- Ubiquity — Sears Holdings has formed a new unit to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centers, disaster recovery space and wireless towers.
- Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging (EFF) — it has to be a sign of the value to users of open standards that small companies embrace them and large companies reject them.
- How Does Copyright Work in Space? (The Economist) — amazingly complex rights trail for the International Space Station-recorded cover of “Space Oddity”. Sample: Commander Hadfield and his son Evan spent several months hammering out details with Mr Bowie’s representatives, and with NASA, Russia’s space agency ROSCOSMOS and the CSA. That’s the SIMPLE HAPPY ENDING.
- Great Lessons: Evan Weinberg’s “Do You Know Blue?” (Dan Meyer) — It’s a bridge from math to computer science. Students get a chance to write algorithms in a language understood by both mathematicians and the computer scientists. It’s analogous to the Netflix Prize for grown-up computer scientists.
ENTRIES TAGGED "space"
Four short links: 24 May 2013
Repurposing Dead Retail Space, Open Standards, Space Copyright, and Bridging Lessons
Four short links: 8 April 2013
Mozilla Payments, Firefox Cleans Cookies, Lost: One Web Please Return to Those Who Love It, and 3D from Spaaaaace
- mozpay — a JavaScript API inspired by google.payments.inapp.buy() but modified for things like multiple payment providers and carrier billing. When a web app invokes navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS, the device shows a secure window with a concise UI. After authenticating, the user can easily charge the payment to her mobile carrier bill or credit card. When completed, the app delivers the product. Repeat purchases are quick and easy.
- Firefox Looks Like it Will Reject Third-Party Cookies (ComputerWorld) — kudos Mozilla! Now we’ll see whether such a cookie policy does deliver a better user experience. Can privacy coexist with a good user experience? Answers on a tweet, please, to @radar.
- How We Lost the Web (Anil Dash) — excellent talk about the decreasing openness and vanishing shared culture of the web. See also David Weinberger’s transcription.
- 3D From Space Shuttle Footage? — neat idea! Filming in 3D generally requires two cameras that are separated laterally, to create the parallax effected needed for stereoscopic vision. Fortunately, videos shot from Earth orbit can be converted to 3D without a second camera, because the camera is constantly in motion.
They promised us flying cars
Tired of waiting, hackers and billionaires alike are building the future they want to see.
We may be living in the future, but it hasn’t entirely worked out how we were promised. I remember the predictions clearly: the 21st century was supposed to be full of self-driving cars, personal communicators, replicators and private space ships.
Except, of course, all that has come true. Google just got the first license to drive their cars…
The quiet rise of machine learning
Alasdair Allan on how machine learning is taking over the mainstream.
From Goodreads to Google to Orbitz, machine learning is slowly becoming part of everyday life. Alasdair Allan discusses current uses and how machine learning factors into his own robotic telescope network.
The abandonment of technology
Are we working on the right problems?
We face a choice between a future of accelerating technological progress and an age of declining possibilities and narrowing horizons. That choice depends on the problems we choose to solve.
The NASA Make Challenge
The first challenge: create kits that can be built in a classroom and sent on-board suborbital flights.
If you are fascinated by space, it's a great time for you to be able to do something as a maker and make a real contribution. Makers can now participate in a new kind of space program, one that expands beyond NASA to include commercial space collaboration.
Open sourcing space
The final frontier is now open to amateurs.
The space race has been reignited, but in a much different way. With off-the-shelf components and your own initiative, you can now launch a satellite or weather balloon. Dale Dougherty looks at this new wave of roll-your-own exploration.
Space IT, the final frontier
Exploring open source cloud computing, virtualization and Climate@Home at NASA's first IT Summit.
The first NASA IT Summit showcased the technology of today and the potential of the future. We take an in-depth look at the event and discuss NASA's IT shifts with NASA CTO for IT Chris Kemp and NASA CIO Linda Cureton.
Open space data can improve lives (and save birds)
Jeanne Holm wants to see an international ontology for space data.
Jeanne Holm, the former chief knowledge architect at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discusses her efforts to build an an international ontology for space data.
Can open source guide a moon mission?
The Open Luna Foundation has a $500 million plan to build a moon station.
The Open Luna Foundation has a $500 million plan to build a moon outpost, and it's going to rely on open source to make it happen. Question is: does the distributed nature of open source lend itself to complex, mission-critical ideas? Take a look at key elements of the Open Luna project and share your thoughts.
Radar 
Radar on 
Radar on 
Radar on 
Radar on 