NASA Schedules News Conference about Next Space Shuttle Launch

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NASA managers will hold a news conference on Wednesday, Jan. 27, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to discuss the status of the next space shuttle launch. The briefing will begin after the Flight Readiness Review, a meeting to assess preparations for shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission to the International Space Station.

Live status updates, including the start time for the news conference, will be provided via the NASA News Twitter feed during the meeting. To access the feed, go to the NASA.gov homepage or visit:

http://www.twitter.com/nasa

The review is expected to include the selection of an official launch date. Endeavour is targeted to launch at 4:39 a.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 7.

The briefing participants are:
- Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations
- Mike Suffredini, manager, Space Station Program
- Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager, Space Shuttle Program
- Mike Leinbach, space shuttle launch director

NASA Television and the agency's Web site will carry the live briefing. Reporters may ask questions from participating NASA locations and should contact their preferred NASA center to confirm participation.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For STS-130 crew and mission information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

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FMEA Analysis

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Dear All,

Our company started the FMEA process for our product (cooling system for refrigerator vehicles). We've never done it before and nobody has any experience in this analysis. My boss doesn't want to send somebody for special FMEA trainings. I am a responsible person, have studied a p

Maximum Air Thurst From a Simple Turbine/Blower

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What could be the approximate maximum air thrust in lbs one could expect from a simple turbine/blower powered by a 1hp petrol engine with a max speed of 7000 rpm.

The blower /turbine would be have to be fairly simple from plastic similar to the common garden leaf blower that is available.

Google’s HTML5 YouTube Videos Don’t Need Flash [YouTube]

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HTML5 is a major part of Google's plans for the future, including Chrome OS—check out this interview for more on that—and one step towards that is getting YouTube to work without a Flash plugin, which they've now achieved. It's not perfect yet (no ads or annotations) and it only works on certain supported browsers (Chrome and Safari, at the moment) but it's still a taste of what's to come. You can hit up TestTube to check it out. [YouTube]


Holy Crap, Final Fantasy Is Coming to iPhone [IPhone Apps]

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There's been some great classic gaming on the iPhone already—Monkey Island comes to mind—but now the platform is getting a huge injection of gaming cred with Final Fantasy 1 and 2. Try to control your squealing.

We don't know the big details of the release, namely date and price, but it has been officially confirmed by Square Enix on their Twitter and Facebook. The iPhone just got a whole lot more respectable on the gaming front. [RedmondPie via Kotaku]


Fuel Tank Test Rig

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Can anybody help me out in defining the input cycles or the way to prepare the drive files for a Fuel tank test rig? what all parameters are supposed to be provided (time series/frequency) to the component test engineer.

Maude Island: Alaska

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maude-island-alaska-1There is nothing better than when a beautiful turn key island comes on the market. One of my current favorites is Maude island. Situated in Sitka Alaska  the island offers incredible ocean and moutnain views. The beautiful island home is the ideal retreat for friends and family. Enjoy the fantastic views from the large decks or swap fish tales around the rock fireplace. This exclusive island home sits on nearly an acre of land and has plenty of room for expansion. Enjoy boating, fishing, and kayaking and launch from your own private dock!

For more information on this island visit Private Islands Online.

Amazon Opens Kindle Up for Development: App Store Ahoy [Kindle]

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Amazon just announced that the Kindle will have its own app store, with partners ranging from publishers like Zagat to, believe it or not, game makers like EA. E-ink gaming? What?

Says Amazon's vice president for Kindle:

We knew from the earliest days of the Kindle that invention was not all going to take place within the walls of Amazon. We wanted to open this up to a wide range of creative people, from developers to publishers to authors, to build whatever they like.

In that spirit, they've opened up development to selected partners (not everyone, yet—a wider release will come later this month) to create apps for the Kindle platform. There'll be three kinds of apps: Free, one-time payment, and monthly payment. Interestingly, because the Kindle is sold without a monthly fee for the wireless connection, these developers will have to pay 15 cents per megabyte for content delivery. They'll keep 70% of the revenue after those expenses are recouped by Amazon—more info on that stuff here.

There are also some basic limits on both bandwidth and app size. Free apps must be smaller than 1MB and use less than 100KB of data per user per month. One-time purchase apps and monthly apps both have the same data usage limit as free apps, but have a size limit of 100MB (although any app larger than 10MB can't be downloaded wirelessly—gotta do it via USB).

Amazon expects to start adding apps "sometime later this year," which is a nice vague thing to say in January. They'll also retain control over the types of apps added, restricting offensive apps, VoIP apps, viruses, that kind of thing. Now: What kind of things are we likely to see in a Kindle app store?

The Kindle is extremely limited by its hardware, most importantly its e-ink screen. The kind of glacial refreshes that are acceptable while reading a book make it totally useless for pretty much any game. The only ones that can deal with the limited screen are essentially pen-and-paper games, like Sudoku, word games (crossword puzzles, Scrabble) and, um, hangman. Scrabble is a fair bet to make an early appearance, since it's owned by EA, one of the two partners specifically named in the NYTimes announcement.

Other apps mentioned include searchable travel books, like a Zagat app that could find, say, local restaurants with specific criteria. But apps like that are really better suited for smartphones, which is an argument you could make about the entire idea of a Kindle app store. We'll have to wait until the plan actually launches before we see if it was a good decision—and who knows, by then the Apple Tablet will probably have revolutionized the publishing industry, solved the economic recession and rescued the world's kittens from the world's trees. [Amazon and NYTimes 1 and 2]

Amazon Announces Kindle Development Kit—Software Developers Can Now Build Active Content for Kindle
Travel books that suggest activities based on real-time weather and current events, cookbooks that recommend menus based on size of party and allergies, and word games and puzzles—just some of the possibilities with the new Kindle Development Kit

SEATTLE, Jan 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — (NASDAQ: AMZN)—For the past two years, Amazon has welcomed authors and publishers to directly upload and sell content in the Kindle Store through the self-service Kindle publishing platform. Today, Amazon announced that it is inviting software developers to build and upload active content that will be available in the Kindle Store later this year. The new Kindle Development Kit gives developers access to programming interfaces, tools and documentation to build active content for Kindle—the #1 bestselling, most wished for, and most gifted product across all categories on Amazon. Developers can learn more about the Kindle Development Kit today at http://www.amazon.com/kdk/ and sign up to be notified when the limited beta starts next month.

"We've heard from lots of developers over the past two years who are excited to build on top of Kindle," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "The Kindle Development Kit opens many possibilities—we look forward to being surprised by what developers invent."

The Kindle Development Kit enables developers to build active content that leverages Kindle's unique combination of seamless and invisible 3G wireless delivery over Amazon Whispernet, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, and long battery life of seven days with wireless activated. For example, Handmark is building an active Zagat guide featuring their trusted ratings, reviews and more for restaurants in cities around the world, and Sonic Boom is building word games and puzzles.

"As the leading worldwide publisher of mobile games, EA Mobile has had the privilege of collaborating with many dynamic and innovative companies in bringing exciting gaming experiences to new platforms," says Adam Sussman, Vice President of Worldwide Publishing, EA Mobile. "Working with Amazon, we look forward to bringing some of the world's most popular and fun games to Kindle and their users."

Starting next month, participants in the limited beta will be able to download the Kindle Development Kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle, and submit finished content. Those wait-listed will be invited to participate as space becomes available. The Kindle Development Kit includes sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops.


iPhone Apps Save Man Trapped in Haiti [IPhone]

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An American filmmaker trapped in the Haitian earthquake used his iPhone in some pretty ingenious ways to survive until he could be rescued 65 hours later. It's like a digital multitool!

Dan Woolley was caught under a pile of rubble when the earthquake hit, injuring both his leg and his head. A first-aid app instructed him on the best way to create a tourniquet for his leg and a bandage for his head, and even warned him against falling asleep after head trauma—so he set his iPhone's alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes as a precaution.

Evidently the strategies worked, because he survived long enough to be rescued 65 hours later and reunited with his family. I can't figure out exactly which app he used, which is mildly inconvenient since now I'll have to download every first-aid app I can find. [MSNBC via Wired]


Calibration of a speed meter 4-20mA

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Dear Friends;

For an analogue I/Os, I always worked with 0-10V which is very easy to understand for me, but now I have been working with a speed meter which spec are 4-20mA = 20-120M/Min. I could not understand that how we can calculate its range as with upper limits 120/20 = 6M/min over1mA but

Funeral Webcasting: Horrifying, or Totally Horrifying? [BadIdeas]

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There goes that last frontier of decency. Or did it? I could almost buy into this being at worst an unfortunate necessity, when friends and loved ones are ill or abroad. That is, until I watched the official sales pitch.

That's right, you can use the funeral webcast as a way to actively exclude those you don't like from the ceremony! You can also set a password, which is great for keeping out funereal voyeurs (if those exist?), but also, you know, that cousin with the lazy eye that owes everybody money. It also suggests that you watch the funeral from the library, which is just come on already. If you're trying to sell me on live funeral webcasting, Chris Hill, at least do it with a little dignity and tact. [Funeral Resources via Consumerist]