Chicago, August 16: Forty years after man landed on the moon, NASA plans to retire the Space Shuttle in 2010. It will be five years before NASA has a vehicle ready to carry astronauts back into space, which has some concerned about the future of the space program. Kane Farabaugh sat down with Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell to discuss what is in store for space exploration.
New Delhi, August 16: Sky gazers are in for a celestial treat as the farthest planet Neptune will be at opposition, that is opposite to the sun tomorrow night.
“On August 17, the blue planet Neptune will be at opposition or 180 degrees from the sun in the sky,” SPACE Director C B Devgun said.
In positional astronomy, Opposition defines that position of a celestial object when it is on the opposite side of the sun in the sky when viewed from the Earth as reference.
Berlin, August 16: Windows 7 won’t be available in stores until October 22, but Microsoft has already announced various pre-ordering options for the replacement to Vista.
To lure users into making the jump, the company is promising that anyone who buys a new computer now with Windows Vista versions Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate will receive a copy of Windows 7 in the fall. The offer is valid until January 31, 2010.
Berlin, August 16: Windows 7 won’t be available in stores until October 22, but Microsoft has already announced various pre-ordering options for the replacement to Vista.
To lure users into making the jump, the company is promising that anyone who buys a new computer now with Windows Vista versions Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate will receive a copy of Windows 7 in the fall. The offer is valid until January 31, 2010.
New Delhi, August 16: In a yet another proof of Pakistan’s involvement in the 26/11 militant attack on the financial capital of the country, the leading mobile manufacturer, Nokia has confirmed in the track court that militants used five China made mobile phones that were later shipped from China to Pakistan in June 2008.
Terrorists used these mobile phones for mutual conversation to carry out the destruction of historic Hotel Taj and Oberai – an attack that claimed the lives of 166 national and international citizens.
Washington, August 14: Microsoft Corp put its new Zune HD digital music and video player on sale in the US on Thursday, pricing it below comparable Apple iPod devices, in an attempt to claw some market share away from the dominant leader.
The devices, which are available for pre-order but won’t hit shelves until September 15, are priced at $219.99 for the 16 gigabyte version and $289.99 for the 32 gigabyte version. Comparable iPod Touch players are priced at $299 and $399 respectively.
A 16-gigabyte player typically holds about 4,000 songs.
Washington, August 14: The NSS Labs, an independent security product testing lab, has found Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 to be the most secure browser to date.
The Texas-based facility tested Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 2, Internet Explorer (IE) 8, Mozilla Firefox 3, and Opera 10 beta over a two-week period in July and released the results on Thursday.
The NSS Labs research indicated that IE 8 was the best browser in blocking phishing and malware attacks.
However, Firefox 3 equaled IE 8 in catching “social-engineering” phishing attacks.
Hyderabad, August 13: An Egyptian expert has arrived to restore a mummy from the age of the pharaohs and preserved at the State Archaeological Museum here.
Tarek el Awady, director of Scientific Research in Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), arrived Wednesday night on a six-day visit to restore the mummy, dating back to 2500 BC, but which is showing signs of decay now.
Washington, August 13: An international team of astronomers has discovered the first planet that orbits in the opposite direction compared to the rotation of its host star.
Planets circle their host stars in the same direction stars rotate. The newly discovered planet, however, is an exception.
The planet, designated WASP-17, is twice the size of Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, yet it weighs only half of Jupiter due to a density like that of expanded polystyrene.
Washington/Toronto, August 13: A US judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the country in 60 days after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.
Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft’s most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.
Washington, August 13: Groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by as much as one foot per year over the past decade and the loss is almost entirely due to human activity, results from NASA’s gravity satellites showed.
“More than 26 cubic miles of groundwater disappeared from aquifers in areas of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and the nation’s capitol territory of Delhi, between 2002 and 2008. This is enough water to fill Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the United States, three times,” said a release of NASA.
Washington, August 13: A US judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the country in 60 days after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.
Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft’s most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.
Washington, August 13: US space agency NASA does not have enough cash to track the large nearby asteroids that could pose a hazard to Earth, a study by the National Academy of Science found Wednesday.
In 2005, Congress ordered NASA to track up to 90 per cent of near- Earth asteroids that are 140 metres in diameter or larger by 2020. But no money was budgeted for the task, making it impossible to complete.
The report also said astronomers are capable of tracking the asteroids if given enough resources to do so.
New York, August 13: Software giant Microsoft today issued updates to plug at least 19 security holes in its various Windows operating systems and other software.
The patches fix dangerous flaws in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, 15 of which the Redmond, Washington based company described as “critical”.
Microsoft labels a security flaw “critical” if attackers could use it to seize control over a vulnerable system without any help from the victim.
New Delhi, August 12: The government has warned the users of social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter of a virus that is spreading through these sites targeting the members.
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Department of Information Technology, the apex body that monitors Internet security threats in the country, said a new worm ‘Koobface’ is propagating through social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Bebo and Twitter.
Sydney, August 12: AMMONIA is a colourless, highly irritating gas with a pungent, suffocating odour.
Eighty per cent of ammonia produced by industry is used in agriculture as fertiliser.
Ammonia is also used as a refrigerant gas, which was the case in yesterday’s incident in Tanjung Karang where six people died after a leak at a refrigeration facility.
Other uses of ammonia are to purify water and in the manufacture of plastics, explosives, textiles, pesticides, dyes and other chemicals.
It is also found in many household and industrial-strength cleaning solutions.
Washington, August 12: Google has lifted the lid on a new version of its search engine, allowing users to look at the results it will generate.
The new engine, available at a separate address, looks the same as the current one but ranks results differently, which could affect businesses that rely on Google results to drive traffic.
***
In a blog posting, Google says the new engine, code-named Caffeine, will be faster, more accurate and more comprehensive.
Moscow, August 12: Russian companies are working on radically novel models of aircraft, including hypersonic jets that will be able to develop speeds of up to 6M, Colonel General Alexander Zelin, Chief of Staff of Air Force said.
“The Russian Air Force is doing research in this area and our institutes engage in the development of radically novel vehicles and systems,” Gen Zelin said on Tuesday in a press conference.
Washington, August 12: In the first significant outcome of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India, the US has given clearance to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch Algerian satellites with American components.
This follows the signing of a Technical Safeguards Agreement covering launches of satellites, having US components on Indian launch vehicles, during Hillary Clinton’s New Delhi visit.
Bangalore, August 12: India would, by the second-half of September, launch Oceansat-2 into the space, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair said.
The integration of the spacecraft, Oceansat-2, designed to identify potential fishing zones, assist in sea state forecasting and coastal zone studies and provide inputs for weather forecasting and climate studies, has been completed, Nair said.
Berlin, August 12: Germany should try to launch an unmanned mission to the moon by around 2015, the government official in charge of aerospace matters said on Wednesday.
In an interview with ZDF television, Economy Ministry State Secretary Peter Hintze said a German moon landing could be feasible “within the next decade, around 2015,” and urged cooperation with other European countries and the United States.
New Delhi, August 10: Ford has launched the new Ikon iKool. According to the US Company its sophisticated design is matched with features and performance.
Nigel Wark is the executive director for marketing, sales and service at Ford India. He says, “The Ikon iKool is a fun to drive yet economical car. Its new feature rich persona along with legendary driving characteristics will appeal to the upwardly mobile and ambitious customers who want their car to complement their active lifestyles.”
Washington, August 11: Computer scientists have demonstrated how criminals could hack an electronic voting machine (EVM) and ‘steal’ votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed.
The team of scientists from the Universites of California, San Diego, Michigan and Princeton employed “return-oriented programming” to force an electronic voting machine to turn against itself.
Washington, August 11: University of Minnesota researchers say that certain industries may be a significant source of plant-based oestrogens, called phytoestrogens, in surface water.
Civil engineering experts at the university’s Institute of Technology say that some of these phytoestrogens can be removed through standard wastewater treatment, but in some cases, the compounds remain at levels that may be damaging to fish.
Washington, August 11: Scientists have revealed that underground water plays a key role in triggering powerful earthquakes, an insight they claim could help seismologists to save human lives.
An international team has examined the role of water crushed out of the Earth’s crust deep below the surface in triggering powerful earthquakes, changing the dynamics of the fault and eventually causing volcanoes to form.