NASA strikes deal with Virgin Galactic

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic has announced it has a deal with NASA worth approximately $4.5 million. Virgin Galactic officials announced today that they will provide their new private spaceliner SpaceShipTwo, in order to aid in research. Based on this deal, NASA will have to charter three flights on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo which is an air-launched spacecraft that may carry up to eight people on trips towards suborbital space. Two days ago officials from Virgin Galactic announced that Mike Moses, NASA's former deputy space shuttle program chief became the company’s vice president of operations.

"We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space,” said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, in a statement they sent to the press.

"An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive," Whitesides added. "At Virgin Galactic, we are fully dedicated to revolutionizing access to space, both for tourist astronauts and, through programs like this, for researchers."

Each of the ships that will be used by NASA may carry 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of scientific experiments. A flight test engineer will join every mission in order to monitor and conduct experiments.

"Bringing Mike in to lead the team represents a significant investment in our commitment to operational safety and success as we prepare to launch commercial operations," Whitesides said.

Until he was chosen as a director in 2005, Moses acted as a space shuttle flight controller for 10 years.

"I am extremely excited to be joining Virgin Galactic at this time, helping to forge the foundations that will enable routine commercial suborbital spaceflights," Moses added in a statement. "Virgin Galactic will expand the legacy of human spaceflight beyond traditional government programs into the world’s first privately funded commercial spaceline."

Apple server suffers hack attack

It appears that a group of hackers who call themselves AntiSec managed to get a list of 27 usernames and passwords that they found in an SQL database on Sunday. The database was linked to several online surveys posted on the Apple Inc. Business Intelligence site. The group stated on Twitter that they were able to attack the server of the company as they had found a security flaw in the software used by Apple. The Wall Street Journal claimed AntiSec was behind several branches and also postings of numerous alleged usernames and passwords. On the bright side none of these security branches involved iTunes whose database holds 225 million accounts and the credit cards associated to them.

"#Apple could be target, too," AntiSec posted on Twitter on Sunday giving a link to their list of usernames and passwords. "But don't worry, we are busy elsewhere."

The “busy elsewhere” part of the message was most likely referring to the attacks they were directing to the database of the Australian Election, even if it received less attention than the one directed towards Apple. As a result of the attack, important data was posted on the PirateBay website.

This is only another in a list of many hack attacks that took place in the recent months, attacks that were made by groups like AntiSec and the already disbanded LutzSec. Some of the most important victims of these groups include: Sony, Nintendo, Epic, Sega and Codemasters. Moreover LutzSec also attacked the FBI, the CIA and AT&T.

4 new smartphones arrive at Verizon

f you are tired of your old smartphone and want something special then make sure to check the new packages landing at Verizon. The company is bringing forth, four new devices: LG Revolution, Xperia Play, HTC Trophy and Motorola Droid X2.

Although the LG Revolution is not what you would call a top level handset, featuring only a single-core 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 5-megapixel back camera and a 1.3-megapixel front camera, with a 4.3-inch, 800×480 pixel screen, the feature that definitely attracts is the LTE capability which gives top notch speeds for those who need fast data transfers.

The Droid X2 is more powerful as far as performance goes with a dual-core 1 GHz CPU, 8-megapixel back camera, featuring a 4.3 inch with 960 x 540 display. However this smartphone lacks LTE capability making it $50 cheaper, being sold at a $199 price with a two year contract.

The cheapest of the 4 smartphones is the HTC Trophy. This is a regular Windows 7 Phone which features a 3.8-inch screen with a 480×800 pixel display. It has a 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU, featuring a 5-megapixel back camera and 16 GB of storage memory. It costs only $149.

Last comes the Xperia Play which is a device crafted for gaming. The phone features an Android OS and has a 4-inch screen with 480×854 display. It has a1 GHz CPU and additional Adreno 205 GPU especially for gaming. It also comes with a 8 GB pre-installed memory card to hold all your favorite games on it. The Xperia Play costs $199 with a two year contract.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Here at the start of 2011, Nvidia is showing no sign of slowing down. In late January, the graphics giant continued the expansion of its 500-series card line with the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, a mid-priced card aimed at bringing high-performance DirectX 11 gaming to cost-conscious, yet serious, gamers. With performance approaching last year’s high-end cards, it offers a significant speedup over the earlier GeForce GTX 460, and it also provides some serious competition for AMD’s recent midrange Radeon HD cards.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti doesn’t replace the GTX 460 in Nvidia’s lineup, however. Instead, it occupies the $249 price slot the GTX 460 originally shipped at last year, while the GTX 460 will continue to be sold at its current price point of $160 to $199. (Of course, we wouldn’t be surprised if that price point is eventually occupied by an as-yet-unannounced 550 model.)

The GTX 560 gets its performance boost by upping the number of CUDA processing cores to 384 (from 336 in the GTX 460) and by including eight PolyMorph engines, up from seven in the GTX 460. (The CUDA cores are Nvidia's parallel processing units, essentially the parallel computing engine of the card, while the PolyMorph engines are used in geometry processing, turning polygons into game worlds and characters.) The stock clock speed of the graphics-processing unit (GPU) has been upped from 675MHz to 822MHz, and the 1GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 4,008MHz. Additional speedups come from redesign and optimization of the GPU chip.

Sony Left Stranded Again!, PlayStation 3 Firmware 3.56 Hacked Already Read more: Technology | My Blog

Sony might have thought their move to sue GeoHot would put some sort of brakes toward the jailbreak doom its beloved gaming console is currently facing. Unfortunately designed for Sony, the latest PlayStation 3 firmware v3.56 got hacked in just 24 hours after its release. The custom firmware genius KaKaRoToKS, who was behind one of the initial 3.55 custom firmwares, has previously released the signing keys designed for 3.56 meaning custom firmware is soon to follow

Read more: Sony Left Stranded Again!, PlayStation 3 Firmware 3.56 Hacked Already | My Blog

However, it appears that the custom firmware designed for v3.56 won’t be that easy to build. According toward Engadget:

Panasonic ToughBook S9 Review

The ToughBook S9 has an unremarkable black lid, with ridges on either side of the center, and a simple silver body. Weighing in at 3 pounds even, it is lighter than many other competing business models, and even some netbooks. Part of the reason for this uncommonly light weight is that the body is made with the thinnest magnesium alloy available. While the case can easily be mistaken for plastic, it is more durable than acrylic alternatives and can withstand around 220 pounds of compression before beginning to buckle. Naturally, we tested this by standing on it, and the system held up perfectly

The lid itself flexes noticeably when twisted. Panasonic assures us this is an intentional accommodation for times when some flex is preferable to damage to the laptop, such as when it's stowed in an overhead bin on a plane. Indeed, when we twisted the screen past what would typically be a breaking point for comparable machines, the S9 sprung back without any damage.

With DDR2 Memory Pantech Announced Vega Xpress Handset

Time Pantech introduced a newly Mobile with DDR2 Memory known as “Vega Xpress”.Pantech phones are smaller. Thinner. Lighter-weight. More colorful. Easy to use, with smart design features similar to sleek-sliding complete keyboards and large, easy-toward-use buttons. Loaded with apps and features that help you connect with lightning-fast speed.

This 4-inch Android 2.2 beastie will come equipped with an unspecified amount of DDR2 RAM – yes, the stuff that usually goes into x86 laptop and desktop computers – which Pantech will contain you believe is going toward blow the war out of the proverbial water