In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today. The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it’s not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites.

“They collided at an altitude of 790 kilometers (491 miles) over northern Siberia Tuesday about noon Washington time,” said Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects.”

More details on CBS site

Tags: collision, iridium, russia, satellite, space, telecom, Telecommunications, USA

One of my first shot using the Telephoto Sigma 50-500 f/4.5 – 6.3

• Distance : ~376’351 km away
• Speed :1/250
• Aperture : f/8
• ISO100
• Post treatment : Crop + S curve in Lightroom 1.4

Tags: 500mm, Bangkok, full moon, moon, photo, planet, sigma, space, telephoto

Hilarious, "you have to trust me on this"!

Try to imagine CTU's agent, Jack Bauer (24H) saving the world, using hi-tech solutions of the moment…in 1994.

http://5.content.collegehumor.com/d1/ch6/9/4/collegehumor.728e46a9be4b8772dafbec9427e36dad.flv

A Collegehumor production. Great job! 

Tags: 1994, 2007, 24, 24H, air, blog, collegehumor, CTU, humor, ia, im, jack bauer, lan, nomadcom.net, space, unaired pilot, video, world, wp, www

76% of 1200 American consumers who participated to Digital Life America – Holiday 2007 Edition survey have included at least one digital lifestyle product on their wish list.

1. flat screen high definition TV set – 35% (men 37% – women 33%)
2. laptop (windows) – 20% (21% – 19%)
3. digital camera – 17% (16% – 18%)
4. desktop PC – 14% (13% – 15%)
5. GPS navigation unit for the car – 10% (11% – 10%)
6. cell phone – 10% (9% – 12%)
7. digital video camera – 9% (8% – 11%)
8. Nintendo Wii – 9% (8% – 9%)
9. Sony PS3 – 7%
10. Blu-ray or HD-DVD player – 6%

First Apple product (laptop) is on rank 11 (9 among women) buzz maker iPhone is 15. Survey participants clearly prefers laptop to desktop computers.

Unfortunately the survey doesn't reveal details about the type of cell phone ("simple" ones or smartphone) and I'm surprised to not ear anything about MP3 players nor PDA. Not trendy anymore or everybody already has one ?

What your wish list would be made of ?

source: Solutions Research Group. 

Tags: 2007, apple, arc, art, blog, camera, christmas, computer, computers, digital, digital life, im, iphone, lan, laptop, list, nomadcom.net, nyt, pda, phone, screen, search, simple, smartphone, sony, space, survey, trend, video, windows, wishlist, wp, www

According latest news for OLPC (One Laptop per Child) the 100 USD (actually 188 $) laptop will go into mass production in a week time as the final release of the software image will be given to Quanta by the end of this week.

On November 12, OLPC will launched a campaign "Get 1 Give 1" where you can for 400 USD buy 2 XO laptops, one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, the other one sent to your place. Unfortunately this campaign will only be available in North America.

Until we get an opportunity to have the hands-on this already famous greenish computer,  check New-York Time's David Pogues review and the video below.

   

Tags: 100 usd, 2007, blog, computer, CTU, green, ia, im, IT World, lan, laptop, launch, login, negroponte, nomadcom.net, nyt, olpc, one laptop per child, power, release, review, space, technology, video, wp, www, xo laptop, youtube

Fifty years ago, the soviet union launched into space a 58.5 centimeters and 83 kilos shiny aluminum sphere equipped with 4 long antennas and 2 radio transceivers.

Sputnik-1 (Спутник-1 / Satellite-1), the first artificial satellite, had triggered what would be called later, "the US vs. USSR Space Race". It orbited 1440 times at 250 kms above Earth surface during 3 months transmitting radio signals on 20 & 40 MHz.

This single event launched new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The Space Era was born.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sources: Wikipedia, Nasa.

Tags: 2007, 50 years, antenna, art, artificial, blog, ces, development, event, History, ia, im, lan, launch, LED, MIT, nasa, nomadcom.net, satellite, soviet, space, spoutnik, sputnik, story, telecom, Telecommunications, ussr, wp

AT&T threaten to disconnect its customers (Def. Customer:someone who pays for goods or services) who may criticized its services on the Internet (blog, others sites, etc..). AT&T customers must accept TOS (Terms of Service) where you can find the following statement on the section "Term & Termination".

5.1 Suspension/Termination. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. In addition, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or© tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service

AT&T also reserves the rights to update or change from time to time the terms of the agreement and apparently without notice. It is the customer's responsibility to regularly check, on their website, to check if terms have changed and if he/she still agrees with them as they become effective immediately after being posted on AT&T website.

This Agreement may be updated or changed from time to time. The current Agreement shall be posted at: www.att.net/legal/tos (“Website”). This site will be updated as changes are made. You agree to visit the Website periodically to be aware of and review any such revisions. All changes shall become effective upon posting of the revised Agreement on the Website. Your continued use of the Service following such notice constitutes your acceptance of those changes. If you do not agree to the revisions, you must terminate your Service immediately.

So, Dear and Cherished AT&T customer, if you really expect to have "The World. Delivered" by AT&T, you rather have to be nice with them. Otherwise…… 

Source: Zataz

Tags: 2007, agreement, AT038T, ATT, blog, cable, ces, copyright, criticism, CTU, customer, disconnection, dress, find, fon, ia, im, internet, IT World, ITU, lan, law, live, MIT, nomadcom.net, pda, post, review, sco, services, space, Telecommunications, term, threat, update, violation, vision, web, website, world, wp, www, XP

It is impressive to see the quantity of bad news that reached Microsoft's headquarters this week.

Motivation may not be at its highest level in Redmond.

• Only 60 millions licenses (sic!) of Windows Vista have been sold. It is rather low considering that includes OEM and Corporate agreements (companies getting Vista licenses as part of their contract, but with no short-term plan to deploy it).

• Yahoo announced the acquisition of Zimbra, an open source server and client software for messaging and collaboration (email, group calendaring, contacts, and web document management and authoring).
• Google welcomed "Presentation", a new addition to the Google Docs & Spreadsheets family which has now all elements to compete with MS Office.
• IBM released the beta version of Symphony, a web-based open source office suite, based on the open document format (ODF).
• International Standard Organization (ISO) rejected Microsoft Office 2007 file format, called Office Open XML (OOXML), to be recognized as an ISO standard. Critics said the format was flawed and laden with MS-specific features.
• SCO group, a Microsoft ally to seize parts of the Linux market, took step of filing for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Last but not least

Microsoft lost its appeal before the European Court of First Instance regarding 2004 European Commission act that found MS abusing of its near-monopoly position. Final  Microsoft's bill in fines (689 millon USD) and penalties could reach about 2.8 billions USD.

Don't worry Bill, on Monday starts another week!  

Tags: 2007, agreement, api, appeal, art, blog, europe, google, ia, ibm, im, International, iso, IT World, lan, language, law, LED, Management, microsoft, nomadcom.net, odf, pet, press, release, sco, space, symphony, term, vista, web, windows, windows vista, wp, www, yahoo

AirTalkr is another multiple IM client application immediately available in its beta version for Windows, Linux , Mac OSX as well as on Web-based version.

IM supported protocols are MSN, ICQ, GTalk, Yahoo and AIM but AirTalkr also connects you to your YouTube and Flickr accounts. In addition, AirTalkr creator Hu Shunjie comes with an interesting concept called "AirCards". AirCards are profiling cards where you can add of your buddies information such their Twitter and blog updates, their photos on Flickr as well as their profiles on MySpace and Friendster.

AirTalkr is a very light application but requires the installation of Abobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) which enables developers to use Flash, Flex, Ajax and HTML to create rich interface applications.

 

The AirTalkr version is still beta and some bugs have been reported but I personaly like this very smooth application and really looking to see what will come next (Skype, more social networking plateforms supported, etc..)

It definitively worth a try. Did I mention that AirTalkr is free and totally Ads-Free (Thanks Hu!). 

Download AirTalkr here and Abobe AIR here.

Tags: 2007, account, adobe, aim, air, airtalkr, Ajax, blog, card, flash, Flex, Flickr, free, GTalk, HP, Hu Shunjie, ia, icq, im, install, instant messenger, King, lan, LED, light, msn, network, nomadcom.net, pda, photo, skype, social, social networking, space, twit, Twitter, update, web, windows, wp, www, XP, yahoo, youtube

At 15h35 local time (08h35 GMT), flight OG/OX269 crashed during landing at Phuket Airport. Apparently landing took place under heavy rain and the Boeing MD-80 went out of the runway, crashing into the jungle near by breaking in tow parts before bursting into flames.

123 passengers (70 foreigners) and 5 aircrew were on board and according last official report, 87 of them have perished. Wounded have been transfered to Bangkok's Phuket Hospital. 

Bangkok Pundit is live blogging information about this crash as they are released from thai and international media.

One Two Go airlines has released additional phone numbers for enquiries regarding this accident 

085-155-4622
085-911-5092
085-918-3422
02-535-7662
02-504-3227
02-504-3641

Tags: 2007, air, airlines, airport, art, Bangkok, blog, Boeing, crash, flight, google, ia, im, International, King, lan, landing, light, live, md 82, nomadcom.net, OG OX269, one two go, OX269, passengers, phone, phuket, post, release, space, Thailand, uk, wp, www