Roy Mark

After a first wave off, NASA officials brought the space shuttle Discovery home March 28. High winds and heavy cloud cover forced NASA to pass on the first of two possible landing opportunities for the day, but one orbit later mission control cleared Discovery for touch down at the Kennedy Space Station. The landing completes […]

By most accounts, President Obama’s March 27 online town hall meeting went well: More than 100,000 questions were submitted, with almost 3.5 million votes deciding which queries were the best. But for at least one group-pot advocates-the meeting was, well, a downer, dude.As they did in January when the Obama transition team hosted a site […]

10 Cell Phones Cameras That Will Keep You Clicking by Roy Mark Sony Ericsson C905 The C905 Cybershot comes with 8.1 megapixels, pushing the quality of the cell phone camera close to a compact digital camera. The C905 offers a 16x digital zoom, built-in Xenon flash and autofocus. The Cyber-shot action mode takes seven rapid-fire […]

When the space shuttle Discovery begins its fiery, hypersonic re-entry for landing at Cape Canaveral March 28, NASA engineers will be keeping a close eye on a deliberately flawed thermal tile. Tucked under Discovery’s left wing, the single tile’s design will increase the temperature of the 3-inch tiles around it as a test for future […]

Online educational company Blackboard extended its academic platform for students and teachers March 27 with the release of a free application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. The mobile app allows students and teachers on-the-go to access course information, updates and alerts on grades, assignments, tests and other academic information. The application follows Blackboard’s integration […]

Claiming he is standing up for democracy in orbit, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah is backing comedian Stephen Colbert’s successful write-in campaign to have NASA name a new room on the International Space Station after him.NASA offered four possibilities in its online contest to name the ISS Node 3, but also allowed write-in votes. Colbert generated […]

Sprint Nextel — the first national carrier to test, launch and market 4G technology — said March 25 it plans to extend its 2009 WiMax reach with deployments in nine cities. Sprint launched the nation’s first WiMax deployment in Baltimore in September 2008 before spinning off its WiMax Xohn division into Clearwire’s 4G operations.Cities scheduled […]

Having suffered through multiple launch delays and dodging space debris once finally underway, the Discovery space shuttle March 25 undocked from the International Space Station and began its journey home. The shuttle is expected to land at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida March 28.After the final transfers of equipment and supplies between Discovery and […]

Microsoft and NASA are teaming to make planetary images and data available over the Internet. Through a Space Act agreement, Microsoft and NASA will jointly develop the technology and infrastructure necessary to make NASA content available-including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon-for viewing through WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft’s online virtual telescope.Under the […]

New money, old debate: Should carriers that take the $7.2 billion allotted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for building broadband networks in underserved and rural areas be required to adhere to network neutrality principles?The stimulus package approved by Congress already requires recipients of the grants bonanza to follow the Federal Communications […]

The ISS (International Space Station) and the Space Shuttle Discovery currently attached to it were forced March 22 to change orbit to avoid being smacked by 10-year-old debris from a Chinese satellite launch. The maneuver was successful but marked the third time in three weeks the ISS has been threatened by orbiting space junk. Last […]

Two days after announcing a worse-than-expected first-quarter loss, Najmi Jarwala, president of Sony Ericsson USA and head of the North America region, said March 23 he was leaving the company at the end of March. Anders Runevad, executive vice president of Sony Ericsson and Global Sales & Marketing chief, will assume Jarwala’s responsibilities until his […]