site Digg.com, for instance, and your existing friends become a filter for the most interesting web links.

From personal to professional

Much like blogging, however, link-sharing on the Web has evolved beyond the personal. While most Twitter users stick to the standard "What Are You Doing?" fare, a growing number spend much of their time collating links and pointing their followers to relevant, timely, topic-based information.

Tracking the pulse of PR in the digital age? You'll probably want to follow Edelman Digital's Steve Rubel, who scours the Web for topical links and shares his findings on Twitter and FriendFeed.

Seeking insights into the mainstream media's transition to the Web? Follow Jeff Jarvis, journalism professor, podcaster and media pundit.

Want to know what venture capitalists are reading these days? Try Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson, who shares links and insights daily with his 35,000 Twitter followers.

See a list of CNN's anchors on Twitter

Next up: collate dozens of these experts into a topic-based list, and -- voila! -- your hand-picked editorial team extracts the signal from a wall of noise.

Most of these link gatherers have "real" jobs, you'll notice; I see no reason why that should remain the case. In the attention economy, wherein the scarce resource is time and the abundant one is content, those who effectively allocate our attention create value.

Where value is created, it follows that money can be made. The inevitable outcome: Web curators are not just real-time but full-time.

The rise of real-time journalism

Possibly we don't need a new breed, however, just an adaptation.

Journalists, it would seem, are well-placed to capitalize on the trend, since directing an audience's attention via links is not materially different to editing a newspaper or magazine.

Perhaps media companies already see this emergent future: The New York Times has created a Twitter list of all its staff, and the Los Angeles Times has set about categorizing Twitter celebrities.

See CNN International's Twitter list

The Web-centric Huffington Post has gone a step further by embedding Twitter Lists on its Web site to create hubs of real-time updates.

For those cast adrift in a sea of content, good news: A "curation" economy is beginning to take shape, tweet by tweet, list by list.


source: cnn.com

Mars Rover 'Spirit' Has Amnesia. Again

By Tariq Malik

NASA's Mars rover Spirit is suffering a new bout of amnesia, one that comes after months of being stuck in deep Martian sand.

The 6-year-old rover's latest memory lapse occurred Oct. 24 and came more than six months after a series of four other amnesia events earlier this year. During the events, the plucky rover failed to record science observations in the part of its flash computer memory that stores information overnight when other systems are powered down.

"We still don't have information about what causes these amnesia events," said rover project manager John Callas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., in an update.

In the latest event, Spirit did not use its flash memory between Oct. 24 and Oct. 27. The rover does have an alternate memory system in which to store data, but must beam that information home to Earth before entering an overnight sleep period, mission managers said.

Callas said engineers are weighing Spirit's amnesia problem to determine how it may affect day-to-day operations for the long term. Aside from the memory glitch, the rover is in good health and communicating with Earth.

"If they are intermittent and infrequent, they are a nuisance that would set us back a day or two when they occur. If the condition becomes persistent or frequent, we will need to go to an alternate strategy that avoids depending on flash memory," Callas said. "We would only get data collected the same day and any unsent data from an earlier day would be lost. The total volume of data returned by the rover is expected to be about the same."

Meanwhile, the new memory lapses will likely further delay NASA's efforts to extricate Spirit from its Martian sand trap. The rover has been mired in deep sand since April, unable to move.

An independent team of robotics experts is currently reviewing recent NASA tests that used a ground-based version of Spirit to come up with escape plan for the stuck rover on Mars. NASA has mounted a "Free Spirit" campaign to come up with ways to free its beloved rover.
NASA launched Spirit and its robotic twin Opportunity in 2003 on a mission to explore Mars. The rovers landed in different parts of the planet in January 2004 and spent more than five years roving across Mars and uncovering clues to the planet's watery past.

While engineers try to free Spirit, its robotic twin Opportunity is headed toward a giant Martian crater called Endeavour. Earlier this month, Opportunity spotted a Martian meteorite dubbed Shelter Island on the heels of another space rock find — called Block Island — in September. The rover used its onboard instruments to study both meteorites.

Initially built for a 90-day mission, the two rovers have received repeated life extensions. Spirit is the older of the two rovers and has spent five years and nine months exploring Mars.


source: foxnews.com

Facebook, Twitter crooks just a click away

By Stephanie Chen, CNN

(CNN) -- (CNN) -- If you're on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site, you could be the next victim.

Experts say cybercrooks are lurking just a mouse click away on popular social networking sites.

That's because more cyberthieves are targeting increasingly popular social networking sites that provide a gold mine of personal information, according to the FBI. Since 2006, nearly 3,200 account hijacking cases have been reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

It starts with a friend updating his or her status or sending you a message with an innocent link or video. Maybe your friend is in distress abroad and needs some help.

All you have to do is click.

When the message or link is opened, social network users are lured to fake Web sites that trick them into divulging personal details and passwords. The process, known as a phishing attack or malware, can infiltrate users' accounts without their consent.

Once the account is compromised, the thieves can infiltrate the list of friends or contacts and repeat the attack on subsequent victims. Social networking sites show there is ample opportunity to find more victims; the average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site.

"Security is a constant arms race," said Simon Axten, an associate for privacy and public policy at Facebook. "Malicious actors are constantly attacking the site, and what you see is actually a very small percentage of what's attempted."

Social Media Crimes

As some social networking sites experience monstrous growth, they are becoming a new -- and extremely lucrative -- frontier for cybercrime. Facebook says it has 300 million users, nearly the size of the U.S. population, and it continues to attract users outside the college student niche. From February 2008 to February 2009, Twitter, a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages known as tweets, grew 1,382 percent to more than 7 million users.

"They [cybercriminals] are very adept to using social engineering," said Donald DeBold, director of threat research for CA, an Internet security company. "Your friend is in trouble traveling in another country, 'I lost my wallet. I need help.' They exploit the curiosity aspect out of human nature."

A few decades ago, malicious software and viruses were usually the result of a prank, but Internet security experts say today's attacks are profit-driven. A study from the Indiana University in 2005 discovered that phishing attacks on social networks operated with a 70 percent success rate. These users had fallen for the scam, opened the foreign link and released personal information.

Cybercriminals are employing phishing and malware attacks for a number of reasons, including trying to redirect users to sites where profit is fueled by the number of visitors. They also try to elicit private information like passwords and bank account numbers to perform scams.

Early this year,Twitter experienced several phishing attacks in which a Web page that looked identical to the widely recognized light blue Twitter page was a hoax. The company warned users to double-check the URL to ensure they were visiting the correct site.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 72,000 complaints about Internet fraud in 2008 that were referred to law enforcement agencies for further investigation. These cases involved financial losses amounting to $264.6 million, an increase from 2007. Each person lost an average of $931.

"Most of us would want to help a friend in need, but if it's an online friend, and they want you to wire money, you should double-check," FBI spokesman Jason Pack said.

Security experts said it makes sense that cybercriminals are turning to social networking sites. Personal information is abundant on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Each time users give out valuable information like birth dates or addresses, they could be providing hints about their password, security experts say.

The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern about the information visible through Facebook quizzes and applications.

"They'll have access to all that information, so they can sell it, they can share it, they can do an awful lot with it," Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy-related issues with the ACLU, told CNN.com in September.

Many Internet security experts consider the first virus attack on the PC to have occurred in 1986. By the early 1990s, viruses transmitted on floppy disks became ubiquitous. When the World Wide Web became widely available that same decade, viruses, worms and malware became problems in e-mail accounts, frustrating users who clicked on messages thought to be legitimate.

In the new millennium, the most common form of malware attack has become known as drive-by downloads. While surfing on Google or Yahoo, spyware or a computer virus is automatically and invisibly downloaded on a computer, requiring no user interaction for the computer to be infected.

"We are on the verge from shifting from the Web being the No. 1 victim of infecting to social network," said Mikko H. Hypponen, chief of research technology at F-Secure Corp. His company sells anti-virus software and malware protection programs. "It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

Social networks are fighting the aggressive attacks from cybercriminals. Most sites have information pages dedicated to educating users about the risks of Internet scams. Users can become a fan of "Facebook Security" and receive updates on how to protect their accounts. One of the most common pieces of advice given by security experts is to change passwords frequently.

Facebook has also developed complex automated systems that detect compromised accounts. They spot and freeze accounts that are sending an unusually high number of messages to their friends. Company security officials said Facebook is a closed system, which can be helpful in erasing phony messages from all accounts.

At News Corporation's MySpace.com, the company creates blacklists of phony accounts to prevent people from clicking on a faulty link. Hemanshu Nigam, first chief security officer for MySpace, said the firm warns about suspicious links and educates users about the harm phishing and malware attacks can bring. "We are prepared for them," he said.


source: CNN.com

Defriending can bruise your 'digital ego'

By Breeanna Hare, CNN

(CNN) -- If you harbor a bit of angst over Facebook friend requests gone unanswered, a surprise "defriending" or being deserted by your Twitter followers, you're not alone.

Elaine Fogel has amassed more than 500 connections on LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, by extending invites to those who appear to fit her wide array of career interests.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, people just say yes," she said.

But then came "this one woman" who Fogel encountered on one of the 40-plus discussion groups she belongs to on LinkedIn. The woman offered interesting opinions, so Fogel sent her an invitation to join her network.

"She sent an e-mail saying, 'I only connect with people I know, and hopefully our paths will cross one day,' " said Fogel, of Phoenix, Arizona, her voice still carrying notes of disbelief. "I read that, and I said, 'Oh, my God, I've been rejected.' "

Fogel echoes other users who have felt the twinge of hurt and surprise from social media rejection. Some may think hers is an overreaction -- it happened online, with a woman she didn't know -- but recent research shows that our "digital egos" can bruise as easily as we do in person. In fact, rejection online may have the potential to sting even more.

"People tend to think that these relationships are trivial and not very deep, but this is what we're moving towards, having a lot of our communications play out over the Internet," Purdue University social psychologist Kip Williams said. "That's the way it's becoming; this is how we interpret our worth. People care how many [online] friends they have."

Or, increasingly, how many Twitter followers they have. This year, a third-party service launched Qwitter, which allows Twitter users to determine who's stopped following them and which tweet may have turned them off.

Experts say rejection on social networks can hurt worse than an in-person snub because people are usually more polite face-to-face than they are online.

"I think the thing that is often clearly worse online is when it's relatively anonymous, and people use that as a cover and are more cruel than they would be otherwise," said Jean Twenge, a San Diego State psychologist who has studied the way social networking affects personality development.

Online rejection also doesn't lessen the physical reaction we have to emotional pain.

"Pain is divided into two components," said Baldwin Way, a UCLA researcher who studies the way human brains respond to social rejection.

"If you put a red-hot poker on your arm, one part of your brain says, 'This pain is on your arm,' and the other part says, 'Ow, that hurts' and is less concerned with where it is and more concerned about the emotional meaning of it," he said. "That [second] part also seems to be activated when someone's left out or excluded and rejected."

To Way's surprise, that neurological reaction holds true even when the rejection comes in a digital form, lacking the real-world body language, vocal intonations and other aspects that can influence the way rejection is perceived and felt.

"If you'd asked me a few years ago if you'd get the same effect online as you would in person, I'd say no way," Way said. "I thought doing something in person would have stronger effects than doing something online, but interesting data has come out in the last few years that show mental representations are just as powerful as the real thing."

These data include Williams' "cyberball" studies, which ask a participant to play a virtual ball-tossing game with two other icons. In one study group, the participant plays the game for the entire six minutes, but in the second group, he or she is included for only a fraction of that time and then ignored. The second group reports feelings of anger and lower levels of self-esteem.

Whether participants believe they're playing with humans doesn't appear to affect their feelings of rejection.

"Even when people get rejected by the computer, they feel bad," Twenge said.

Kenneth Loflin, a student who participated in Williams' study, got so frustrated by his fellow players that he gave the computer screen an offensive gesture.

"I'm a people person, and I like people to like me," he said.

The study also affected the way Loflin interacts online. Out of the 1,200 friends he has on Facebook, 400 of them he doesn't really know, many of them being friends of friends.

"I thought about defriending them, but I didn't want them to feel how I felt" during the "cyberball" game, Loflin said.

By contrast, Bruce Hammond doesn't have a problem giving the rejection slip to Facebook hangers-on.

"For the most part, the people that I'm defriending are the people that I don't have a relationship with: the people I haven't talked to in 15 years," said Hammond, 30, of Chicago, Illinois. "I don't let someone know if I'm going to defriend them. I just do it."

Similarly, Hammond doesn't expect any of his Facebook contacts to let him know before giving him the ax. If someone rejected him in real life, he would ask why the person felt that way, but when the relationship is online, his thinking changes.

"If I come on [Facebook] tomorrow and see I have 425 friends instead of 426, I'm not going to go through my list and see who did it and be upset with them," he said.

Cecilia Sepp, a Washington, D.C.-area consultant, said she avoids the issue entirely by limiting her online network to about 100 friends.

"I don't have a problem with defriending because I don't accumulate [enough] to have a high number," Sepp said.

"When I first heard that defriending was beginning on social networks, it was through a blog post by someone who was shocked that this person had defriended them because they didn't understand why," she said. "The person wanted to know had they done something, had they said something, should they ask, 'What did [I] do?' "

Sepp believes that online "defrienders" should extend the courtesy that Fogel's LinkedIn rejecter gave her: an e-mail explanation.

"You have no facial expression online; you have no tone of voice online; it's very easy to misinterpret phrasing in an e-mail. You have to be very careful about your wording and be more explicit with people when you're making or removing connections," Sepp said. "That's why it's so important to connect with people that you actually know."


source: CNN.com

Internet domain names set to appear in non-Latin scripts

CNN) -- The group that controls top-level domain codes for Internet addresses is poised to permit non-Latin language codes for the first time in its history.

"It's the single biggest change in 10 or 15 years," said Rod Beckstrom, CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The board of directors of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will vote on the proposed protocol for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) -- those represented by local language characters -- Friday at its meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

The change, which has a target implementation date of November 16, would allow Web addresses in Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese and others.

"This is one of the most exciting developments for the users of the Internet globally in years," said Beckstrom. "IDNs will enable the people the world over to use domain name addresses in their own language."

Beckstrom said support for the change is strong around the world and that all objections had "been handled."

"So I think it's just extremely probable, and we're really excited to move forward with that," he said.

And if, as expected, it does move forward, it means that Web surfing is about to get easier for about half of the world's 1.6 billion Internet users.

"There are over 40 million users in the Arab world," said Wael Ghanim, Google's product and marketing manager for the Middle East and Africa, "and this number is expected to increase in the coming days, which in turn makes the Arabic language one of the strategic languages through which a lot of companies, for instance Google, are interested in."

But some worry that the change could lead to more miscommunication.

"If Korean is used during the international communication, foreigners won't be able to understand and won't be able to read it well enough, so there could be some problems in communication," said South Korean Internet user Chang Yong-woong.

But others see the IDNs opening the Internet to a much broader population.

"If they can make this technology work, and people can use their own language to enter in addresses, I think that that would really expand the practical applications of the Internet," said Chinese Internet cafe owner Zhang Zhiming.

"People from different walks of life and different age groups could get more engaged with it."

One question that has not yet been resolved, however, is how people in countries that use the Latin script will be able to access Web sites with Korean, Hindi or Arabic domain names.

ICANN doesn't have an answer to that, but is confident a new technology will fill that gap soon.


source: CNN.com

MySpace Talks Content-Sharing with Facebook

The social network wars may be over as traditional rivals Facebook and MySpace reveal they're in talks about sharing content.

Facebook says it'd be happy to feature content from MySpace now that the two are moving in different directions, according to the UK's Telegraph.

"Facebook is focussing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focussing on more a content-led strategy," Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg told the newspaper.

"We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users."

MySpace boss Owen Van Natta — who left Facebook in April to lead News Corp's social network — confirmed the talks.

“Facebook is about core communications with your friendship network, whereas MySpace is about congregating around popular content with people who share your interests," he said, adding that partnerships would be a large part of MySpace's future.

Ms Sandberg said Facebook could use its Connect feature for users to share MySpace content, although "nothing has been formally arranged yet."

Connect allows Facebook users to discuss and share content as they are viewing it on a partner website.

MySpace recently launched a new music service in Australia — the second country to get it after the US — adding a raft of music tracks from major labels and independent aggregators. The audio tracks — which stream in full and can be playlisted on profiles — are linked to Apple's iTunes for purchase.

A spokesperson for MySpace Australia said they couldn't comment on the Facebook talks "at this stage."


source: foxnews.com

Google changes to aid music searches

By Alan Duke, CNN

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- The Internet's most popular search engine should get smarter about music, as Google updates the algorithms that power its searches this week, a company spokesman said.

"You don't have to know what your looking for," Google's Jennie Johnson said.

"If it looks like they're looking for a song, we're including in the regular search result links to hear songs from partners," Johnson said.

Contrary to techie rumors, Google is not launching a music download service, but it will give music searchers a direct link to commercial sites that do offer songs for sale.

Only sites that have licensing deals with artist labels and music publishers will be included in the links that "take you to a music discovery service," she said.

Those partners include -- but are not limited to -- iLike and Lala, she said. "Links to explore further, including Pandora and Rhapsody artist pages, will also be packaged in the music search results," she said.

The song download sites will not pay Google for driving traffic their way, she said.

"It's not like we get a fee," she said. "The value to us is really realized through better search."

There will be no new search box or hyperlink on Google's famously sparse homepage, because the change will be built in to every search request, Johnson said.

You don't even need to know the name of a song or artist to find the music in your head.

"They can enter some fragments of the words," Johnson said. "If it matches a song, there's a good chance that we're going to give you a song for that result."

One wrinkle that may take time to work out is nonmusic search terms that may seem like a song, she said.

This launch, which is only in the United States for now, is "the beginning step" that will allow Google to "refine how people are digging into it," Johnson said.

"You can expect to see it improved," she said.

Google's music search enhancements address an area that is important to a large number of Web users, she said.

"Two of the top 10 queries in the United States are music-related," she said.



source: cnn.com

What Happens to Your Facebook After You Die?

By Dan Fletcher

In an Oct. 26 blog post, Max Kelly, Facebook's head of security, announced Facebook's policy of "memorializing" profiles of users who have died, taking them out of the public search results, sealing them from any future log-in attempts and leaving the wall open for family and friends to pay their respects. Though most media reports claimed this was a new Facebook feature, a spokeswoman for the company told TIME that it's an option the site has had since its early days.

The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site's homepage rolled out Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated "suggestions" of people to "reconnect" with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and blog posts from across the Web complained that some of these Facebook suggestions were for friends who had died. "Would that I could ...," complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.

"We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized," Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx. Family or friends must fill out a Facebook form, including a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user's death, before the profile is officially memorialized. Once that is completed, the user will cease showing up in Facebook's suggestions and certain information like status updates won't show up in Facebook's news feed, the stream of real-time user updates that is the site's centerpiece. If relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook says it will remove the account altogether.

Better publicizing memorialized profiles is an attempt by Facebook to answer lingering privacy concerns. Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart investigated the company in July and issued a report that asked Facebook to explain certain areas of its privacy policy, including policies regarding the profiles of deceased users. In response, the company promised to issue a new privacy policy that better articulates how user information is treated postmortem and offered the commissioner an outline of its memorializing policy, nearly three months before the blog post explained it to users. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden says the privacy commissioner was "quite pleased" with Facebook's response to the office's concerns and says the commissioner will review the detailed version of the site's new policy, expected in late October.

Facebook's attempt to clearly state its policy is prudent, as other social-networking sites have struggled with the question of users' deaths. MySpace in particular has had a difficult time with digital rubbernecking — during the site's heyday, a handful of well-trafficked blogs specialized in matching MySpace profiles directly to obituaries and posting the pairings online for all to see. By sealing profiles to family and friends and removing profiles from search results, Facebook assuages users' fears that they'll be fodder for online voyeurs in the event of their untimely demise — and hopefully will put the issue to rest.


source: time.com

Ares 1-X Rocket Launch Preview

The Ares 1-X rolled out to its launching pad earlier this week. It stands about 327 feet high � 14 stories taller than NASA's space shuttles (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's brand-new Ares 1-X rocket, the vehicle planned to launch astronauts spaceward after the space shuttles are retired, is poised to make its first-ever test flight Tuesday.

The experimental Ares I-X rocket is set to lift off at 8 a.m. EDT from Pad 39B here at Kennedy Space Center. NASA needs good weather in order to gather detailed data on how the $445 million booster performs during this maiden voyage. Unfortunately, weather officer Kathy Winters has predicted a grim 60 percent chance of clouds thwarting a launch attempt Tuesday.

"The weather is a little bit of a concern tomorrow," Winters said Monday.

Ares I-X is a trial version of the Ares I rocket, planned under NASA's Constellation program to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit aboard an Orion spacecraft. The test rocket includes a real solid-rocket first stage, with a mock second stage and dummy Orion crew capsule on top to simulate the intended weight and size of Ares I. Ares I-X is the tallest booster in service or about to fly and stands about 327 feet high — 14 stories taller than NASA's space shuttles.

The test flight comes at an uncertain time for NASA. The agency's plans to use the Ares I rocket and Orion capsules to replace the shuttle fleet and return astronauts to the moon by 2020 are under review by President Barack Obama's administration. Last week, a report from an independent panel appointed by the White House suggested that NASA consider scrapping the Ares I rocket in lieu of commercial rockets that could be ready sooner.

Despite the uncertainty, NASA officials said they stand behind the flight test, which should be useful not just for designing Ares I but also for other future rockets.

"Much of that kind of learning will be applicable to any large-scale launch system," said Jeff Hanley, program manager for NASA's Constellation program, which encompasses Ares I and Orion.

NASA hopes to have the Ares I and Orion vehicles in service by 2015, but the White House panel said that date would likely slip to 2017.

Untried rocket

As an untried rocket, the flight does carry some risk, mission managers said.

"We're not going to guarantee this is going to work," said Steve Davis, Ares I-X deputy mission manager. "This is a flight test. We have very high confidence it's going to work but there's some areas we're testing for the first time, and that's why we're doing the test."

If the rocket were to fly sharply off-course and threatened to pose any danger to the public, an explosive mechanism onboard called the range safety system could be initiated to destroy the booster.

"[We'll] make sure that were providing safety to the public," said Ed Mango, Ares I-X launch director. "There's no chance that this vehicle is going to go anywhere where the range can't take care of anything it needs to."

Also adding to the potential hazard of the flight is the fact that the space shuttle Atlantis is currently poised atop its Launch Pad 39A, a mere 1.6 miles away. If Ares I-X were to explode, the nearby space shuttle could be in jeopardy. However, because of the trajectory planned for the rocket, as well as the high level of confidence that it will work generally as planned, NASA has estimated a slim 1-in-10,000 chance of catastrophic damage to Atlantis — a danger level the agency is willing to accept.

Gloomy skies

In fact, mission managers say their biggest fear now is the weather. When asked if any issues were keeping him up at night in advance of the flight, Ares I-X mission manager Bob Ess replied "mostly the weather."

Because this is the first launch of its kind, and a major goal is to photograph and videotape the rocket's performance, NASA requires pristine skies and clear visibility to loft the booster. Furthermore, the launch is constrained by the risk of a phenomenon called "triboelectrification," which could occur when the rocket passes through clouds and triggers static electricity that might interfere with the instruments onboard. This is not a concern with space shuttle launches, which have been proven immune to this occurrence.

Ares I-X has a four-hour launch window, from 8 a.m. to noon EDT, and it only needs about 10 minutes of clear skies within that time to launch. If the rocket cannot blast off on Tuesday, NASA can try again during the same window on Wednesday, when weather conditions are expected to improve.

NASA will begin counting down toward the planned liftoff at 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday, with a live television broadcast to begin at 5 a.m.

Ready to go

Despite the inherent uncertainty in Ares I-X's flight, mission managers said they are as confident as possible.

"We're in great shape, the vehicle's ready to go, and certainly all of us are really excited about Tuesday's launch," said NASA test director Jeff Spaulding during a Sunday briefing.

The rocket is slated to launch skyward, but stop short of reaching orbit, before falling back down to Earth. The entire mission is planned to last just over two minutes.

During that time over 700 sensors onboard will feed back meticulous measurements of the rocket's path and performance, while cameras on the ground and aboard airborne planes will take photographs to chart its trajectory.

"Our purpose is to validate the design and gain practical experience with the vehicle," Davis said. "The goal of the test is to get information, it's all about learning. The only failure on this flight is a failure to learn from it."



Ares I-X

The Ares I-X rocket is poised to launch on a suborbital test flight on Oct. 27 and rolled out to its launching pad earlier this week. It stands about 327 feet high — 14 stories taller than NASA's space shuttles — and is equivalent in height to its namesake Ares I. The Ares I booster is designed to launch NASA's Orion spacecraft slated to replace the shuttle fleet.



Saturn Rocket

A Saturn V rocket on its crawler carrier as it rolls out to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during the Apollo era between the late 1960s and 1970s.


source: foxnews.com

Making the most of Twitter

An American student is arrested in Egypt, and manages to send a brief text with a single word - "ARRESTED" - which is picked up around the world, and leads quickly to his release, helped by a lawyer hired by his university back in the US. In Britain, the prime minister's office decides people should be able to find out what their premier is doing; as of today, more than 2,000 people do. During an interview at the SXSW festival in March, audience dissatisfaction with Sarah Lacy's interviewing style with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spills over into silent but powerful discourse among the audience: one calls it a "train wreck". People fleeing from fires in California say where they are; that proves more useful and timely than official goverment information.

The common factor? Twitter, the free (at present) service which lets you send a 140-character message, or "tweet", to a site where anyone can read it, though it will only be sent directly to those who have chosen to "follow" you (though if you want, you can pick and choose who you allow to follow you). Twitter's first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly that August. It has only been a company since May 2007, but its growth has been explosive - so much so that it constantly struggles to keep running as a growing number of people sign on, sending more and more tweets.

One of the first questions people ask is "what is Twitter for?" As with any social network, the answer is the same: whatever you make of it. Some think that its immediacy makes it ideal for spreading news. Others find it useful to ask questions of their peers; still others, for following what people or topics they're interested in. The BBC and the Guardian, for example, already offer Twitter services for breaking news (check out the Guardian Technology Twitter feed). It will be surprising if IBM does not offer a Twitter service with results from the All-England Tennis Club Championships in July.

Hitwise, the web measurement company, notes that traffic to Twitter has risen eightfold in the past year, more than doubled in the past three months and up 60% in the past month. By Hitwise's measure, it's only ranked 439th in social networks - outside the mainstream - but Heather Hopkins, senior Hitwise analyst, adds quickly that: "Twitter's size is notoriously difficult to measure as there are so many access points (mobile phones in particular)."

That is a key point. Measurement companies like Hitwise tend to rely on browser-based metrics to see where samples of people are going. But whereas Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Habbo Hotel are only usable through a web browser, Twitter has broken free of the web; its text message-length "tweets" can be received on a mobile phone or other device. You don't have to visit the web page to use Twitter; in fact, doing so may be one of the slowest ways of using the service. And many of the systems that are built around Twitter use web pages to interface directly to its database (via a published API). Twitter didn't respond to a request asking how many active users and how many tweets are sent each day; but it's a safe guess that both are in the millions. TwitDir, a Twitter directory, suggests there are now 1.05 million Twitter users - up from 518,000 in October.

With Twitter thus poised to enter the mainstream, we offer here our list of the best tools presently available on, and built on, Twitter. As ever, this is a moving target: within months we expect there will be even better ones. And we will watch our Twitter feeds for your responses and suggestions

First steps

Twitter.com obviously. You don't need to sign up; you can watch the flow of messages from a particular user at their username (eg Guardian Technology's, which is at twitter.com/guardiantech). However, Twitter only becomes useful once you can sift through the huge volume of posts. Signing up is free and you're not obliged to follow anyone, or post anything, or let anyone follow you.

Next steps
You can follow Twitter at the website, but that's inefficient. Smartest moves: get a program for your PC, Mac or Linux box to watch the flow.

Windows
Madtwitter; Twitteroo; Twitterlicious

Mac OS X
Twitteriffic

Linux
Deskbar; Twitux

Mobile phones
Twittter for iPhone; Twitterberry (for BlackBerries); hahlo.com (iPhone and others)

Firefox
Tweetbar

Finding people
Whoshouldifollow.com answers that simple question. Given your username, it will look for other users with some overlap with the people you follow, and suggest them as people for you to follow. Add some of the names there and then repeat the process, and you'll quickly build up a large network.

Twitdir.com, a directory. Find people, and quickly see the top 100 most-followed and busiest twitterers.

Twitterholic.com, the top users and accounts: choose, then repeat as above.

Searching and organising
Summize.com, search for a word or phrase across the entire Twitter feed. Interested in Scotland? Explosions? Burma? Plug the search in and view the results; or take an RSS feed, which will automatically update when new tweets match your search.

Quotably.com creates threads of discussions between people.

Terraminds.com, another search engine, for users or phrases.

Tweetscan.com, search by user and time.

Twitterlocal.net finds twitterers near you.

Sharing
Twitthis.com, lets people looking at your site or blog share the URL via Twitter.

Twitturly.com, what's being most linked-to and talked about?

Tweetmeme.com, what sort of topics are being discussed?

Visualise
Twittervision.com, real-time Google Maps mashup showing where the latest tweets are being posted.

Twitterverse, tag clouds based on the messages flowing through twitter.

Twistori.com, love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish: what people are saying where the tweets use those words.

Twittearth.com, processor-heavy, but fascinating, visualisation of tweets, put onto a spiralling globe.

Tweetwheel.com, which of your friends are already following each other?

Miscellaneous
Tweetspeech, Yahoo Pipes module that converts (incoming) tweets to speech, playable via RSS.

Tweeterboard, a "leaderboard" of who the busiest, most popular, most chatty users are.

Twitter fan wiki, lots more Twitter information and applications.

Twittersnooze.com, hit the "snooze button", briefly, on verbose friends.

Twitter balloon, your tweets superimposed on an image of your choosing.

Latest Scores, latest football scores, as tweets.

twerpscan.com, avoid followers who befriend everyone: may be spammers.


source: guardian.co.uk