Wed Tech News
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on May 11, 2005 at 3:40:36 PM
I fixed some major problems with registration for new members. Now you should be able to register and become a member with no problem. »http://www.aselabs.com/usercp.php?mode=adduser Let me know if it works by joining up 
.
India wants its own open source license.
Senate passed Iraq spending bill 100-0. Attached: National ID cards. How things get attached to bills is disgusting.
t/Space offers low-orbit reusable vehicle.
NASA's solar sail completes first tests.
Micromachine terraforming plants.
HD-DVD gets a storage bump.
.India wants its own open source license.
Quote
"The free software people are afflicted by what I call the J factor, which is the jealousy factor. The proprietary people are afflicted by the G factor, the greed factor. They want to maximally extract money from the world," Phatak said in an interview here. "I am working to tell the world, 'Please permit these groups to coexist peacefully and harmoniously. There is a tremendous advantage to everyone.'"
Senate passed Iraq spending bill 100-0. Attached: National ID cards. How things get attached to bills is disgusting.
Quote
States are threatening to challenge in court and even disobey new orders from Congress to start issuing more uniform driver's licenses and verify the citizenship or legal status of people getting them. There is concern among some states that they'll get stuck with a large tab to pay for implementing the new rules and that getting a driver's license will become a bigger headache for law-abiding residents.
t/Space offers low-orbit reusable vehicle.
Quote
The Reston, Va.-based company already already convinced NASA to give it $6 million in exchange for advice on how the U.S. space agency can reach beyond the traditional aerospace industry to answer a presidential call to return to the Moon by 2020. Now t/Space is hoping to convince NASA to part with $400 million in exchange for an Earth-to-orbit crew transfer vehicle, which company executives say they can have ready in 2008.
NASA's solar sail completes first tests.
Quote
Photons from the Sun would bounce off the reflective sails - which are one-thirtieth of the thickness of a human hair - imparting momentum to the sail, along with the attached spacecraft. As the spacecraft gains speed, it would in theory be able to reach the outskirts of the solar system faster than with conventional chemical fuel. These early tests will lay the groundwork for NASA’s future space probes to study the Sun and explore the rest of the solar system.
Micromachine terraforming plants.
Quote
Brooks hopes the test will lead to a final setup, known as an In-Situ Propellant Production system (ISPP), that could sit outside a spacecraft on the Martian surface, absorbing carbon dioxide, then heating it up and passing it through a series of small reactors to separate the gas into methane and water, which is ultimately broken down into oxygen and hydrogen.
HD-DVD gets a storage bump.
Quote
Toshiba announced on Tuesday the development of a higher-capacity HD DVD disc. HD DVD is the format the electronics maker is promoting as the next-generation DVD disc format. Previous versions of the format allowed for the storage of up to 30GB, but the latest version can read into a third layer on an HD DVD disc so it can hold up to 45GB of data. The 45GB version of the disc is a read-only version. Toshiba also announced a double-sided, dual-layer, hybrid read-only disc storing up to 30GB on the HD DVD side of the disc and 8.5GB on the standard DVD dual-layer side of the disc.