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NASA Preps Closest-Ever Sun Mission

timothy — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:50:00 +0000

coondoggie writes “NASA today said it had picked five experiments that will ride aboard one of its most ambitious space missions to explore the Sun. The Solar Probe, a car-sized spacecraft, is scheduled to launch no later than 2018 and will fly closer to the Sun’s surface than any other probe, NASA stated. Ultimately the spacecraft’s goals are to help scientists understand why the sun’s outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun’s visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system, NASA said.”

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Software (and Appropriate Input Device) For a Toddler?

timothy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:38:00 +0000

An anonymous reader writes “I have an 18-month-old who loves bright screens (TV and computer), loves loud noises, and loves to mash buttons. He targets my laptop with the button-mashing, and I sort of hate having to tell him ‘no’ when he wants to explore a computer. I was wondering if anyone knows of some fun (and maybe educational) age-specific PC software that also comes with an age-appropriate input device. I’ve seen those big-button devices in retail stores that seem to just hook up to the TV, and I’ve also seen some PC software that requires keyboard/mouse input, which does not seem like the right input device for a toddler.”

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Brazil Considering Legalizing File Sharing

timothy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:56:00 +0000

An anonymous reader writes “It looks like Brazil may be the country to watch if you’re interested in much more consumer-friendly copyright laws (assuming US diplomatic pressure doesn’t interfere). As that country goes through a copyright reform process, among the proposals is one that would create fines not just for infringing, but also for hindering fair use and the public domain. Also, there is a big push underway, with widespread support — even from some artists groups — to legalize file sharing in exchange for a small levy (~$1.74/month) on your broadband connection. Of course, one reason why Brazil may be doing it this way is because of the massive success the Brazilian musical genre technobrega has had by embracing file sharing as a way to promote new works, and making money (often lots of it) through other avenues, like live shows.”

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Game Publishers Using Stealth P2P Clients

Soulskill — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:10:00 +0000

An anonymous reader writes “TorrentFreak has shed some light on the dark practice of installing stealth-mode P2P clients during game downloads and using unsuspecting gamers’ PCs as ‘bandwidth slaves.’ The clients operate in the background and largely go unnoticed until problems arise that are caused by overactive uploading/seeding. While the Akamai NetSession Interface and Pando Media Booster are specifically called out, there appear to be other offenders as indicated in the comments left by TorrentFreak readers. A publisher called Solid State Networks is putting out a call for an industry-wide ‘best practices’ effort to promote transparency, control and privacy on behalf of gamers who are otherwise being abused for their bandwidth without their consent.”

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2010 May Be the First Year YouTube Turns a Profit

Soulskill — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:27:00 +0000

eldavojohn writes “Analysts are saying that this year will be the first year YouTube turns a profit. From the New York Times article: ‘In the last year, the video site has become a significant contributor to the family business at a time when Google, which makes more than 90 percent of its revenue from text search ads, is seeking a second act. Though Google does not report YouTube’s earnings, it has hinted that it is hovering near profitability. Analysts say YouTube will bring in around $450 million in revenue this year and earn a profit. Revenue at YouTube has more than doubled each year for the last three years, according to the company.’ Of course a little over a year ago we were being told that YouTube was losing around $1.65 million each day. Regardless, when you pay $1.65 billion for a business, you probably don’t expect it to take three to four years before you start making your money back.”

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Winnie-the-Pooh Parodied In Wookie-the-Chew

samzenpus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:22:00 +0000

pickens writes “Erik Hayden writes in the Atlantic that children will see endearing portraits of Chewbacca rendered in the style of “Winnie-the-Pooh” in the book of drawings “Wookie the Chew,” a tribute to the combined genius of George Lucas, A.A.Milne and E.H.Sheppard, by artist James Hance released on September 1st. Samples from the book are available at Hance’s web site. Hance bases his right to parody Winnie-the-Pooh on Fair Use as parody under which certain uses of copyrighted works, which would otherwise be considered infringing, are permissible. Interestingly enough, the rights to the original Winnie-the-Pooh were the subject of an 18-year feud in which Walt Disney corporation fought off a challenge to its ownership of the rights ending in 2009 when a judge in Los Angeles struck out a claim against Disney lodged by the family of Stephen Slesinger, a comic book pioneer who bought the copyright to Pooh in 1930 from the bear’s British creator, A.A. Milne. Stories of Pooh’s adventures were originally created by Milne in the 1920s, based on a toy bear owned by the author’s son, Christopher Robin.”

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Facebook Testing Feature That Would Make it More Valuable for Search

Chris Crum — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:12:45 +0000

AllFacebook has discovered that Facebook is now testing showing all liked news articles in its search results. This would obviously be a significant move as the company competes with Google. Nick O’Neill writes:

Additionally, the results for searches now shows the results from all around the web based on two things: the number of likes and the number of friends who liked that object, most likely leveraging some of the technology shown in their recently approved patent. We first received reports of these search results showing up earlier yesterday.

The search results have now become dramatically more relevant with the inclusion of recent news articles, something that previously wasn’t accessible via Facebook’s open graph search results. Currently, the search results only appear within the drop down from Facebook’s search box, however I’d assume that this will eventually shift to Facebook’s search area, which has yet to undergo a significant overhaul.

Facebook has a lot going on as usual. It was also discovered that the company is testing a subscription feature. This could end up being another key element. The feature would provide alerts to users when someone they are subscribed to makes an update. This could make Facebook infinitely more valuable as a news tool.

If Facebook can improve its search on top of that, it’s going to do something for its search market share. Nobody’s saying it’s going to overtake Google in search, but we could start to see it take away some of the searches that would otherwise have gone to Google (or another search engine), simply based on how much time people are already spending on Facebook.

It’s something to keep an eye on, at the very least. What do you think? Comment here.

VISA Pulls Plug On ePassporte, Porn Webmasters

Soulskill — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:40:00 +0000

tsu doh nimh writes “Credit card giant VISA International has suspended its business with ePassporte, an Internet payment system widely used to pay adult Webmasters and a raft of other affiliate programs. A number of adult Webmaster forums are up in arms over the move because many of their funds are now stranded. Visa has been silent on the issue so far, but KrebsOnSecurity.com points to an e-mail from ePassporte founder Christopher Mallick saying the unexpected move by Visa wouldn’t strand customers indefinitely. Mallick co-directed Middle Men, a Paramount film released in August that tells the story of his experience building one of the world’s first porn site payment processing firms, as well as the Russian mobsters, porn stars and FBI agents he ran into along the way. Interestingly, the speculation so far is that Visa cut ties with ePassporte due to new anti-money laundering restrictions in the Credit Card Act of 2009, which affects prepaid cards and other payment card instruments that can be reloaded with funds at places other than financial institutions.”

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Apple’s Ping Draws a Great Deal of Criticism

Chris Crum — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:38:43 +0000

Apple’s Ping social network, which the company launched as part of the new iTunes 10, has drawn a big mix of excitement and criticism. While most seem to agree that the concept beind Ping is a pretty good idea (social network-meets-music-buying) it’s not exactly the seamless experience one might hope for.

Let’s take a look at some points made around the Blogosphere.

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch says, "The biggest problem I have with Ping is that it lives in iTunes. Not only does it live in iTunes, it is isolated there. iTunes is not social. It is not even on the Web. And Ping doesn’t communicate with any other social networks. I can’t see people’s iTunes Pings in Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else. While Ping does make iTunes itself more social, the problem is that I don’t live in iTunes. It is a store. I go in to buy stuff and get out as fast as I can. I am not sure Ping is going to make me want to hang out there more."

WebProNews blog partner Bruce Houghton, who writes for the blog HypeBot, says, "Say what you will about iTune’s new social network Ping, but it’s going to be a great place to market music. So imagine the frustration of the many indie artists – many of who are selling music on iTunes – when they learned that there was no obvious way to create an an artist profile in Ping."

"We asked Apple to explain and just heard back from a spokesperson that ‘artist profiles were launched by invitation, but we’ll keep adding more and more.’ No information was provided on who is handing invites or what criteria they are using," he adds.

Mashable founder Pete Cashmore says in a CNN piece, "iTunes Ping is a worthy concept: By adding social interaction to the music-buying experience, Apple could see a significant increase in sales, and artists could form a more direct connection to their fans. But until the majority of artists are able to create official accounts, iTunes Ping merely benefits the privileged few."

Wade Roush at Xconomy has some interesting ideas about Ping: "It’s easy to see how Apple might expand Ping beyond music to facilitate conversations around media of all sorts, including movies, books, and mobile apps…Adding a social networking interface, on top of all of iTunes’ other functions, is like grafting another limb to the forehead of an octopus. It’s just too much."

Robert Scoble says, "By the way, if I were @loic I’d be PISSED that Apple infringed his ping.fm trademark." @loic, would be Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, who also has a service called Ping.fm, for updating multiple social networks.

The best commentary I’ve seen about Ping so far has to be Paul Carr’s take though. He says, "Ping ping ping ping. Ping. And yet and yet…Ping?"

Apart from all of the opinions and criticism, Ping is already facing a more concrete problem of spam. Chester Wisniewski of security company Sophos has a post up describing the comment spam that’s already flooding the iTunes social network.

Google should be launching a music service in time for the holidays if reports are accurate.

New and Old Experiments Combine To Help the Search For Life On Mars

Soulskill — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:56:00 +0000

jamie sends in a story about an unexpected finding by the Phoenix Mars Lander which has shed new light on experiments done by the Viking landers back in 1976. The Viking experiments found traces of chlorine compounds that were interpreted to be the result of contamination from cleaning fluids on Earth. In 2008, an experiment done by Phoenix found percholates in the soil, which came as a surprise to researchers. After doing tests on similar soil from Chile, a new study has found that those percholates, paired with organic molecules, could very well be the source of the chlorine compounds detected by Viking. While this is not direct evidence for life on Mars, the fact that complex organic compounds can apparently persist in the Martian soil gives researchers a new avenue to pursue while looking for that evidence.

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