Roy Mark

NASAs Busy Month: Endeavour Adventures, Apollo 11 Anniversary, Jupiter’s Bruise by Roy Mark July 1: Broadband Connections Head to Space TerreStar Networks launched a satellite to provide first-of-its-kind broadband and wireless voice service from space. The world’s largest commercial satellite, TerraStar is banking on the Loral-built bird to deliver 3G mobile voice, data and video […]

Lawmakers proposed federal legislation July 29 that would mandate that states ban the sending of text messages or e-mail while operating a car or truck. States would have two years to pass the ban or risk losing 25 percent of their annual federal highway finding per year that they fail to comply with the law.The […]

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched a new Website July 29 providing a centralized information resource on the asteroids and comets that, relatively speaking, whiz by Earth on a daily basis. There are a lot of them.According to NASA, Earth is pummeled by more than 100 tons of material daily that spews off asteroids and comets, […]

The Senate Homeland Security Committee took the first step July 29 to dismantle the controversial REAL ID Act of 2005, approving legislation to effectively replace the law that has prompted criticism from privacy advocates, who contend it creates a de facto national ID card, and cash-strapped states, which claim they can’t afford the law.Supporters of […]

Nearly one out of every 63 smartphones running the Symbian operating system is infected with some form of spyware, virus, worm or Trojan, as well as hundreds of unlicensed software programs installed on the handsets, according to a study conducted by SMobile Systems. A comparison of the statistics with the worldwide smartphone population places the […]

The Obama administration is considering reversing a nine-year ban on the use of tracking cookies on federal Websites. In a July 27 Federal Register notice, the White House Office of Management and Budget said the administration is considering a three-tiered approach to the use of tracking cookies.“The goal of this review is for the federal […]

The consolidation pace in the prepaid wireless market stepped up July 28 with Sprint Nextel announcing a $483 million deal to acquire Virgin Mobile USA. Under the terms of the agreement, Virgin Mobile USA stockholders will receive shares of Sprint common stock based on a 10-day average closing price equivalent to $5.50 per Virgin Mobile […]

Sending text messages should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers to avoid an epidemic of traffic crashes, according to a study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. VTTI’s large-scale, naturalistic driving study (PDF) purports to be one of the clearest studies yet of driver distraction and cell phone use under real-world driving […]

The Space Shuttle Endeavour successfully undocked from the International Space Station July 28 and began the trek back to Earth. During the 11-day stay at the ISS, the seven-person Endeavour crew combined with the six-person permanent ISS crew to complete a major build-out at the station over five spacewalks. Endeavour undocked from the ISS at […]

Spacewalkers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn completed their final mission tasks July 27 as the Space Shuttle Endeavour prepares to leave the International Space Station July 28 for a return trip to Earth. Cassidy and Marshburn’s spacewalk was the fifth and final spacewalk of the 16-day mission to work on the build-out of the ISS.“Most […]