Developages - Development and Technology Blog

“An archiving error by NASA has meant 173 data tapes have sat in Perth for almost 40 years, holding information about lunar dust that could be vital in expanding science’s understanding of the moon. But after almost four decades, a donation from a Sydney computer society looks set to breathe fresh life into a long-neglected field of lunar science. … These were the only active measurements of moon dust made during the Apollo missions, and no-one thought it was important. … Mr Holmes has kept the tapes in a climate-controlled room since then, and it was only when he stumbled upon a 1960s IBM729 Mark 5 tape drive at the Australian Computer Museum that his company had the ability to unlock the information.”

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Original post by tqft (posted by timothy)

Well, NASA is definitely not destitute (operating spacecraft usually carries a large recurring bill), but are they a bit desperate?

Last week, the space agency auctioned off some 10 patents under its name. Looks like agency PR also work overtime to prep the talking heads. As manager of NASA’s innovative partnerships programs, Darryl Mitchell said: “It’s nice to get funds back that we can pump back into the program, but our primary task is to get these technologies out and create jobs and help the economy”.

Ah well, I may be wrong. In any case, here’s to hoping that the new patent owners will come up with useful things. At the very least, we may see some developments in the area of noise management, and at least one NASA researcher will enjoy the share of any royalties generated by a technology he came up with working for NASA. Full details available at discovery.com.

Tags: NASA, Norden Huang, patent auctions

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Original post by Rico

alphadogg writes “Clinical tests on a four-year, $1.74 million project for NASA, called the Virtual Space Station, are expected to begin in the Boston area by next month. The effort is designed to address the onset of depression in astronauts while they are in outer space. In the project, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a recorded video therapist guides astronauts through a widely used depression therapy called ‘problem-solving treatment.’” Here’s a related story from a few weeks ago. Those astronauts got it rough.

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Original post by CmdrTaco

Filed under: Transportation

We’ve all seen black and white footage of astronauts on the moon hot doggin’ it over craters and dunes in a trick electric buggy, but that was over thirty years ago. In 2020, when a new generation of astronauts head there, they′ll need a new generation of whip too, and that’s just what NASA recently demonstrated to the public. Called the Small Pressurized Rover Concept, it looks to be an evolution of the 12-wheeled Chariot prototype we saw earlier this year, pimped out with an air-tight cabin that sleeps two and some bitchin′ gold dubs. Inside a pair of explorers can go lunar RVing for up to two weeks at a time, covering 625 miles on one charge at a leisurely 6 mph, hopping out through rear-mounted (non-next-gen) spacesuits when something interesting catches their eye. You know, like aliens or something. Could happen.

[Thanks, Peter D.]

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Original post by Tim Stevens

MarkWhittington writes “NASA has unveiled a new prototype lunar rover, called the Chariot, a production version of which is hoped to be operational on the lunar surface by 2019. NASA is now testing the Chariot lunar rover in Arizona, on terrain that resembles the lunar surface.” Perhaps Arizona’s an even closer match to the moon’s surface than is Texas, or Moses Lake, WA where NASA was testing the last time we mentioned Chariot. (Here’s a bit of video from the Texas round.)

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Original post by timothy

Thanks a lot CBS! Now I’m torn between finishing this post and loading up Star Trek: The Original Series via YouTube. Ah well, there’s not that much more to say, so check these out:

• Playlist of 5 Star Trek: The Original Series episodes
• Playlist of 5 McGyver episodes
• Playlist of 5 Beverly Hills 90210 episodes

Take note though: friends have told me that videos don’t load outside the US. Thanks for wasting my time GeekSugar! Maybe Zamzar.com can help them out?

Tags: Beverly Hills 90210, McGyver, playlists, Star Trek: The Original Series, YouTube

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Original post by Rico

dw604 writes “The makers of MMOGlider have been found in breach of the World of Warcraft terms of service and are forced to pay Blizzard $6M in damages.” There’s a lot of sticky issues on this one. Mostly I’m amazed that MMOGlider had that kind of cash.

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Original post by CmdrTaco

dw604 writes “The makers of MMOGlider have been found in breach of the World of Warcraft terms of service and are forced to pay Blizzard $6M in damages.” There’s a lot of sticky issues on this one. Mostly I’m amazed that MMOGlider had that kind of cash.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

The ever-growing unrest caused by the DRM involved with EA’s launch of Spore came to a head on Monday. A woman named Melissa Thomas filed a class-action lawsuit against EA for their inclusion of the SecuROM copy-protection software with Spore. This comes after protests of the game’s DRM ranged from a bombardment of poor Amazon reviews to in-game designs decrying EA and its policies. Some of those policies were eased, but EA has also threatened to ban players for even discussing SecuROM on their forums. The court documents (PDF) allege: “What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase, installation, and operation of Spore is a second, undisclosed program. The name of the second program is SecuROM … Consumers are given no control, rights, or options over SecuROM. … Electronic Arts intentionally did not disclose to any such purchasers that the Spore game disk also possessed a second, hidden program which secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer.”

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Original post by Soulskill

Filed under: Desktops

The $12 PC project just got a little more interesting — contrary to what the Boston Herald reported yesterday, the project is actually based around an off-license NES clone from China called the Victor, not the Apple II. The machine is entirely contained within a keyboard and accepts NES cartridges as well as Famicom software, so there’s already a BASIC — which might be what project members were referencing when they said that their generation had grown up programming Apple IIs. The Victor isn’t quite the machine the Apple II was, obviously, but we′re still totally intrigued by entire nations of budding console hackers — you ready for the competition, Ben Heck?

Read - Computerworld clarification
Read - Project wiki

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables

Just as Mr. Adams wrote of the summer of ‘69, some heralded pop star decades from now will pen a smash hit recalling the summer of two-thousand and eight. Oddly enough, the tune will likely focus on the revitalization of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which has somehow wiggled into just about everything imaginable over the past few months. The latest concoction is a bit different, though, as the NES Belt Buckle doesn’t really shove NES capabilities into a buckle; rather, the NES is the buckle, which is sort of weird to be frank. Still, for $300 you can have your very own, but we′d recommend boosting your self-esteem and saving your cash by just making your own with that dusty system that’s still in your attic. Tons of laughs await you in the demonstration vid just past the break.

[Thanks, Harrison]

Continue reading NES Belt Buckle: most inelegant, awesome NES-in-a-whatever mod out there

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

Okay, okay — we get it. So maybe there’s just not enough room in a genuine Zapper to fit all the necessary innards of a Nintendo Entertainment System into, but it’s just a bit weird to see the Big N’s antiquated console crammed into some other light gun. Similar to the NES-in-an-NES-controller mod we peeked earlier this week, this unit includes a plethora of games and all the controls you need; just plug it up to a TV, pop a few batteries in there and you′re golden. Is it any surprise this guy was tracked down on Ben Heck’s own forums?

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/hardware/Atom_based_Eee_PC_901_pops_June_3rd_with_Bluetooth_for_650′; June’s shaping up to be a pretty special month ’round here. In addition to whatever Apple’s got up its sleeve and all the new gear set to announce at Computex, Asus will be launching its Atom-based Eee PC 901 just like we heard. June 3rd is the date for “a price below″ $650. We assume that means $649.99. DigiTimes‘ reliable market channel sources claim the 8.9-inch 901 will also feature Bluetooth for the first time (you know, without a hack) while the rest of the tech specs remain the same. That’s $250 more than the 10-inch, Atom-based, MSI Wind running Linux and launching on the same day. Oh ASUS, what have you done?

Update: To be fair, it could be that the $650 Eee PC 901 model runs XP and the Linux-based Eee PC 901 will sell for (a lot) less — the XP-flavor of the MSI Wind costs between $500 and $549.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

We’ve seen the Splashtop instant-on OS demoed on ASUS gear in the past, and now it looks like the company is making the love official: it’s going to start shipping it on all its motherboards. ASUS is calling the platform “Express Gate,” but it’s the same instant-on, ready-to-browse environment we′ve known about since October: an embedded Linux distro that runs Firefox and Skype off a memory chip linked directly to the BIOS. You might want to hit that link and check out the screenshots, actually — with ASUS set to ship over a million mobos a month with the feature, chances are it’ll be on a machine near you relatively soon.

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Laptops

It was just yesterday that the official announcement of the Atom-based MSI Wind’s pricing prompted us to wonder where ASUS’s promised Atom Eee 900 was, and would you look at that — here’s the Eee 901, looking radiant in white. Of course, the major changes are internal, so the exterior looks pretty much the same — apart from some extra buttons and the relocation of the power jack — but it’s good to know this thing is inching closer to release. Now if we could just get some benchmarks and pricing info, we’d be all set.

[Via jkkmobile]

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Original post by Nilay Patel