34778267
submission
dangle writes:
BAE Systems has developed a positioning solution that it claims will work even when GPS is unavailable. Its strategy is to use the collection of radio frequency signals from TV, radio and cellphone masts, even WiFi routers, to deduce a position.
BAE's answer is dubbed Navigation via Signals of Opportunity (NAVSOP). It interrogates the airwaves for the ID and signal strength of local digital TV and radio signals, plus air traffic control radars, with finer grained adjustments coming from cellphone masts and WiFi routers. In any given area, the TV, radio, cellphone and radar signals tend to be at constant frequencies and power levels as they are are heavily regulated — so positions could be calculated from them. "The real beauty of NAVSOP is that the infrastructure required to make it work is already in place," says a BAE spokesman — and "software defined radio" microchips that run NAVSOP routines can easily be integrated into existing satnavs. The firm believes the technology could also work in urban concrete canyons where GPS signals cannot currently reach.
30689659
submission
dangle writes:
F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have officially released their Free Universal Construction Kit, allowing builders to freely interconnect parts from Lego, K'Nex, Fischertechnik and other common building sets. ZomeTool and Zoob patterns will be available after related patents expire. The makers have also spent considerable effort investigating and anticipating legal complaints from manufacturers, using an Inverse Think of The Children Argument:
Some may express concern that the Free Universal Construction Kit infringes such corporate prerogatives as copyright, design right, trade dress, trademarks or patents of the supported toy systems. We encourage those eager to enforce these rights to please think of the children — and we assert that the home printing of the Free Universal Construction Kit constitutes protected fair use.
19956020
submission
dangle writes:
Technicians were installing a backup power-supply system for the combined Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air computer system this weekend when a transformer malfunctioned, taking down the system around 3 a.m. Saturday, affecting approximately 12,150 passengers through the cancellation of 140 flights, equalling 15% of the airline's scheduled departures on Saturday.
"We're almost pretty much" back to normal following the transformer malfunction, airlines spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said Sunday. "We should be right on track by the end of today."
12186346
submission
dangle writes:
Voyager 2's flight data system, which formats information before beaming it back to Earth, has experienced a hiccup that has altered the pattern in which it sends updates home, preventing mission managers from decoding the science data beamed to Earth from Voyager 2. The spacecraft, which is currently 8.6 billion miles (13.8 billion km) from Earth, is apparently still in overall good health, according to the latest engineering data received on May 1. "Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, but it is still returning data 33 years later," said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has already given us remarkable views of Uranus and Neptune, planets we had never seen close-up before. We will know soon what it will take for it to continue its epic journey of discovery." The space probe and its twin Voyager 1 are flying through the bubble-like heliosphere, created by the sun, which surrounds our solar system.
5837437
submission
dangle writes:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has determined that higher than anticipated levels of solar radiation led to the premature end of the Chandrayaan-1 mission after 10 months of data collection. "We have learnt some valuable lessons," said Madhavan Nair. In future missions, ISRO would look for devices that are less susceptible to radiation, he added. High levels of solar radiation led to the destruction of the power supply units for two computers on board the spacecraft. This ultimately led to loss of communication to or from the spacecraft. Failure of the primary and redundant star sensors in April and May of this year was also blamed on solar radiation. The spacecraft is hovering 200 kilometers above the moon's surface, and is estimated to impact the moon in about 1,000 days.
5769221
submission
dangle writes:
More than 20 million other smartphone users are on the AT&T network, but other phones do not drain the network the way the nine million iPhones users do. Because the average iPhone owner can use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user, dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds are the result as AT&T's cellular network strains to meet the demand. AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network. The company intends to erect an additional 2,100 cell towers to fill out patchy coverage, upgrade existing cell sites by adding fiber optic connectivity to deliver data faster and add other technology to provide stronger cell signals. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/technology/companies/03att.html?hp
