By MARCIA DUNN,

AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—With space shuttle retirement just months away, a senior NASA manager said Tuesday it wouldn’t be hard to add more flights, provided the nation is willing to keep paying $200 million a month.

NASA’s three shuttles are scheduled to retire in September, after four more trips to the International Space Station. Some in Congress, however, are pushing for additional missions to fill the gap between the end of the shuttle program and the nation’s next manned spaceship, whatever and whenever that might be.

Last month, President Barack Obama killed NASA’s Constellation program, which would have created a shuttle successor to ferry astronauts to the space station, and ultimately to the moon. Instead, Obama has directed NASA to turn to commercial companies for getting astronauts to orbit and, instead, focus on deep-space exploration.

Money is the key to keeping the shuttles flying, said program manager John Shannon.

“The shuttle program is fairly expensive. We burn at about a $200 million-a-month rate. So that gives you a base of about $2.4 billion per year … almost irregardless of how many flights,” Shannon told reporters.

He added: “Where that money comes from is the big question.”

Shannon said NASA already has an extra fuel tank and pair of boosters, which are set aside for a potential rescue mission for the last shuttle crew. Assuming no rescue is needed, that set could be used for one additional flight to haul up supplies and spare parts to the space station, already 11 years old with another 10 years ahead.

The shuttle is the biggest space station supplier by far. In fact, some of the big-ticket pieces of equipment can only fit into a shuttle’s payload bay. As for NASA’s astronauts, they already are hitching rides on Soyuz capsules.

To create even more flights, tank production would have to be restarted, with a lead time of about two years. The only way to avoid such a lengthy gap would be to space out the remaining missions, Shannon said.

As for other shuttle parts, the suppliers are still in business and could start up production again for NASA, he said.

Regarding safety, Shannon said NASA has been recertifying the most critical shuttle parts since 2005, when flights resumed

Cisco have announced a new router called the Cisco CRS-3 that can transfer a huge amount of data in the region of 322 terabits per second. Now, I personally don’t have the hardware or software at home that could potentially stress test a router of this capacity, so we’ll just have to trust at the moment that Cisco are indeed telling the truth.

If this is the case and the Cisco CRS-3 can transfer 322 terabits per second then we are potentially looking at a system that can transfer data at over a million times faster than your regular cable modem at home.

Silicon Valley Insider puts it, “fast enough to allow every man, woman, and child in China to make a video call at the same time.”

To help you understand a little more of what that could mean, it would allow you to download 4 Billion MP3 files in about a minute (assuming you have a datacentre on the end of the CRS-3 with enough servers for that information to be landed on. Also BusinessInsider say that every movie that has ever been made could be downloaded with in 4 minutes as well as being able to deal with all the image data Google Earth stores about our planet in just under 2 seconds.

Mightily impressive! 9to5Mac suggest AT&T use one to speed up their network.

Via: Wired

This handsfree kit is called the BT-H12-VP and is designed to work in your car. The unit is attached to the sunvisor and provides a Bluetooth two-way speaker phone for your connected mobile phone. The small headset seen in the picture is also detachable allowing you to take it with you when leaving the car.

It has all the usual bluetooth specs that include a 10 meter range for pairing up to your mobile phone along with 80 hours of standby and a 4 hour talk time.

Other features include echo cancellation and noise depression to silence out the background noise as well as allow two way conversations to happen. The unit can be charged while talking allowing it to always be fully charged when needed to be used away from the car.

The BT-H12-VP Handsfree speaker and ear piece kit are available for $68.82.

Via: RedFerret

Netbooks often use Intel Atom processors inside that traditionally come in a single core layout. Desktop versions of Intel Atom processors also exist but there are generally two options with those processors allowing you to choose from either a single or dual core. We are now hearing that netbooks might be getting dual core options in the near future.

We are hearing that the new dual core Atom CPU’s will be called the Intel Atom N500 and be specifically designed for netbooks in that they are efficient in what power they need to draw.

Before you get all excited though, adding a second core to an Intel Atom processor isn’t going to yield much difference due to the fact that Intel have designed the Atom processors to be efficient, low powered and a step or two down from the more powerful CPU’s we see in desktop computers.

The good news is that although the difference wont be huge, it will still be a difference that might allow switching between windows and loading up images to be that little bit quicker.

As of yet we do not know if this will actually happen or if it will be called the Intel Atom N500, but from what we think, we could be seeing them by the end of the year showing up in netbooks.

More Info: pcinpact

Addictaball is the UK version of what the US call Superplexus. It’s a handheld puzzle game that requires you carefully manoeuvre a ball bearing around a 360 degree puzzle along a pre determined track.

Addictaball comes in two different sizes with the larger one measuring 19cm in diameter and the smaller, 13cm that’s aimed to be an on the road type game (obviously not while travelling as it’s hard enough sitting still to navigate the ball around the maze).

it takes serious hand-eye co-ordination to steer your ball through Addictaball’s handily numbered sections (138 sections for the large, 100 for the small). We guarantee you’ll be cursing this unputdownable sphere’s devious nature and pulling faces worthy of a champion gurner in under a minute

Addictaball Specs

* Suitable for ages 8 years +
* An infuriating but addictive maze game
* Rotate the spherical puzzle to guide your ball through the 3D maze
* Numbered sections (138 for the large, 100 for the small) guide you around the tracks
* Made from plastic, featuring a steel ball-bearing
Dimensions:
o Large – 19 cm diameter ball with 0.5 cm plastic rim across circumference
o Small –13 cm diameter ball with 0.5 cm plastic rim across circumference

A video has been uploaded to Youtube that gives a visual representation of how Samsungs Super AMOLED screen works and why it gets clear and more vibrant image quality.

The reason why Samsung can call their AMOLED screen Super is that they have done away with the touch layer and embedded it in the screen. The touch sensors are integrated in to the display rather than being over the top of the screen which normally acts as a filter.

It’s an impressive screen with rumours already saying that Apple are going to be using this same screen technology in their Apple iPhone 4G which is believed to be announced later this month.

Check out the video below to see a (soundtrack-less) explanation of how it all works compared to AMOLED screens and regular LCD screens.

Via: Engadget

Tags: laptops, gadgets, gadget

Tags: notebook, iphone, laptops