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Submission + - Inventor of E-Books Obituary (gutenberg.org)

Submitted by
zxr250cc
zxr250cc writes: "I am sad to note that the inventor of e-books has passed away in Illinois. As an avid fan of Project Gutenberg I will miss his efforts on all our behalf. We are surely in his debt and have benefited from his visionary work."
China

Submission + - China Poised to Launch Test for First Space Statio (space.com)

Submitted by Medevilae
Medevilae writes: China, a burgeoning power in the world space community, is poised to launch a test module for its first space station. The question is, when?

The liftoff was initially expected to take place in the fall. However, the Aug. 19 failure of an unmanned Chinese satellite to enter orbit has delayed the rollout of the module, named Tiangong-1 ("Heavenly Palace" in Chinese).

The space station precursor module is slated to launch on a Chinese Long March 2F rocket, similar to the Long March 2C booster that doomed the experimental SJ-11-04 satellite in August. Chinese space officials have put a hold on the Tiangong launch until the issue with the rocket is resolved.

China is developing its first full-fledged space station, called Tiangong (Heavenly Palace). Early tests of China’s skills at rendezvous and docking, shown in this artist's illustration, are set to begin in 2011.

When China does succeed in launching Tiangong-1, it will mark the first in a series of steps toward the nation's goal of building its own 60-ton space station by the year 2020. An unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft would launch a couple of months after Tiangong-1 and dock with it, in a demonstration of the autonomous docking technology necessary for assembling the station.

"The ability to do that robotically is going to certainly be a technological step forward for them," said Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College in Newport, R. I. "Some people have compared this to where we were at with Gemini. But we were doing it with people. If they can do it with robotics, it's a demonstration of a technological step forward."

China launched one astronaut on its first manned spacecraft, Shenzhou 5, in 2003. Since then it has sent five more men into space and performed the nation's first spacewalk.

Though these achievements come decades after the United States and Russia performed the same feats, they are enough to make China a force to be reckoned with in the future of human spaceflight, experts say.

"They have clearly established themselves in the top tier of spacefaring countries," Johnson-Freese told SPACE.com. "There are only three countries in the world who have the ability for human spaceflight, and China's one of them. If it were easy, there would be more countries that would have done it."
Science

Submission + - US fires up gigabit app dev. for ultrafast nets (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The US government and the National Science Foundation have announced a plan they say will go a long way toward building applications that can take advantage of ultrafast broadband networks. Dubbed US Ignite, the plan is to use existing high-speed fiber optic and wireless networks, such as the NSF's GENI network to link universities and a growing number of communities with networks that are 10-100 times faster than current residential broadband Internet services, according to as post on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy site."
HP

Submission + - HP to Resurrect Touchpad for "One Last Run" (reuters.com)

Submitted by Medevilae
Medevilae writes: HP slashed the price of its tablet to $99 from $399 and $499 the weekend after announcing the TouchPad's demise on August 18, part of a raft of decisions intended to move HP away from the consumer and focus on enterprise clientele.

That ignited an online frenzy and long lines at retailers as bargain-hunters chased down a gadget that had been on store shelves just six weeks.

"The speed at which it disappeared from inventory has been stunning," the company said. "We have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand."
NASA

Submission + - NASA Powers on Humanoid Robot For the First Time (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Medevilae
Medevilae writes: Robonaut 2, or R2, tweeted the progress of its first test from the @AstroRobonaut feed, operated by NASA’s Joe Bibby, a multimedia specialist working out of Houston’s Johnson Space Center, where R2's ground support is located.
“My power cable is plugged in and my status LEDs on my power backpack are on,” Robonaut tweeted Monday morning.
The robot continued to post various updates about the status of the two-hour test as it was hooked up by two mission specialists in the Destiny module of the ISS and received power from the ground.
“Ground team in Houston has successfully connected with me through my graphical user interface,” it later said.
The $2.5 million bot is the first robot to be launched into space, and it was built through a partnership between NASA and General Motors to work as a helper for the space station’s six-person crew. With a head, a torso, and a pair of arms and hands, the robot looks similar to a human astronaut, but it lacks legs and feet. NASA said on R2’s Web site that it could get these extra appendages added in 2013. It will also be several weeks before it begins to move its head around, as its operators run initial tests, Space.com said.
China

Submission + - China's First Aircraft Carrier Launched (xinhuanet.com)

Submitted by Medevilae
Medevilae writes: BEIJING (AP) — China's first aircraft carrier started sea trials Wednesday, a step that will likely boost concerns about the country's naval ambitions amid sea territorial disputes.
The carrier left Dalian port in northeast Liaoning province early Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The test run had been expected.
Xinhua said the first sea trial was in line with the schedule to rebuild the carrier, which China bought from Ukraine more than a decade ago. The report cited unnamed military sources.
China officially acknowledged only two weeks ago that it is rebuilding the carrier and said the refurbished ship would be used for research and training — a strong indication it plans to build carriers of its own.
China's carrier ambitions have sparked concern among neighbors amid heightened tensions over territorial disputes around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Android

Submission + - Does Google Need To Close-Source Android? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "A German court's ruling on Monday that bars distribution of Samsung's Android-based Galaxy Tab 10.1 in most of Europe shocked many. It also raises some long-term licensing worries for Android globally, some believe. Samsung is expected to appeal the preliminary injunction in Germany over what Apple called a design infringement — an imitation — by the Galaxy Tab of its iPad. Still, Samsung and other Android device makers face patent and design infringement lawsuits from Apple in the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Some analysts fear that the fallout over the Android intellectual property legal wrangling will have a chilling effect on thousands of Android developers, many of whom want to build apps that run on the most popular platforms and that bring in the biggest profit. But the fallout could mean that Google may have to license the Android mobile operating system in ways that better protect it from legal attacks, such as making it closed source software subject to license fees, rather than open source, said the intellectual property expert Florian Mueller."

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