Directions: Siri will censor any word you put an asterisk into. Try it out.

 

Yahoo! is excited to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, Hurley and Chen have firsthand expertise enabling millions of consumers to share their experiences with the world. Delicious will become part of their new Internet company, AVOS.

AVOS is a new Internet company founded by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen who, in 2005, founded YouTube, the world’s largest online video platform. Before YouTube, Hurley and Chen were early employees at PayPal, a leading online payment service that is now part of eBay. Delicious will become a part of AVOS, based in San Mateo, California.

Space Shuttle

Facing the retirement of the NASA’s iconic space shuttle program later this year, questions have risen as to how we are going to get payloads and astronauts into space.  The current answer is to “buy seats” from Russia for $50,000,000 per person.  Yet, there is hope for those who think depending on our old space-race rivals for transportation into to space is not only humiliating but a bad idea.  The commercial space industry is starting to boom, and SpaceX is already working to deliver for NASA.

SpaceX, established in 2002 by Elon Musk; founder of PayPal and the Zip2 Corporation, has already begun working with NASA.  SpaceX sports a fleet consisting of three rockets: Falcon 1 supporting light payloads, Falcon 9 supporting medium payloads, and Falcon Heavy supporting heavy payloads, and a free-flying spacecraft named Dragon supporting passengers and cargo.  Unlike Virgin Galactic, SpaceX aims at delivering satellites, telescopes, and the similar into space as well as astronauts to the International Space Station.  They also use the more conventional method of rocket power instead of the high altitude launch Virgin Galactic does.  And for their purpose, rocket power seems more practical.

SpaceX Falcon 1

According to the SpaceX website, “Flacon 1 is the first orbital rocket developed in the 21^st century.” Serving the small satellite market, it “is the world’s lowest cost per flight to orbit of any production rocket” and “is capable of carrying up to 420 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO); Falcon 1e can arry up to 1,010 kg to LEO.”  It does so using a two stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene propulsion system.

The first stage uses space grade aluminum for its primary structure.  After igniting the Merlin 1C engine, the rocket is held down until all vehicle systems are checked for proper functioning promoting higher reliability.  Once the rocket is released, the first stage separates after being initiated by separation bolts and a pneumatic pusher system.  It returns via parachute to a water landing and is picked up by ship much in the same way of the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters.

The second stage has a tank structure of aluminum-lithium, “an alloy possessing the highest strength to weight ratio of any aluminum and currently used by the Space Shuttle External Tank.”  It is powered by a single SpaceX Kestrel engine.

SpaceX Falcon 9

The next rocket, the Falcon 9, is designed for manned spaceflight and services medium and large satellites.  “Like Falcon 1, Falcon 9 offers the lowest cost per pound/kilogram to orbit in its class. Falcon 9 is capable of carrying up to 10,450 kg to LEO and 4,540 kg to GTO.”  Falcon  9 also uses the two stage system.

The first for the Falcon 9 also uses the Merlin 1C engine, except for, go figure, it uses nine of them.  Falcon 9 uses the same launch procedures as Falcon 1, and even uses much of the same systems but larger.  The second stage uses a smaller version of the first stage with only a single Merlin 1C.

Nine Engines Are Better Than One

The most notable of the Falcon family though is the Falcon Heavy.  SpaceX boasts that “Falcon Heavy will be capable of carrying up to 29,610 kg to LEO and up to 15,010 kg to GTO. Falcon Heavy could have important implications for Mars exploration and even settlement.”   Falcon Heavy can lift nearly double that of the Space Shuttle, the second most capable spacecraft.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy

The first stage of Falcon Heavy consists of three nine engine cores, used for Falcon 9′s first stage.  That’s three of what is pictures above, 27 engines in all.  Falcon Heavy also uses a uses a cross-feeding propellant system which leaves the core stage nearly full after booster rockets fall away.  The upper stage consists of a single Merlin C1 Rocket.

Dragon with Passengers and Cargo

In it’s goals of payload, SpaceX has not forgotten about passenger flight.  Falcon 9 has the ability to carry the Dragon. The Dragon is a reusable spacecraft used to transport cargo and crew.  It is a a free-flying spacecraft that can be used not only to travel between destinations but can also be used to conduct in-space technology demonstrations and scientific instrument testing.  DragonLabs is an avenue that SpaceX is pursuing to allow for full commercial use of the Dragon for such purposes.

Falcon 9 Outfitted with Dragon

While Virgin Galactic and Space X are both two companies running the race to build the commercialized space industry, they seem going after different same part of the pie.  While Virgin Galactic seems to be the public bus of the ground  or 747 of the sky, SpaceX seems to be the tractor trailer or C5.  This does not mean that the future space travelers should ignore SpaceX though.  The Falcon rockets will most likely play a big part in building space hotels or even settlements on the moon or Mars!

Links to articles located below.

Everyone's favorite bus.

Imagine taking a field trip with a red, frizzy haired teacher.  After you all shuffle into the bus she pulls a lever and the bus transforms around you into a space ship.  “BLAST OFF!!!!” she yells.  All of a sudden you find yourself “swingin’ through the stars” and “take your second right past Mars.”

Okay, okay.  You’re right.  There is no way a teacher as amazing as Ms. Frizzle could exist.  Unfortunately that also disproves the existence of the Magic School Bus.  However, that doesn’t mean the average person can’t go out in space to learn science.  Virgin Galactic, LLC, the first commercial spaceline, announced February 28^th that they have just made the first ever commercial contract to fly researchers from Southwest Research Institute into space.  Their purpose is to perform “valuable microgravity, biology, climate and astronomy research.”  This is no fifth grade budget ed experiment either.  Southwest Research is forking out $1.6 million for eight scientists, breaking down to $200,000 per scientist.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic expects science flights to be a major part of their business, but they also already boast over 400 deposits from general consumers who desire space travel.  Although trips are being booked, customers have yet to lift off.  Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is still in the flight test phase, and is the only suborbital vehicle to make it this far in development.  This is due to basing their design off of an already proven private vehicle, SpaceShipOne.

SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo Comparison

Virgin Galactic makes safety a priority, rejecting many designs since the mid 90′s for not being safe enough.  In 2002 they encountered Burt Ruton’s design of SpaceShipOne that they felt was finally focused enough on safety to use.  Making improvements on the design, including doubling the size and adding even more safety features, Virgin Galactic designed SpaceShipTwo.

Launcing from 50,000 ft in the Air

Solid-Liquid Hybrid Rocket

Launching horizontally from a plane 50,000 feet in the air, the craft is powered by a hybrid rocket motor which offers not only safety advantages, but even environmental advantages over more common solid or liquid systems.  Nitrous Oxide is used as the oxidizer and a valve is used to control its flow to the rubber compound fuel; making the fuel components both stable, and containing none of toxins found in solid rocket motors.  Launching above most of the earth’s atmosphere also eliminates fuel required to travel through the lower atmosphere making it lighter and more efficient.  Being able to control the flow of Nitrous Oxide means that the pilots can cut off the rocket at any time, allowing the craft to glide to safety at any time.

Both SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo, Virgin Galactic’s space training vehicle and delivery plane, use carbon fiber composite for their designs.  Carbor fiber is four times stronger than steel and a quarter of its weight.  It also has a virtually unlimited fatigue life despite being easy to manipulate.  This allowed Virgin Galactic to easily make changes to its design during the test flight by bonding new pieces to the ship to make it more aerodynamic.  The craft uses its aerodynamic design, and the laws of physics, to control speed and altitude, enabling a “carefree and heat-free re-entry followed by a glide runway landing.”

SpaceShipOne Feathering Tails

Once out of the atmosphere the entire tail can be rotated upwards to 65 degrees, creating high drag upon re-entering the atmosphere, both stabilizing and slowing down the draft.  This, in combination with its light weight, reduce speeds to amounts that do not require protection from heat. Once the craft is at about a 70,000 foot altitude the tail returns to its lowered position, effectively turning the craft into a glider.

If you can afford the price tag, individuals can already make a deposit on Virgin Galactic’s website.  With commercial travel to space becoming a reality, thoughts are already turning towards staying in space.  Hilton Hotels has shown interest in building or co-funding a space hotel, though the realization of this isn’t foreseen for another 15-20 years.  Other companies, like Space Adventures, are looking towards a future of flying customers in both orbital and suborbital flights, between private space stations, and even around the moon.

The vision of a network of space hotels, stations, and even cities is drawing ever closer.  The question truly becomes, will space tourism forever be for the rich and elite, or will booking a room in a space hotel eventually be as easy as booking a hotel room in Hawaii or the Bahamas?  Unfortunately, that is something that we just have to just wait and see.

Old Skype

The first update came from Skype. Previously running version 2.8, when I was informed by the app that version 5 was available for download, I was incredibly surprised. How had I been so behind on updates? Why hadn’t it informed me of version 3 or 4? Well, I learned that it was not I that had been missing updates. Skype for Mac literally went from version 2.8 to version 5. I don’t know if they had been updating the other platform’s versions and they just wanted to unify the numbers, or perhaps the company just forgot how to count, but it’s true.

Either way, to continue my common practice, I immediately hit download. Unfortunately, the night the app informed me was actually a Tuesday night right before we went live with 20min in TheBasement (check your local listings) and thus had to postpone it until later. Interestingly, later on I had discovered that Skype hadn’t even told me about the update until two months after it was released, but that is a topic better left for a different article.

Once the update was downloaded and installed, I was horrified. Now… the Mac version of Skype had never been “elegant” or “pretty” in comparison to other Mac apps, but at the very least it was functional. Mimicking what looks like a normal chat application, there was one window designated towards your contacts, one window for text chatting, and once a call is started, one window for the call itself. This was wonderful. It allows one to text chat with one person, whilst video/audio chatting with another. This could all be done with only using as much screen space as you would like. Due to the separate nature of the windows, you could freely minimize what you were not using at the time.

New Skype

Version 5, on the other hand, decided that it would be best to put everything in one singular window, much larger than all of v.2.8′s windows combined, and give you no easy way to use all of Skype’s benefits at the same time. You technically can now slide open both the contacts and chat boxes within the singular box… but this takes up more room and is less organized than when they were their own separate windows.

Levels make me happy.

Moving forward, I have also found several personal peeves about the new version that do not necessarily affect the general population. We at toTheBasement use Skype every week to produce our live tech shows with hosts across the nation. It is an essential tool, and had several features that I once took for granted as being no-brainers that would always be there. Firstly, when trying to broadcast the audio of several people with different mics, in different rooms, on different speeds of Internet, it is often true that one person may be much louder than another. Because of this, it was fantastic that v. 2.8 actually provided me with audio levels of each individual so we could balance our voices with ease. The new version destroys this feature, and instead gives you a glow around the icon of anyone that is currently talking. I understand that not everyone needs to see levels, but why remove a feature when it could have easily been included, even if it isn’t activated by default?

Glowing boxes do not.

A second peeve of mine with the new Skype stems, once again, from their apparent need to combine everything into one box. I, like many technically inclined individuals, have more than one monitor. I like to utilize the fact that I have more than one monitor. As such, I will often have my iChat buddy list on one screen, while the chat window is on another. In the past, I enjoyed having the current call window of Skype on one screen, while the other two windows resided in a second display. This especially worked well for me when going live on this site, due to the huge amount of apps required to do so.

Luckily this update isn’t required, and after reverting back to v. 2.8 I have not had any issues so far. However, it really makes me wonder, is this really a terrible update to a wonderful application, or am I just starting to get grumpy? Are my apparent issues with change presenting themselves in the tech sector now? Or am I rightfully disgruntled? I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide that.

Like this article? Leave a comment below, and we’ll continue with the Bad Updates series!

Hate this article? Leave a comment below, and we’ll still probably continue with the Bad Updates series!

The Old

Ladies and gents, if you are on the beta version of Google Chrome, today you have been updated to version 11. With it brings a happy new logo, but wait there’s more! You now can search with your voice!

The New

For the web designers out there just add “x-webkit-speech” to your input html. For the non-web designers out there, you can try it RIGHT NOW (if you are running Chrome 11) by clicking on the little microphone in the search bar to the right of this article! Try it out! How does it work? Do you think this is a great new feature, or just a gimmick? What are the odds of the other browsers bringing this feature in the near future?

I want to know what you think!!

Immediately a live stream of an anchor interviewing reporters and people in the square began playing.  Stunned I watched this professional news feed unfold in front of me.  After a moment of fascination, I began wondering if news broadcasting was possibly a new direction for YouTube.  I decided to investigate and started out by going to Al Jazeera English’s website.  It turns out they are trying to find a platform within the United States and are using YouTube to gain an audience, hoping this following will open a door for them.

Turning towards YouTube I discovered that several traditional news sources also have YouTube channels.  Fox News, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and even ESPN are among media giants sporting channels on YouTube.  Their pages are stocked full of videos from protests in the Middle East and Africa to Lindsey Lohan’s most recent appearances in court.

Not only has YouTube provided new outlets to traditional news sources, but it has begun forging a new culture of “web-to-TV integrations.”  In 2008, CNN partnered with YouTube to bring citizens’ questions to presidential candidates via YouTube.  The event had such success others fell in line.  YouTube has partnered with PBS to collect ideas to fixing the oil spill in the gulf and document voting experiences in the US and Iraq; CNN and Reuters to bring citizen voices to political debates and debates on climate change as well as global forums on the economy; and even Fox News to bring questions while interviewing President Obama.  YouTube itself has its own channel, Broadcasting Ourselves ;), which uses Google Moderator to bring questions to exclusive interviews.

Also in my research I discovered CitizenTube, YouTube’s News and Politics Blog. The blog contains “breaking news videos from citizens; developing trends in the use of YouTube by news organizations, activists, politicians, and governments; and lots of other YouTube goodness.”  In the spirit of interaction with the public, they encourage you to tweet them at @citizentube if you have something interesting and worth posting.

It’s safe to say that I’m excited to see where YouTube and the media are going to take us in the future with further web-to-TV integration.  Imagining the possibilities is exhilarating.  Maybe the future’s problems will be solved by experts listening to the public’s ideas or governments and corporations reforming laws and policies by being shown how they affect the public.  I for one will definitely be following the place that YouTube makes for itself in the future.

Title of tonight’s chapter: “Of Holograms and Hamburgers”

  Tonight the Doctor learns about live motion holograms, lunar liquids, space travel, and has a chat with his dear friend Hobo Hogan.

Welcome to our new show! Join the Doctor, Dan Bush and John Amos every (x) (units of time) to inform and discuss with Dr. Walrus about splendid things that can be found through this wonderful Internet. In this Pilot episode, we teach him about the end of the Universe, the innovations of helicopters, the Halloween costume you wish you had thought of, and a Chunk of GameChunk.