MarkWhittington writes with an article on the AssociatedContent site, discussing the impending US space flight gap. Between 2010 (the end of the shuttle era) and 2015 (expected date for the launch of the Orion project) the United States will have little or no spaceflight capability. This is an obvious concern to some members of Congress and NASA. "Is all, therefore, doom and gloom? Not necessarily. Just over a year ago, NASA chose two companies for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program ... The goal of COTS was for the two companies to build prototype space craft capable of delivering crews and cargo to the International Space Station. A second phase of the COTS program would consist of a competition for a contract to actually deliver crews and cargo to ISS after 2010 ... Private industry may well come to the rescue and preserve American access to space, at least until Orion becomes operational."

SkinnyGuy writes "PCMag has one of the first reviews of the new robotic dinosaur. Is it worth $350? I think this reviewer thinks so. 'What most people will have a hard time understanding is that Ugobe's Pleo is one of the most sophisticated personal home entertainment robotic devices on the market today. It easily outshines robot toys from Wow Wee and Hasbro, though both companies offer robots that cost less than half of what Pleo does. Its nearest competitor, the Wow Wee Robopanda, is a good gift for young children, but it's not nearly as adorable, animated, or intelligent as Pleo. (Yes, it can stand up and crawl, but it doesn't look very good doing it.)'"

Via Joystiq, one of the most recent Will It Blend videos. A hilariously bitter Tom Dickinson gets revenge on Master Chief for his grandkids consistently beating him. Watch Halo 3 blend in the video below the cut.

DaMan writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is pondering the Kindle this week. There have been many attempts at an ebook reader in the past; why does Amazon think it can do any better? Given the high cost and DRM issues, will cachet be enough to win them financial success? Will the 'Cult of Kindle' help guarantee Amazon's success in the ebook reader market? 'A group of people willing to give it a five star rating just because someone else didn't, willing to back up every design, engineering and marketing decision that Amazon made, willing to defend the Kindle with their last dying breath. The Kindle doesn't cost money, it saves money. That 0.75 second flash as the pages turn isn't a downside because it gives you an opportunity to take in the previous page. It doesn't harm your eyes, in fact, it fixes them. Ergonomic issues that other reviewers have bought up are dismissed by the Cult of Kindle as flaws with the reviewer, not the device. The Kindle is perfect, and the Kindle 2.0 will be a little more perfect.'"

eldavojohn writes "Toyota has unveiled a robot that can play the violin. From the article: 'Toyota said it planned to further advance the robot's dexterity to enable it to use tools and assist with domestic duties and nursing and medical care. The robot has 17 joints in both of its hands and arms now.' It seems there have been small — or maybe even strange, impractical — advances in robotics repeatedly with demonstrations of robots performing a specialized task. Are we merely struggling to hard code each human activity as we strive for an all purpose android? Is there a chance artificial intelligence & robotics will ever become generalized enough to make interaction interesting?"

The field of game music has gotten considerably better over the years, a fact that Games Radar highlights in a simple 'list article' about iPod-worthy game music. They highlight some obvious recent gems, like Coulton's "Still Alive" and "Hikari" from Kingdom Hearts, but also bring back some older goodies with choices like "Everybody Jump Around" from Jet Set Radio or "Chemical Plant" from Sonic 2. "Sonic games used to have amazing music. And while single-player Mystic Cave Zone came a close second, this has to make the list. It may be basic compared to modern CD recordings, but just listen to how each of the console's sound channels is used - it's remarkable. Intricate and dramatic, this industrial anthem builds and builds before seamlessly looping in a non-annoying way."

creaton writes "At the annual UBS Global & Media Communications Conference yesterday, MPAA boss Dan Glickman banged on the copyright filtering drum during a 45-minute speech. Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually. His solution: technology, especially in the form of ISP filtering. 'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.' AT&T has already said it plans to filter content, but others may be more reluctant to go along, notes Ars Technica: 'ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high.'"

BBCWatcher writes "Lenovo just announced new ThinkPad T61 models preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP. Ironically they're called ThinkPad T61 'TopSeller' models. Lenovo says they're aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. The XP TopSellers are available immediately, and the part numbers are 6465-03U, 7658-04U, and 7664-06U (PDF links). "Lenovo recommends Windows Vista Business"? Not so much."

Preedit writes "Microsoft has set up a website that uses inkblot images to help users create passwords. The site asks users view a series of inkblots and write down the first and last letters of whatever word they associate with each inkblot. Then they combine the letters to form a password. Microsoft claims it's a way to create passwords that are easy to remember but hard to crack. But a word of warning, the story notes that Microsoft is collecting and storing users' word associations."

An anonymous reader writes "According to Fortune's legal blogger Roger Parloff, "once in awhile a judicial ruling comes down that's so wrong at such a basic level that you're just left scratching your head". He claims that Judge Kimball's "102-page ruling (about SCO) was greeted with widespread rejoicing and I-told-you-so's", but "the problem is not that Judge Kimball's view of the facts is wrong". Was the ruling unfair?"

Pakled writes "I teach a high school multimedia course. We were scheduled to get new software this year but due to several pointy haired bosses, no software was ordered. The software I have to teach is Flash 5, Dreamweaver 2000, Photoshop 7 and (god help me) Movie Maker. The question is: is it better to teach old commercial software or their open source counterparts (Komposer, Gimp, etc.)? Is the steep learning curve and slightly less uniform design worth a little student frustration to teach them software written in the past 5 years?"

Psychor writes "Dell has released a high specification new laptop complete with World of Warcraft branding (Horde and Alliance versions available). With a starting price of $4,499 it's not cheap, but does feature SLI graphics and AGEIA PhysX technology (a laptop first). RAID and solid state storage are also options." Unfortunately for purchasers, the laptop won't boot on tuesday mornings until early afternoon, and some days you just won't be able to log in.

l-ascorbic writes "In what they are calling a change of tactics, Microsoft has removed the controversial 'kill switch' from Vista in SP1. This feature is designed to disable pirated copies of the OS, but had led to numerous reports of it disabling legitimate copies. It will be replaced with a notice that repeatedly informs the user that their OS is pirated. '[Microsoft corporate vice president Mike Sievert] added: "It's worth re-emphasizing that our fundamental strategy has not changed. All copies of Windows Vista still require activation and the system will continue to validate from time to time to verify that systems are activated properly." Microsoft said it had pursued legal action against more than 1,000 dealers of counterfeit Microsoft products in the last year and taken down more than 50,000 "illegal and improper" online software auctions.'"

SpiritGod21 writes in with a NYTimes article on a new approach to spam detection that claims out-of-the-box improvement of 1 or 2 orders of magnitude over existing approaches. The article wanders off into human-interest territory as the inventor, Steven T. Kirsch, has an incurable disease and an engineer's approach to fighting it. But a description of the anti-spam tech, based on the reputation of the receiver and not the sender, is worth a read.

Samsung has announced a new line of GDDR5 chips that will supposedly be able to deliver data at speeds of up to 6 Gbps. In addition to faster data delivery the new chips also claim to consume less energy than previous versions. "Samsung said the new chips consume 1.5 volts, making them about 20 percent more efficient than GDDR 3 chips. Samples of the GDDR 5 chips began shipping to graphics-processor makers last month, and Samsung plans to begin mass production of the chips during the first half of next year. GDDR 5 memory should first appear in high-end gaming systems where users are willing to pay a premium for better graphics. Samsung did not disclose pricing for the chips.