Saturday, June 9, 2007

In the first space flight of 2007, Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off on schedule yesterday, starting on an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis and its seven astronauts lifted off at 7:38 p.m. EDT (2338 GMT) from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The launch pad, newly refurbished by NASA, had not been used since the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia, which ended in disaster on Feb. 1, 2003.Atlantis is scheduled to dock with the space station at around 1930 GMT tomorrow.

The goal for the Atlantis crew is to carry out the two missions that were left incomplete from the previous flight due to broken and jammed equipments. During the flight, the shuttle and its seven astronauts will deliver a new segment and will install energy-producing solar panels to the International Space Station. The payload is the heaviest ever flown to the space station, and includes a 45-foot (14-meter), 35,678-pound (16,183 kilogram) aluminium segment that will become part of the station’s superstructure.

The mission, STS-117 has been dogged by trouble. It was scheduled to launch in March, but a hailstorm in February damaged the orange external fuel tank, so the shuttle had to be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. After repairs, the tank had white specks visible in the orange insulation, and there was some concern over whether the insulation would hold. Falling foam insulation was blamed for the Columbia crash, in which all seven astronauts aboard were killed.

But yesterday’s launch appeared to be flawless. “Give me more speckled tanks,” the shuttle program manager, N. Wayne Hale Jr., was quoted as saying.

The delay in the launch of Atlantis also pushed back other missions.

NASA faced a scandal earlier in the year when one of its astronauts, Lisa Nowak, was fired after being charged in the attempted kidnapping of a fellow astronaut, William Oefelein, with whom she had been having an affair.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Google has launched an online spreadsheet site, in a private beta.

The site will allow spreadsheets to be shared between up to 10 users, which is aimed to be useful to teams and small businesses. “Many people already organise information into spreadsheets. Where they are struggling is to share it” said the product manager, Jonathan Rochelle.

Google recently bought the online word-processor Writely, launched a calendar product, as well as a desktop search tool. Many see this as them straying into Microsoft‘s markets.

Google Spreadsheets uses very advanced AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And Xml) and Client Side Scripting to mimic very effectively it’s desktop counterparts’ functions.

It is surprisingly fast, has very good formatting and advanced formula support, but best of all it has complete support for Microsoft Excel .xls files, and very good collaboration: just enter the e-mail address and you can share easily.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Software giant Microsoft’s chief lawyer Brad Smith claimed in an interview published in the magazine Fortune on Monday that open-source software products violate 235 of Microsoft’s patents. The main transgressors are claimed to be Linux (107 patents) and OpenOffice.org (45), with e-mail programs infringing 15 patents. Microsoft wants royalties to compensate for the patent breaches.

According to Microsoft’s Vice-President of intellectual property and licensing, Horacio Gutierrez, the company wants to negotiate with the open-source companies rather than sue them. “If we wanted to litigate we would have done that a long time ago. Litigation is not an effective way of going about solutions,” Gutierrez said. According to him, Microsoft has over the last years tried to work towards a “constructive” solution to the alleged problem of patent violation.

Microsoft in the past has used the strategy of cross-licensing to get royalties from companies who infringe their patents, for example in their deal with Novell. On a company blog, Novell reiterated that their deal “is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property.”

“We don’t think that customers will want to continue on without a solution to the problem,” Gutierrez said about Microsoft’s approach to guaranteeing companies that they won’t get sued because they use the allegedly patent-infringing Linux operating system.

The upcoming third version of the GPL licence, the licence under which Linux is released, will prohibit Linux distributors to agree to patent royalty deals. Microsoft called these “attempts to tear down the bridge between proprietary and open-source software that Microsoft has worked to build with the industry and customers.”

A related U.S. Supreme Court ruling from April 30th showed how software patents can be subject to court challenges; basically, if the innovations patented are “obvious”, the patent is weakened. Joe Lindsay, information officer for a mortgage company, pointed out that the Unix code that Linux is based upon preceded Microsoft Windows, which might also be a reason for some patents to be invalid.

Red Hat, the biggest Linux distributor, said in a statement on Monday:

Larry Augustin, former CEO of a company called VA Linux (now VA Software), responsible among other things for launching SourceForge.net, an open-source software development community, posted a message on his blog under the title “It’s Time for Microsoft to Put Up or Shut Up”:

According to the Fortune report, more than half of the Fortune 500 companies are estimated to use Linux in their data centers.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Phase two of Nottingham, England’s Express Transit system (NET) received a boost last Thursday, when it was announced that the Government had approved both of the proposed additional lines to extend the network further into the Nottinghamshire area. Construction of the two lines, which will take the system to Chilwell and Clifton, could begin before the end of the year.

The plans were originally turned down on cost grounds, but following successful negotiations between Nottingham City Council and the two companies bidding to construct the line enough savings have been found to allow the scheme to receive the green light. Around 20% is now believed to have been saved from the cost of the project, though no exact figures of either the original cost or savings made have been announced by the council, and according to a transport boss the project has had no changes made to it to accommodate these.

Under the private finance initiative (PFI) deal, which is how the funding for phase 2 will be secured, private firms bid to win the contract to build and run the tram network, before then later leasing it back to the council who pay for its use on an ongoing basis. The two consortia bidding to build and operate the network are Tramlink Nottingham and Arrow Connect, the preferred bidder of which will appointed in the near future.

However, despite the news of the approval for the lines by the Government, the final hurdle has not yet been jumped, and they could still never make it off the drawing board. The announcement only means that Nottingham City Council — who are the sole promoters of the scheme following the withdrawal of the Tory-led County Council — can continue the process and, if the final business case is given full approval, will then be able to award the concessionaire contract to the successful bidder.

The NET system was opened in March 2004, and the original line, Line One, runs for a distance of 14km between Hucknall and Nottingham City Centre, with a short spur also serving Phoenix Park — near to the M1 motorway. Once completed, Lines Two and Three, operating to Clifton via Wilford and Chilwell via the Queen’s Medical Centre and Beeston, will continue on from the current terminus at Station Street, over a new bridge across Nottingham railway station, and diverge to their separate termini shortly afterwards. The lines will add a further 17.4km to the network.

After making the announcement on Thursday, Transport Minister Norman Baker said: “Line One of the Nottingham tram has proved to be a great success in encouraging people on to public transport. These proposed extensions provide the opportunity to continue this success, and give people in the south of Nottingham quicker, more convenient access to the city centre, as well as helping to regenerate sections of the city.

“Following the spending review last year, we challenged Nottingham City Council to look again at the cost of the Nottingham light rail extension, to be funded through the private finance initiative, to ensure we get maximum value for every pound we spend.

“The Department has been working closely with the local authority involved to ensure this project is affordable. I am delighted that the Council has risen to the challenge and has identified savings from its original estimated costs.

“By finding savings, I can confirm that we are today allowing this project to move another step forward within our funding approval process.”

Nottingham City Council’s Chief Executive Jane Todd also commented: “This is a very positive development. We have worked hard with government to ensure that NET phase two is delivered as cost effectively as possible. A preferred bidder will now be appointed in the very near future who will work with the council to finalise contracts which will hopefully be signed later in the summer. NET Phase Two is crucial for the future of Nottingham’s economy and to attract new jobs to the City”.

If final approval is given for the lines, construction work will begin before the end of the year, with a view to the extended system opening in 2014.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Johan Boyden is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Toronto Centre riding. Wikinews interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.